A toddler in my bed

1am, I hear a stirring in the room next door, but just roll over and go back to sleep.  1:05am shuffle shuffle shuffle in the passage.  I ignore it.  Suddenly a hand on my face and my blankets are being pulled off me.

In he creeps, quickly crawling over me to be in the middle.  I grab a pillow from the floor and give it to my 3 year old.  “Go to sleep buddy!” I say in the hope that we can all fall asleep again quickly.  But it is not to be.  He has forgotten his Taglet and his Tati Bear and can’t seem to sleep without them.  I get out of bed, eyes closed and feel my way to his bedroom.  “Ouch” I step on a piece of Lego and a toy car on the way and am now fully awake and fully annoyed.  Grabbing the beloved items I creep back to only to find a sliver of bed left for me.  I perch on the edge and grab the part of the duvet with no actual duvet in it and try to get comfortable.

After about an hour he finally falls asleep, but not me.  He has his freezing foot on my back and seems to be sleeping sideways.  How does someone so small manage to take up the whole bed?  My husband suddenly gets out of bed and without saying a word goes to sleep in our guest room.  I have a secret little smile to myself as I know he will have to move a suitcase, some files and the children’s folded clothes off the bed.  Ha-ha – that should be enough to wake him up properly.  If I can’t sleep – no one else should.

The rest of the night is spent moving my toddler over to his side of the bed, having an elbow or knee in my back or a hand up my sleeve.  In all I get a few more hours of broken sleep as I wake every time he moves, coughs, or groans in his sleep. At 5:30 he stares me awake and insists on going to play downstairs.

This has been the story for a few nights now.  A Toddler in my bed is driving me nuts.  It affects my relationship with my husband, it affects the quality of my sleep and I am worried he will expect this every night.  I have to make a plan.

I have decided to only allow him to get into bed with us for 2 reasons.  A nightmare or if he is ill.  I like to have my children in bed with me if they are sick so that they receive the comfort of having me close and I can monitor them during the night.  I must return him to his own bed on other nights.  I will also have some continental pillows under my bed so on nights when he has just woken up and doesn’t have a reason to actually be in my bed he can make his own little bed next to me on the floor.  He must bring his own comfort items and his own pillow and blanket.  It must not be an easy road to sleeping in our room.

I want him to sleep in his own bed, but I know that toddlers can be unsure and that their imagination can run away with him.  Having a strict rule about sleeping in his own room is fine, but I know that that rule is meant to be bent.

For more tips on how to deal with Toddler Roaming at night see Ann Richardsons article toddler roaming at night