Why We Don't Co-Sleep

There are a lot of different philosophies on how to put children to sleep. Books are written on the subject, and every parent has their own technique on the best way to put a child to bed. Cribs, bassinets, bouncy chairs, and co-sleeping are among the top ways parents list in how to get a child to sleep.

On collecting advice from parents, especially during the first two weeks when Michael Jr. was having a hard time sleeping, several parents suggested taking a child to bed and having him sleep with the parents. People talk about the great deal of good, comfort, and security that comes from having the child sleep with Mommy and Daddy, not to mention the convenience of being able to breastfeed without having to get up.

However, as the title of the post indicates, we don't co-sleep and I'm almost positive we can say that we never will. The reason? It has nothing to do with a disagreement on the philosophy, insisting on our own space, or anything like that. There is one primary reason why we don't and won't go sleep:

I'm delusional.

Seriously. In the past few weeks (especially since I've been sleeping in my own bed rather than in the hospital or on the couch like the first two weeks) , very few nights have gone by which I haven't woken up in a fit thinking that I have rolled over on the baby, or that the baby isn't breathing or that he has fallen off the bed.

What makes this crazy is that we don't take the baby to bed. Yet I'm still convinced that he is in our bed and has been squished, suffocated or dropped on the ground.

These delusions are not just dreams, but they are accompanied by me thinking various objects in the bed are the baby. It's not like I have a nightmare and then wake up...I'm awake (though barely), and I fixate on some object in the bed and convince my brain that it is Michael Jr. Then I spend several seconds (sometimes minutes!) staring at it, touching it and shaking the object trying to get it wake up and start breathing again.

Here are the various things in bed that I have mistaken for the baby:

One of the first things I thought was the baby was this red pillow. In my state of half-wakefulness, I somehow construed the redness of the pillow for the red face of a baby that was smothered and struggling to breathe. It took several minutes for me to realize that this was a pillow and not a child.

This was one of two instances in which I thought a pillow was a baby. The second time happened just this weekend when I thought the pillow that was about to fall off the edge of the bed was the baby. Yeah, that really freaked me out.

The next thing was my body pillow, "Snoogle" (the company's name for it, not mine). Yes. It is large, white and looks nothing like a baby. But that didn't stop me from totally freaking out one night thinking that it was little Michael, and that I was laying on him.

They have the same name, and apparently, in my mind, the fact that they are 30 years apart in age still isn't enough for me to tell the difference. One night, I felt Michael Sr's arm and thought that it was the baby. I was in a total panic wondering how the baby got into bed...but by now it was too late. He must have been in bed for hours because all I know is that I just woke up...so since he is in our bed, he must have been in there for a long time, and now he's covered with blankets, and no doubt has suffocated. This time, I woke Michael Sr up pawing at him (because I thought he was the baby) and rambling on and on about how the baby is in the bed. Certainly not the sort of thing Michael wants to wake up to, because he doesn't know that I'm delusional yet. For all he knows, with me going on and on about the baby being in the bed, and me convinced the baby is him, he is the one that has to figure out that no, the baby is not in bed, and his wife is just crazy.

And this one was by far the worst instance of this little syndrome that I have. Imagine, it being 3 in the morning...I had just gotten to bed maybe an hour and a half before on a marathon of sleepness nights, so I'm running real thin on sleep and brain capacity. I "wake up" (of course, I'm only half awake) and see a figure in the bed with arms, legs, and roughly the size of a newborn (never mind the floppy ears, oversized nose, feet and dress which should have tipped me off). This figure is in the bed face down near where our pillows are. I grab the "baby" (Minnie Mouse) and realize that it's not breathing. It is lying still, lifeless. I need to resuscitate the baby because I brought it into bed, it suffocated in the pillows and now it isn't breathing.

So, I start poking at it, pressing on it, nudging it, trying to get it to breathe. Finally, at a panic, I can't handle this on my own, I wake up Michael Sr, sleeping peacefully next to me and announce "Michael! The baby isn't breathing!"

Imagine if you are my poor husband...you are asleep, and all of a sudden you hear your wife exclaim that the baby isn't breathing. You wake up to see her prodding something...but it's dark so you can't exactly see what it is. Poor Michael! What a terrible thing to wake up to!

Finally, my husband, ever with his head on straight realized that what I thought was Michael Jr was in fact Minnie Mouse. "Honey, honey, it's not the baby! He's in his crib! It's just a stuffed animal."

So you can see, if this is how I respond even though I have not brought the baby to bed, and therefore should automatically know that whatever I think is the baby couldn't possibly be the baby..Imagine if we did bring him to bed!

Poor Michael. His crazy wife. Who knows what crazy things I will put him through tonight!