If I had been born at home, surely it would have been into a
family bed. As it was, my parents brought me home from the
hospital, where I was promptly given a place aside my mother in
the bed which slept us all: mom, dad, my brother and I. I nursed
until I was nearly four, when the arrival of a younger sibling
forced shared privileges. I was not, as a rule, thrilled with
anything that wasn’t mine alone and so gave up the breast and my
place between my parents for slightly more independence on the
outskirts of our small country. I slept on the edge (had my
parents been a bit more intuitive, they may have recognized this
as foreshadowing, and thus been more fully prepared for the
journey of parenting a true Sagittarian daughter…).

By that time, the eldest Dotson child had moved on and now slept
in a wood framed bunk bed hand crafted by our father. In a
family of five, he was the only to sleep solo. This left me as
the senior child in the family bed, a title that lent me a
certain amount of privilege, and these are the days I remember
most when I think back to the last time I slept in the same bed
with someone under the age of two.

I remember the stories of my infancy, more from the telling and
re-telling, I am sure, than from genuine memory; countless
friends and family have heard of the night, sleep deprived and
exhausted, that my mother lay me down to sleep next to my
father. I slept huddled in his arms on the side of the bed, my
mother an ocean away on her end of the king size waterbed. Lured
by the scent of her leaking breasts and some clearly primal
instinct, I managed, at just a few months of age, to roll over
my father and across the broad expanse until my lips at last
found the relief of my mother’s waiting nipple. This could have
been my first successful experience at rolling over. Suffice to
say, mom did not sleep as anticipated, but who could deny such
determination?

For years I laughed at this story, until I had a toddler of my
own and understood, finally, the sacrifice that lay at the heart
of attachment parenting. Despite the pain of too many sleepless
nights, I am hooked, just like my mother before me. I am a
co-sleeper at heart, a habit brought on by genetics, it would
seem. I know the warmth of my parents’ bodies, a peace surpassed
only by the warmth of own daughter’s sleeping body as she lay-
covering me in bruises with impulse kicks and left hooks-
sleeping next to me. A woman of the new millennium I never
thought I would stand for such abuse, and yet imagine my
surprise at not only standing for it, but demanding it continue.
While I can’t honestly say I love the pain, I can say I will
happily put up with it. And while I am anxious for the day when
she can confidently spend a night- or even an hour- asleep
without me (a time to finally let the wounds begin to heal), I
dread the day she moves out of my bed and into her own. Yet
another instance, I am sure, when she will be ready for the next
step far before I am ready for her to be ready. I suppose I will
have to get used to this.

But this is not a story about the virtues of co-sleeping, for if
you are a co-sleeper you have doubtless already read a library
of those. Nope, this is the story of a co-sleeping alumna. This
is the story of why we do it: it is what you will remember at
three o’clock in the morning when your twenty-three month old
rolls over to nurse for the seventh time that night; this is a
mantra you can chant when your sex life has disappeared
completely and your idea of well-rested is a solid three hours;
this is the answer to your repeated “why’s?” when your bed
becomes so crowded that, like my mother, you end up spending
your nights lying crosswise at the foot of the bed hoping for
just an hour. It is as simple as this: co-sleepers breed
co-sleepers. You’re giving your grandchildren the gift of their
parents’ bodies. You’re breeding a noble instinct, a culture of
love and commitment, of families raising families instead of a
technology of baby monitors and flashing light mobiles. That
baby you are cuddling will likely someday know all it is to
cuddle his or her own baby deep into the night, evening after
evening for years and years.

I feel safe in the night, for all the ways my parents held me
rather than a crib. Between my mother and my father the night
time was never more dangerous than the day, and when the slow
transition of movement into my own bed began, my parents
continued to cuddle me in innovative ways. It is only now, with
a daughter of my own to keep me company through the long and
short nights, that I understand the dual gift of co-sleeping. I
thank my parents for the nights they kept me close, for the bond
created and the emptiness avoided, for all the good I know
co-sleeping does for a child. But who knew that the gifts extend
way beyond childhood? Today I thank my parents for teaching me
to continue the tradition; for giving to both me, and my
daughter, these nights we now share together. And lord knows, I
hope that one day Ruby will lie in bed next to her own sleeping
infant, reveling in the little body so inspired by her side.

About the author:
When Abigail's sleeping toddler wakes her up with squirms and
snores, she sometimes writes by the moonlight. Her writing has
appeared in the compilation Loving Mama: Essays on Natural
Childbirth and Parenting as well as in several periodicals.