It has worked well for us over the years. Differently with each child. But it wasn’t long before I realized I felt safer having the babies in bed with us to sleep and nurser through the night than to try and get up when I was exhausted to nurse and risk falling asleep and consequently dropping them (which I almost did once). Or having them get tangled in the much less forgiving rocker. The bed seemed low-risk.

That didn’t mean there weren’t problems. Like when Jared got in the habit of comfort nursing all night long when he was about 16 months. We finally cut him off our bed and nursing at the same time at 18 months. (I was pregnant again in 2 months…. oops!)

We ferberized (the Dr. Ferber let-them-cry-it-out technique) Ethan pretty early on when he was maybe 8 or 9 months, maybe later, and he took to that fine. He cried 25 minutes the first night, less than 20 the second night and so on with very few relapses. He was and still is a very sound sleeper – so sound that he was rested enough to give up naps by age 2. So sound that he could never wake up to use the toilet and only at 6 was his bladder big enough to last him through the night!

Jared would NOT ferberize. He would scream for HOURS! (Yes, we actually let him scream for hours once, sorry Jared! We fell asleep! ) He would fall asleep standing in his crib. He was miserable with that technique. We tried it a couple times between ages 9 and 5 months, but it just didn’t work. When we moved to California when he was about 16 months we didn’t even set up the crib since he never used it. We bought a race car toddler bed used on Craig’s List hoping that would coax him to sleep in the same room as his big brother. When we weaned him we used Nana’s suggestion of bringing the crib mattress into our room and then slowly moving it towards their room. Jared is not a sound sleeper and has been night-toilet-trained since he was day-toilet-trained. He still regularly comes into our room once a night and we escort or send him back to his own bed. Almost every morning he comes in between 6 and 6:30 to cuddle us both awake. He’s my alarm clock!

Matthew, at 2!, is finally willing to go to sleep in his own bed. Like his brothers, he’ll pick a book and a toy and lie down at bedtime. And he has even slept through the night there! Sometimes. Sometimes he still needs to fall asleep in Glen’s arms. Sometimes he’ll wake up at 4 a.m. and come toddling into our room. Sometimes he wakes up at 10 or 11 and climbs up, with his toy!, into Ethan’s top bunk without Ethan even noticing! He did this last night and then climbed back down to go find daddy at 11 pm. We know this because Glen found the toy he had gone to bed with on Ethan’s bed. This is worrisome as we are afraid he could easily fall trying to climb down when he’s sleepy.

All in all, though, our California King has served the whole family well. Having the children sleep with us has meant a few years of some discomfort. But it left ample time for cuddling and hugging and love, and has created healthy sleeping habits afterall.

(Phew!)