As I write this, my son is lying asleep next to me in bed.  Oh, and he very recently peed all over me and the sheets.  But that’s been handled.  So, back to the writing.

I am thinking a fair amount lately about this co-sleeping thing.  I talked to a man on JDate last winter who swore I would mess my son up for life by co-sleeping.  He was a crazy Russian Jewish guy who had never been circumcized.  (Yes, we went there and had discussions about his penis.  I was newly separated, desperate, and insanely bored, so I tended to get into inappropriate conversations on IM.)  We got into a big fight about the co-sleeping thing and I eventually decided to block him.  Usually I am open to people who have different ideas than me, but at the time, his opposition felt like an invasion.  I was doing the best I could.  And he wasn’t even a parent.  What right did he have to dictate my parenting choices to me?

Yet, I myself am ambivalent about the co-sleeping.  It was awesome when Sami was a newborn and I was nursing all the time…but as he got older, I had to selfishly admit that I wanted him to learn how to fall asleep more or less on his own, without needing my physical body next to his.

I have to thank G, my rebound ex of last spring, who helped me get up the courage to address some of the sleep issues.  It was kind of funny when we first started dating.  I would get Sami to sleep in my king-sized bed (the only bed he accepted), which entailed literally lying down with him for 30-45 min, at which point I would carefully extricate myself from his embrace.  All this time G had been patiently waiting for me to do the whole bedtime thing.  Then G and I would sleep in Sami’s twin bed.  When Sami woke up in the middle of the night, which was inevitable, I would crawl back into the king-sized bed with him, leaving G alone in my kid’s room for the duration of the night.  G thought it was weird.  OK, I admit it.  It WAS weird.

Pretty soon, G kind of gave me an ultimatum: I would need to get Sami out of my bed or it was over.

If I hadn’t already been feeling ambivalent, I probably would have said, “screw you.”  Instead, I began to research all sides of the sleep issue.  The cry it out approaches vs. the gentle approaches.  Instinctively, I gravitated away from Ferber and Weissbluth and more towards The Sleep Lady and the No Cry Sleep Solution.  G consulted his therapist, and his therapist suggested some additional books to read.  G and his therapist wanted me to take more of a hard-line approach and let Sami cry a little more.  I pushed back and trusted my intuition.

After a few months, with my gentle, gradual approach, Sami was sleeping in his big-boy bed and G and I could claim the king-sized bed.  On the nights when G wasn’t around, I loved having my bedroom to myself after Sami went to sleep.  It was liberating.  Sami still wasn’t sleeping through the night (he hasn’t really slept through the night since the night he was born).  When he woke up, I would crawl into his bed with him, leaving G alone in my bed. 

And then, not long after the sleep issues had vastly improved, I broke up with him.  (Long story: outside of the scope of this post.)

Over the past summer, I slowly caved and we basically went back to co-sleeping.  We were living in a foreign country, there were NO men whatsoever in the picture, and truth be told, I wanted Sami next to me at night as much as he wanted to be next to me.  I felt comforted by the presence of his warm little body.  He slept better and therefore, so did I. 

Once we got back home, I helped him to fall sleep in his own little bed without me having to lie down next to him for an hour, but inevitably, at 2 or 3 or 4 am, he will come lumbering sleepily into my bed, insisting on “snuggling.”  Half the nights I don’t even remember him coming into my room.  I just wake up in the morning and there he is, his little body crashed out next to me. 

I’m really very OK with it for now, but I can’t help but think: what if I do get into another relationship?  Should I pre-emptively get Sami to sleep all night in his little bed so I’ll have the bed to myself?  How will I do it?  I can’t bear long nights of crying and trouble — especially now that I work full-time outside the home and need all the sleep I can possibly get.

I don’t mind co-sleeping, in principle — but I struggle with the different facets of myself, especially the ones that don’t seem so compatible right now.  My all-encompassing role as a mother, and my desire to be someone’s lover.  Very rightfully and appropriately, no one could or should co-sleep with Sami and me but his biological father.  And that time is long over and done with.  So now I will always have to make a choice: between my boy and my (potential) man.

This is so ridiculous because it is all based in the extreme hypothetical.  IF I do get in a relationship, this time I will take it slow.  IF I do meet someone, and IF we do get intimate…IF these things actually happen in the near future…then I will take it from there and make what changes have to be made at that time.  As always, I’ll do my best to make sure that Sami’s needs are met, while I am also taking decent care of myself and my needs.  It’s so easy for my mind to get twisted up into a pretzel over things that haven’t even happened yet.  What a silly monkey mind I have.

So, for now, I am reminding myself to just relax into the way things are.  Confused desires, pee on the sheets, and all.