There Is An Etiquette to Co-Sleeping

There Is An Etiquette to Co-Sleeping

Thursday 21 November 2013

By now you all know we have moved to New Zealand. Of course you do, there are approximately 600 people who I'm sure want to reach into Facebook and shout "WE GET IT ALREADY, WITH THE SEA VIEW AND THE SUN AND THE AMAZING COFFEE!" You are of course right, the last thing anyone wants to see when winter is setting in is the sort of posts we regularly make, but my friends, there is a darker side to the emigration tale.

When we moved here, we took a short term let which basically turned out to be a house sit for a lady who goes to see family and friends back on Switzerland every year. Can you imagine the stress? My little darlings in a perfectly kept, fully furnished house? The fact that the only breakage was a single mug now ranks as one of my lifetime achievements.

The other problem with the house was that it only had two double beds. That means that for the last 2 months, I have been sharing a bed with Alfie and Olive and Keith has been sharing with Esme.

All of which is by way of helping you understand the utter joy I now feel at moving into a three bedroom house where everyone is now in their rightful place. Albeit with sleeping bags instead of bedding because our container has been delayed, but hey at least the children have ample room to run about.

Except clearly the last two months have wiped my husband's memory of proper sleeping etiquette.

Last night, for instance, I had headed to bed early to catch up on some sleep and have some Olive snuggles and he had stayed up to look at fishing equipment he's never going to buy. When eventually he came to bed however he did something of such epic stupidity, I am wondering whether he actually stayed up to sniff toilet cleaner.

Keith walked up to where I was lying, asleep, and WOKE ME UP to say "oh, you're sleeping on this side tonight". Yes, you read that right, he woke me up to confirm the location of where until moments previously I was sound asleep. I know where I'm sleeping darling, it's the place where I was JUST SLEEPING.

Still with me? Good, so was the baby. Because after we had established I was in fact sleeping where I was sleeping, Keith walked round to the othe side of the bed and climbed in. Except remember, we are using sleeping bags at the moment and Keith does the human equivalent of when a dog does five laps of his bed before settling down and by the time the rustling had stopped, HELLO BLUE EYES! I could have cried, or screamed, or both.

It took what felt like forever, and a ton more feeding to get Miss Olive back to sleep because as any parent knows when babies wake up hot DAMN it's party time!

Except my husband it seems, his solution to the whole problem was to roll over and fall asleep.

The fact that he made it through to morning without losing a significant body part also ranks as one of my lifetime achievements.