Confession: We Totally Co-Sleep

Oh my heck, we're gross hippies whose child is simultaneously endangered and doomed to a life of codependency. Except we're not and he's not. This co-sleeping thing just happened and all three of us get better sleep because of it. We are not into attachment parenting. Seriously, those folks are whack.

We started out with a co-sleeper, which worked very well until I got completely sick of the almost parasitic space it took up on my side of the bed. From there, Elliott slept well in his crib, but I was still nursing a couple times a night and would often end up bringing him into our bed at the second feeding because I just could not physically find the strength to sit up in my glider at two in the morning. That lasted for a couple months until Elliott developed a stinging hatred of being left alone in his room and would shoot awake from a peaceful slumber as soon as he sensed that we were making moves to migrate to other areas of the apartment. And then he'd scream. So I began putting him to sleep in our bed and sometimes transferring him to his crib. But Lane and I both really enjoyed sleeping next to him. He is quite cozy and an excellent snuggler. He's a charming alarm clock and we have lovely morning conversations. It's gotten to the point where I start to miss him on the rare nights when he's in his crib and it's just so incredibly easy on all of us. He still flips out anytime we try to put him down in his crib, which I am sure is a combination of being used to sleeping somewhere else and normal separation anxiety, but he has taken it to new, eardrum-shattering levels. He'll pull himself up to standing and scream and sob and rend his garments. He'll stick a trembling arm out through the crib slats and reach for us with a pained expression, as if he's being shipped off to Siberia. Then one of us picks him up and he's all "Oh hey, I love you. Let's giggle together."

Lane and I both are quite happy with our sleeping arrangements, but we are anticipating another transition once the three of us no longer fit comfortably on our queen mattress. I'm really not keen to start the crib acclimation again and Elliott really does hate being confined.  Reaching down into the crib to soothe him puts extra strain on my already creaky old back and it just works better for us to lie next to each other, with the option to nurse, for bed time. I can get him to sleep in five or ten minutes when he's next to me, but if he's in the crib, I'm in and out of his room for an hour. I think our next move will be to sell the crib and set up a nice little floor bed where one of us can lay down with Elliott to get him to sleep and where he'll have the comfort of not being trapped in an IKEA-brand baby jail. I've been poking around a bit on this method and it seems like setting up a twin mattress on slats on the floor is the first step. When Elliott is ready, the twin mattress will go into a big boy bed frame and everything will be perfect. While I am certainly lacking in any form of execution, I'm pretty sold on certain Montessori practices, especially creating a child-centered space (the floor bed is a big part of this) and teaching independence early. I'd love a child who wakes up on his own without having a breakdown and quietly plays with his books and toys while mom and dad enjoy a few winks without a toddler butt to the face and/or toddler elbow to the ribs. A mom can dream, right?

P.S. Christ on a cracker, my baby is a TODDLER.