As the mother of an eighteen month old child, I know first hand
that there is nothing more impossible than taking a nap with the
child. After half an hour of being crawled on, kicked, head butted
and wrestling the bedroom television remote control away from
a screaming toddler, I cannot for the life of me fathom how people
in tribal cultures managed to sleep communally. Let alone how
those parents intent on adhering to the practice of attachment
parenting stay sane.
There's nothing more nostalgic or as quickly paints the picture of familial bliss than the image of a young child nestled asleep beside the protection of their parent/s who's state of unconsciousness is due to the hours spent chasing and cleaning up after said child. Yet though I am more than ready for a nap at the same time my younger is, I have learned through sometimes painful experience that we are both better off with her in her crib.
This awareness was with me to an extent from the very beginning when it was not the crib, but the bassinet beside my bed that she slept in. Through stories on the news and advice from books I knew that there was a strong possibility of suffocation present when newborns were allowed to sleep in adult beds. First and foremost is the worry that if I might fall asleep while breast feeding (which due to the bassinet being directly next to the bed was done quite conveniently sitting up in bed with pillows propped behind), being the restless sleeper that I am who oft kicks and thrashes in my sleep, I might drop her. That, combined with news horror stories of parents falling asleep and actually rolling over on top of infants and the knowledge that adult beds have pillows, heavy blankets and soft mattresses that can cause 'rebreathing' in infants who can't lift or turn their heads. Rebreathing I've learned is the instants where there is not an area of free air circulation before the child's mouth and nose. Such as if there is a blanket or pillow too near their face, where the carbon dioxide of the exhaled breath builds up 'bad' air that is then re-breathed. Such is the reasons that both my daughters spent their first several months in bassinets set next to the bed.
After our youngest graduated from the bassinet to the crib in the room across the hall she shared with her elder sister, I shortly received the reasoning as to why it was also in my best interest for her to sleep on her own. Every morning my husband would wake early and bring her into our room for a diaper change and a session of 'crawl on mom to wake her up'. She would giggle and squeal as she crawled up across the bed to climb up onto me. Setting her face over mine, a trail of drool landing on my nose, eye or cheek would be my alarm clock. After a resoundingly groggy 'EW!' from me, we would cuddle and play before it was time for me to wake the elder child to get her ready for school.
One particular morning in the midst of this morning ritual of family bonding, she (the infant) who had recently learned the nod and bob the head and clonk mommy's forehead game, clonked my nose. Quite fast and hard she clonked her forehead into my nose which promptly bled and I swore I felt and heard a little crack sound emanate from my wounded nose. It bled a lot. Swiftly I handed her off to my husband who ran for a cloth. From the amount of blood, the sound I was sure I'd heard and the pain, I was convinced my five month old daughter had just broken my nose. Gratefully we noticed that she was completely unaffected, no tears, not even a bump on her forehead. My husband asked if I wanted to go to the emergency room. I opted to the negative. I had no inclination, despite the throbbing pain and the inability to breath through my nose, to spend time at the hospital not only waiting to be x-rayed and treated, but to explain to nurses and a doctor that a five month old infant had broken my nose. Even to myself at that moment of immediate experience in just that situation, it was the most ludicrous scenario I could possibly imagine. Only if bug eyed x-files type aliens had been involved would it have been more unbelievable.
My nose has healed, our children are doing fine in their own bedroom and I have learned that not only are both my daughters as infants squirmy and impossible to nap with, but can be dangerous as well. I don't know whether it was me with the younger having nearly broken my nose or when as an infant the elder insisted on poking daddy in the eyes. Which of us, my husband (who actually started having nightmares of the first baby being 'after' his eyes in some horror movie way.) or I have learned more strongly this lesson.
Either way, we feel at the very least for own safety that our children are fine and quite well adjusted to have their own beds in their own rooms. We feel no pangs of guilt whatsoever when aforementioned attachment parenting adherents claim to do less than they is to be a bad and unloving parent. We know they are either just plain lucky, gluttons for punishment or perhaps actually have lost their sanity some time during the wee hours when the little fingers go poking into eyes or the squirming child clonks heads one time to many.
Now when I snuggle and play with my toddler, I remember the rules of safety that have come to evolve within our house. Never let the baby crawl near the edge of the bed or up near the headboard. Never let her cover her face with the blanket for more than a second or two of peekaboo. Always avoid the fingers that poke while she babbles "eyz.. eyz.." And never, ever, under any circumstances expose your face to the child when they begin nodding their head quickly back and forth with a seeming aim toward your nose.