Preparing for Parenthood: Co-sleeping

Y'all! Blogspot tells me that this blog has had more than 8,000 hits from people in 10 countries. Crazy, huh?! Like Sally Field, "you like me- you really like me!" I'm no expert at parenting since I've just had this one kid for this one year, but since you're reading I'm going to do a series on preparing to be a parent. People always say nothing can prepare you to be a parent. That's not true. I'm going to give you real world experiential activities to prepare you to be a parent, one issue at a time. Today we tackle co-sleeping.

There are many advocates of co-sleeping that preach its many benefits. I'm not one of them.  I used to be on our local child fatality review board and was traumatized from the high incidence of co-sleeping related infant deaths that we staffed on that committee. I said I'd never let my kid sleep with me. After night feedings we always returned him to his bed. We let him learn to self soothe and fall asleep on his own. When he woke up in the night we patted his back and put him back in his crib.

But eventually, you have a sick kid, or you go on vacation, or you've got a teething toddler, and no matter what your theoretical approach to sleep, that kid WILL sleep in your bed. This post is to prepare you for those nights. By following this fool proof method, you'll know what it's like to co-sleep in just ONE NIGHT!

To fully get the co-sleeping experience, you're going to need your partner and another friend to help. Have your friend come in and place a bunch of dog bones and ink pens under your fitted sheet. As you and your partner sleep, the bones will jab into you at awkward angles and the pens will stab you in the night. This will simulate anytime your child is still during the night. If you rearrange your body so as to not touch any of the bones, your friend will begin to cry.

You'll also need a cantaloupe or other melon with a rough surface. As you and your partner sleep on the dog bones, have your friend roll the melon around in the bed. Make sure he or she takes careful precautions to rub it with force against your bare skin, creating friction burns. This simulates the baby bulldozing his head into you as he changes positions. This should occur between each transition throughout the night.

Somewhere about 11pm place a heavy duty spring between you and your partner. Sleep this way, being pushed apart so that you have to hold on to the sides of the bed. At midnight have your friend replace the spring with one of those small, bottom weighted punching bag toys. Have it bounce upright and sign "thirsty." Lay it down, only to have it bounce back up and sign thirsty again. Do this 7 times. Then get up and fix it a sippy cup of milk. Spill some milk in the bed.

Around 2 am have your friend roll the melon off the bed onto your floor. This simulates the baby falling off the bed in the night, and should be followed by a 20 minute recording of a hyena giving birth.  Babies seem to think that beds are round, like the earth, so they will be shocked and hurt that they could fall off the edge. It's like a reverse Christopher Columbus. You and your partner should both wake up, turn on the light, and search the screaming melon for bruising. You may take this opportunity to blame each if you have the energy.

Replace the melon back in the bed. When you've finally drifted back to sleep have your friend take a 20 pound bag of sugar and wedge it between you and your partner. The sugar should be approximately 100 degrees. Have it rotate every thirty minutes like the handle of a faulty jack in the box.  At 3:00 am the jack in the box will pop and scare you out of your slumber. Have your friend place the sugar on top of your chest. Sleep that way for the next hour. Anytime you try to gently roll to your side and lay the sugar on the bed, have your friend frantically pull your hair and grasp at your face. At this point you'll wonder how people who co-sleep every night ever have the opportunity to make any additional children.

At 5:00 am have your friend sit the sugar up straight with the cantaloup balancing on top. Begin to play the hyena recording again. At this point your partner will need to sit up, search for the remote, and find Curious George on netflix. You and your partner will go back to sleep, leaving the sugar sitting upright in the bed between you. Right now you're judging. This is how it will go, I promise. The sugar will eventually fall over onto your partner's arm, where it will stay until his/her arm falls asleep. Carefully, carefully, help your partner pull his/her arm out from under the sugar like a highly sensitive booby trap.

As you lay crucially still on the dog bones with the hot sugar on your arm, pens digging into you, the cantaloupe pressing into your face, the scent of sour milk in your nose and Curious George playing in the back ground, you will eventually fall back asleep. Fifteen minutes later your alarm will go off telling you to get up for the day. You will notice your baby sleeping peacefully.