What do babies have against sleeping like a normal human with their head near the top of the bed and their feet facing the bottom? Apparently, a whole lot.
Before I had a baby I swore up and down that no child of mine would ever sleep in my bed. But I’ve lost that battle in a huge way. My 1-year-old, Jenson, ends up in our bed more than I’d like to admit and each time he comes in, it’s like he’s performing his own interpretive dance and knows no bounds between the stage and the audience.
The pictures below were all taken in one week when my baby beat us down during various stages of the night/morning and ended up in our bed. And because I don’t own a drone, my husband Olly was in charge of documenting the majority of these shots, which were snapped between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. Nothing says “I can’t wait to start my early morning work day” like receiving a jab to your side from your wife and then being asked to stand on your bed to capture aerials of your wife and son. My biggest takeaway from this week is realizing I really should have a better core. I spend half the night engaging it so I don’t topple off the side of my own bed.
Baby catcher
Several times within the course of a night he will hurdle his body violently over mine so that his head dangles precariously off the side of the bed. He does this without waking and I reflexively grab his ankle. It’s literally one of the most stressful ways to sleep ... for the both of us.
Hanging on for dear life
I look at this photo and my obliques don’t add up. I’m basically clutching to my son for dear life or else I will fall off the bed. What you don’t see is my left leg that is pretty much standing on the floor.
The 'H'
This is a standard favorite. If you were to stand from above and look down at all three of us we make a human letter “H”. This position stands for “Happiness Thief.” It’s also a great way to roadblock any future siblings.
The 'H' 2
Here it is again. Just interpreted slightly differently.
On Dad
There is nothing natural about this position. I’m a take-no-prisoners kind of girl at 4 a.m. and this is my feeble attempt to try and out-wit my son by physically moving him so he’s on his dad. I pray that he stays put so I can starfish belly-side down until the alarm goes off.
Head to the door
This is a newer position in the arsenal. It’s sort of like the love-child of the “H” position he so dearly loves and the standard “sleep on mom and box her out of the bed entirely” position. It also has the added bonus of waking me up because of the sweet, pungent scent of urine that is emitting out of his diaper only inches from my nose.
Switch positions in bed
Sometimes I relinquish my side of the bed entirely and move over to the other side. But usually he senses that the natural order of things are not as they should and he wakes up. Entirely too early.
Back across me in the middle
This is me giving up on life. I can’t make either side of my own bed work so I just move to the middle. At least when I remain on one side there is hope he will stay put when I put him in the middle of the bed and sleep like a normal human. But you know things are bad when I just go to the middle of the bed.
Negotiation shot
This shot was taken in a rare moment where we were both just exasperated with each other. I’m silently pleading for him to “move over” and he is thinking I’m being dramatic.
Punch to the face
Sometimes rather than just catapulting his body over mine, he likes to combine it with a sucker punch to the face. That’s always nice first thing in the morning.
Sitting up in bed
He can’t possibly fathom why on earth I’m still so tired.
Am I the only one who has a child that sleeps like this?
Update: After documenting this particular week, my son all of a sudden decided to try “sleeping through the night in his own crib.” It is everything and more than what I imagined. You’ll be glad to know my obliques are getting a much-needed breather and I no longer have to worry about getting sucker-punched in the face courtesy of his feet.