When I was pregnant with my first child, I dutifully went out and bought a Moses basket and cot, with all the little blankets and sheets to go with them. It had never occurred to me to do anything else. I had grown up in a large house where I didn't even sleep on the same floor as my parents, let alone the same bedroom or bed... and it was terrifying and miserable. I never knew which was more scary; the dark emptiness where ghosts and the devil lurked, or incurring the wrath of my parents by calling out to them. I was often too frozen with fear to get out of bed, but the few times I did pluck up the courage to go tearing down the stairs as if the devil was chasing [which I thought he may well be!] to them, it usually ended in being yelled at to stop being stupid and get back up those stairs.
Of course I wasn't dreaming of inflicting such terror on my baby, nope, my little one would be safe in a cot by the side of the bed in my room until around a year old. And then I had her...
The love I felt for her was totally overwhelming, and with it came the anxiety. There was even a point when she about 5 days old that I sat and cried my eyes out, wishing I'd never had her because I loved her too much and couldn't possibly live the rest of my life in this great fear of something happening to her.
For the first couple of nights I fed her off to sleep and gently laid her in the Moses basket at the side of my bed; then promptly spent the night sitting up wide awake looking over her, and putting my hand on her chest every so often to check she hadn't expired!
After two exhausting nights like this I put her in bed with us, which is exactly what my strong maternal instinct had been crying out for me to do in the first place. It was bliss.
I automatically followed suit with the other two, though each time I had bought a new Moses basket, and each time on giving birth to them I knew I could not possibly stick my baby in there in their own, after being warm and snug inside me for 9 months. What an odd, unnatural thing to do. It makes perfect sense on the feeding front as you don't even need to sit up.
I did meet with some controversy, I also had people tell me that we were making a rod for our own back, though I'm not sure I quite know how? It's not like they're going to come home from the pub and get in bed with you when they're 18.[ though I have my doubts about our youngest!]
I can honestly say they do it in their own time, when they're ready and it has never been a problem nor the least bit traumatic. My children have always found bedtime and sleeping a secure time;feeling loved and safe, whereas I, at the age of 40, have yet to sleep through the night.
