Sleeping with the Enemy

Shortly after the Ex left, Maren started climbing in my bed. I allowed it because I felt like it was due to a sense of instability and I wanted her to feel safe and secure. Since then, I've gone through varied periods of trying to do something about it.

I've bribed and asked politely. I've invoked the all-serious words of "big girl." I've even suggested that snakes (her most feared nemesis) are more likely to get into my room than hers. (Totally made up. I wouldn't sleep there either, if that were true.)

But most of the time, I let it be. She goes to bed in her own bed and then, at some point in the dark of night, she creeps into my room and slides silently into my bed and goes right back to sleep. She doesn't bother me any and she sleeps like the dead. I just don't feel, most of the time, like this is any sort of issue to be concerned with. I mean, who cares if she sleeps in my room? She's not going to go to college sleeping with her mother. At some point this is going to lose some of its charm.

But now I know that there is a problem. And it's not her problem, it's mine.

For the last few nights, I thought there were two totally unrelated phenomena happening.

1. Maren was sleeping through the night in her own bed, without a peep and without any encouragement from me.
2. I was restless, tossing and turning and just generally not sleeping very well.

Last night, I slept the sleep of the innocent and the drugged. (Even though I am neither. Currently.) Then, in the morning, I woke up, bleary-eyed and well-rested and turned over the check the clock. (That's your first clue. I slept well enough to beat the alarm clock at 5:45. Something is clearly up.) And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a four year old and her stuffed reindeer. 

Apparently, I sleep better with her around now. Suddenly, sleep training takes a whole new direction.