On sleeping

Sacha is fifteen months old, and since his very first month in this life, he has slept next to me in the Big Bed. He was very tiny and he didn’t know many things at all, but he knew one thing: me. The smell of me, the warmth of me, the milk that came from me. He knew that if he kept himself very, very close to my body all night and every night until forever, he would stay safe, and nourished, he would sleep deeply and he would grow.

Like the primeval human family sleeping inside a cave to keep away the predators and the storms, we’d huddle together, sleep and dream together, intertwined. You cannot feel nature more strongly than in those moments of deep instinct, lifted directly from our very distant past.

But fifteen long months have passed. My baby has grown, and grown big. Also, grown restless. This baby, who no longer feeds directly from my body, still likes to sleep next to me but has never stopped waking up like a newborn. He wakes up three or four times before we have even gone to bed. We go up the stairs, down the stairs, back up the stairs; I rock, I hush, I walk, I feed, I hold my breath, I try to leave the room silently like I am floating on air, without my foot touching that creaky floorboard, without the sound of my breathing jostling him back out of sleep. Nothing works in the evenings. I am always alert, waiting. I cannot start anything and I cannot finish anything because Sacha wakes up again, and again, and again.

THIS ESSAY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN PARENTING WEBSITE 'SCARY MOMMY' AND YOU CAN NOW READ THE REST OF IT ON http://www.scarymommy.com/sleeping-on-his-own/