Today, I’m celebrating a bittersweet moment when my youngest, who is three (yes, it only took him three years to get here), has officially slept in his own bed all night, without coming to my bed.
Today marks the last day of the era.
It’s been a long road, but I DID IT!
Why did we co-sleep for so long?
My youngest started having scary asthma episodes when he was almost one year old. I’ve learned to watch for signs of asthma and to identify the breathing when he is struggling over the last two years. My whole family has learned to cope with situations when I have to take the youngest to the ER, and he likely gets admitted to the hospital.
At the beginning, it was depressing to see my baby fighting for his life, to breathe. Dark thoughts often crept in without me noticing. It was hard watching his little body being hooked up to so many machines. All I could do was hold him tight to offer him just the littlest of comfort when the doctors allowed me to. I felt utterly helpless…
Health scares often open up new perspectives in us all. For me, just being able to see my child breathe — the most basic function that we all take for granted — is the most beautiful thing.
After each hospital stay, I spent at least a month sleeping with him, just to make sure he breathed. Nighttime was usually when he struggled. I checked on his breathing every few minutes, with the fear that he would struggle for air.
Co-sleeping started to become our thing.
About a year after the very first episode, I had become much more confident in handling asthma episodes. I’ve learnt to identify the breathing problems and am able to tell at least a few hours in advance if my child will end up in the ER. Those precious few hours were just enough to prepare the rest of the family for it.
As the primary caretaker of my three young children, I feel overwhelmed by the mental load of a scenario like this. While worrying about the child who can’t breathe, I am also worried about how the other two would be taken care of.
I don’t want them to feel like I’m abandoning them (yes, their dad is with them, but they are so accustomed to me being around). I have to prepare them (age 7 and 4, when we started our emergency plan) that I will not be home when they wake up in the morning. I have to reassure them that everything will be okay — deep down, my fear of things not turning out okay is bigger than ever each time we have to go to the ER for my youngest’s breathing problems, since he has been admitted to the NICU a few times.
At the same time, I want my other children to have a “normal” life, even when their sibling is in crisis, because, according to the doctor, this kind of crisis might become our new norm. We must learn to live with it, and life must go on. I try really hard to manage the sick child while maintaining some sort of “normal” life for the big kids, and it has not been easy to do.
Back to co-sleeping, I volunteered to sleep with the youngest whenever he was sick or just had symptoms of not feeling well, such as a runny nose or a cough. If he started sleeping in his own bed at the beginning of the night, I secretly wished he would come to my bed in the middle of the night, and was glad when he did. It felt safe to have him next to me, so I could hear him breathing.
It made sleep all but impossible. When I did sleep, I often woke up after an hour or with fears of him struggling for air, and I wasn’t there to help him.
He was ready
Once he reached his three-year-old mark, his episodes started to be a lot less severe. It could be because the illness was going away, or it could be because he was older now and he knew how to take his asthma medicines most effectively. No one knows the exact reason behind it, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he will outgrow this illness in the near future, just like what all the doctors have been telling us to hope for.
The hope that my youngest could have a healthy life, combined with my desperation for sleep, was enough for me to push forward and start the sleep training journey for both him and me.
I started talking to my youngest about not co-sleeping anymore.
“Why?” He asked. “Because I don’t sleep well when co-sleeping. I need to sleep, so I’m not too tired in the morning and can play with you more. And YOU can also sleep better, too,” I told him.
He was three and had a better understanding of how things worked and was more reasonable, so it didn’t take him long to say goodbye to co-sleeping.
We used a reward system with a simple sleep chart for him to follow. I explained that he could earn prizes if he slept in his bed all night for twenty days (he obviously didn’t understand the concept of days, but he was excited about the rewards).
He helped create a simple sleep chart and got to pick out stickers for it. I took him to Target to pick out three toys to put on our wish list. Two small toys for day five and day ten, and the grand prize for the end of the chart.
I set up the Teach Me time clock so he could know when it was okay for him to get out of bed in the morning. Each night he slept through the night without coming to my room and getting out of bed before the clock showed a green light, he got to put a sticker of his choice on the chart.
He got the first star right after the day we started. Everyone felt so positive about this sleep training.
The second night was hard for both him and me. He got out of bed a few times wanting to come up to my bed. It was hard for me to have to tell him to go back to his bed, hearing him crying and coughing in his room. I had to remind myself that the coughs were from the crying, not from his sickness, and let him be. I got no sleep and was so exhausted.
The good news was that he got it the night after that rough night. He earned his first prize after achieving five stars, which equaled six days from the start, and his second prize after reaching ten stars. He started sleeping in his bed consistently and no longer cared for his chart after about fifteen days. I wanted to follow through with our agreement, so once he finished his chart, I took him back to Target to pick up his grand prize and took down the chart. I think I was prouder of myself at this moment than my son was proud of himself.
Just like that, we said goodbye to co-sleeping, and he was very proud of himself.
Today is THE day
I no longer get to use the excuse that one of the children came to my bed at night, making it hard for me to sleep, for my grumpiness. But it’s exciting news!
I’m constantly on a learning curve in this motherhood journey, and no more co-sleeping with my child is not just a milestone for my child, but it’s also a milestone for me. I’ve finally done it!
Now I need to train myself to sleep through the night without rushing over to his room after each cough or a random noise that he makes while sleeping.
It’s time for me to prioritize my sleep.
Wish me luck, everyone!
And Goodbye, Co-sleeping!