girlfiend

I know I’ve mentioned that for the past several months the Fiendling has been sneaking into bed with us in the middle of the night. He’s always been a shitty sleeper and it’s always been problematic, but up until he started school (I can only assume that was the trigger) he’d been okay once he was asleep. It was the going to sleep part that was the problem. Once school started he’d mostly go to sleep fine, but he’d wake up, climb in and there he’d be in the morning.

It got progressively worse. He went from going to sleep in his room, to not wanting to sleep in there at all. We tried a sleeping bag on the floor of our room and hyped it up as a fun thing to do, but the novelty wore off after a few hours and he’d still end up in our bed.  For a while we’d try to get him back in the sleeping bag, but his whole body would go stiff, and like a zombie he’d just climb back into our bed repeatedly, asleep the whole time.

We’d have conversations about how to get rid of him and the various approaches to getting him back into his room. But F has always had a mind of his own. That Supernanny shit doesn’t work on him. He’s too stubborn, too strong. Neither of us has the energy to fight with him for hours every night. And it would take hours.  Every night. For God knows how long. I figure it’s just easier to wait for this stage to pass. The stages always pass. And when he’s ready to make a change it actually sticks for a while, as opposed to when we inflict the change upon him and it lasts for a night.

The waking up and sneaking into bed I decided to be okay with. But then came the refusing to go to sleep anywhere but our bed. “I just want to sleep in your big bed. I don’t like my small bed.” Or, “I don’t like being all alone in my room I need to sleep in your big bed with you.”  We tried to let him sleep in his brother’s room to see if that would help, but he just woke his brother up, so that was out of the question. For days we’d argue with him and think we’d won and that he was going to sleep either in his room or in the sleeping bag, but each night when we’d go in our room, there he’d be. Right smack in the middle of our bed.

A few nights ago he was in his pajamas, teeth brushed, stories read, ready for bed. We were discussing where he’d start the night- in his room or on our floor. He looked up at us,  his eyes welling with tears, and said in the sweetest, quietest, saddest little voice, “I just want to sleep with my parents.” And that was it. Done. The kid is obviously going through something.  I don’t like it. And I can’t wait until this stage passes. But until it does, fuck, he just wants to sleep with his parents. How can I argue with that?