I was excited. What? “In hindsight, I would just build a huge bed for us all to sleep in. Just a family bed, no discussions.” “Why?” I asked. And thought about our own history. Child 1 still lay in the crib a lot, and was mostly happy. As soon as the gate was gone, it came to us every night. We bought a 2×2 meter bed and accepted this situation, but the goal was always to have our own bed. Child 2 didn’t sleep in the crib for a single night. As soon as she outgrew the BabyBay, she simply slept with us. But she too was supposed to move into her own bed at some point, and the time had come when she was around three years old. She accepted it well and wanted to fall asleep there, but at five and a half she still comes to cuddle with us every night. Child 2 also did this for a very long time – but when he was around five he slept through the night in his own bed. Do I regret anything? I wasn’t sure. So why did he regret it?
“I just think now that the children get an incredibly good and important amount of bonding when they are not alone at night,” he said. That made sense to me. I often had and still have the feeling that when the children have slept through the night in their beds, they then get this “bonding” elsewhere. They read for an extra long time; they were more attached to us parents during the day. Even if one of us wasn’t there for a few days for work, the children made up for it. Still doing it! Then they both crawl back into their parents’ bed at night and cuddle each other longer and more extensively than usual in the morning and evening. My friend confirmed this observation: “In retrospect, I actually think it would have made many other things easier if we hadn’t insisted that they sleep alone.”
Bonding vs parent bed
You always have the image in your head that the parents’ bed should be the place for the parents. That this would be important for togetherness, for intimacy, for the stability of the couple’s relationship. I have to say, that’s totally on my mind too. I also really enjoy reading in bed and slipping into a bed that doesn’t have a child in it at night. But the intimacy thing is of course nonsense. You can also get closer somewhere else. Maybe even in the children’s room when the kids are in the big bed anyway?! I don’t think it’s really often the case that sex doesn’t happen because the marriage bed isn’t free…
So I have to agree with him. I have never regretted our large semi-family bed. I’m glad that we were so easygoing about sleeping with our second child, took her protests seriously and accepted her need to still be with us at night. To be honest, I actually enjoy it now, after all it will almost certainly be over soon…
After the conversation, I thought a lot about the topic of “remorse”. In principle, I am not the “regret” type, but rather the “accept and learn from it” type. But it’s also the case for me that in retrospect I somehow regret that I was often so strict with my first child. That I expected so much from him when he was actually quite small. I also think that I got loud quite often. Today I find it easier to take a deep breath and say to myself “They are children…”. (Not always, of course). I would have liked to have had this foresight and calm right from the start. But I think that might not be possible because you have to learn it first. And I also think that it is very often the case that the first children tend to be a bit overwhelmed – with all the children that come after, you are automatically more relaxed and expect less. You then learned that children are really different and each has their own pace…
Well, I regret that. I already told my older child. That I know today that I expected things from him very early on that he was actually too small for. And that I’m sorry today. He was very sweet and said: “Oh, Mom, I don’t remember that. It’s not bad!”. Of course I know that it still did something to him – but we parents can’t do everything right. Maybe we shouldn’t.
Nevertheless, I’m interested: What would you do differently in retrospect? Is there anything you perhaps even regret?
