Sleeping Pill
Mommy confession: Up until last night, my 19 month old girl had been sleeping in our bed for the past couple of months.
With my older son, I never let this happen. In fact, I was really against co-sleeping until Adèle started having febrile seizures. This scared the living daylights out of me, and since it always seemed to happen in her crib (thank God for the video monitor), I felt safer with her next to me. I could reach over and feel her forehead and make sure she wasn't running a fever. I could hear and feel her breathing. I fell asleep with the smell of Johnson and Johnson's Night time Lotion...she was my drug I said. I needed her there as much as she needed me. She curled up on her own pillow in between me and my husband and would wake up a few times in the night to feel for me and flop her head down on my chest, or tuck herself into my armpit. It was a closeness I never experienced with my little boy, and to wake up with her face smiling directly in my face was my coffee.
We set her up in her new toddler bed yesterday since, lately, Adèle had become a "flight risk" as we call it. She took off running around the house at bedtime instead of settling down and snuggling.
Long story short, she wasn't getting the sleep she needed, and bedtime was taking a toll on me and TJ.
I miss her in our bed already. And man, am I tired today. She was my sleep drug.
- Janine Manley
