The Family Bed...

So I'm not really a crunchy mom. I think attachment parenting-with its focus on co-sleeping, baby wearing, and nursing on demand for as long as a child wants -- is a good thing for those who choose to go that route. But I also think that when you spend the vast majority of your days and/or nights with your kids, you tend to attach pretty well. Regardless of where said baby is sleeping, where their nutrition comes from, and whether or not they are physically tethered to one of their parents.

The important thing is that they are sleeping somewhere, eating something, and tethered to something.

Oh wait, scratch the tethered part. I think that's frowned upon in uptight mommy circles.

In spite of my feelings on this, it did happen that I was quite literally attached to each of my kids for a good nine months since I nursed them until around the time they started getting teeth. Sorry, but that was the end for me. You got teeth? Good. Here. Have a steak. (Oh, don't give me that look. I pureed it first).

I tried to be a baby wearing mom so that I could have my hands free, but I could never figure out how to get those slings, or wraps, or carriers on and off by myself, let alone actually get a baby to stay in them, so for the most part I carried the babies around. Besides, even when I was successful in getting them into those things, they never looked all that comfortable, and I always felt like I was well, wearing a baby.

It didn't really work for us.

I wasn't real big on co-sleeping, but I did frequently have a baby in our bed when they were nursing.

It wasn't about bonding. It was about sleep. Namely, mine.

Having said all of that, I recently realized that, even though the kids are now two, four, and seven, we still have the family bed thing going on. Or, more precisely, family beds.

Last night, for example, N climbed into our bed with me because it was raining, and it's been scientifically proven that rain sounds quieter when you're in bed with your mom. Rather than move her when he came upstairs, Jimmy fell asleep in her bed for a while. Eventually, they switched, and he came back into our bed, while she went into her bed. Around that time, O woke up and I brought him into our bed so that he wouldn't wake up B. Of course, B woke up a short time later and was upset to be all by himself, so I put a now sleeping O back in his own bed, and laid down next to B until he fell back asleep. When I got up to see what time it was, N woke up and saw me, and since it was almost time for her to get up anyway, I climbed in bed next to her. B joined us a few minutes later. When Bella and our visiting dog Arthur decided to join us, I thought it was probably time for me to get up.

I was making our bed this morning--the one I barely slept in--and found two Thomas the trains, a teddy bear, a toothbrush, a stuffed Elmo, and a Children's Prayer book.

What did I expect? It's the family bed, after all.

Well, you know, one of them.

If only I could find the one that I actually get to sleep in.