Speaking of nurseries
Not that we were or anything but we don’t have one. We didn’t have one for Noah either but that was circumstances, not choice. Instead we had a corner of our bedroom (in our tiny 1-bedroom apartment) christened by Brett as the Nursery Nook. It held a wooden portacrib ($20 at a garage sale), a Dumbo-themed mobile ($50 at the Disney store — there’s a story behind that), and all the little baby outfits gotten at thrift stores neatly folded beneath.
I cried about that damn nursery nook. On my duedate list, everyone else would post breathless recitations of their gorgeously-themed nurseries, detailing every lovingly crafted item brought forth to grace the rooms in which their angels would sleep. I really thought a matching bumper was a sign of good parenting and so I felt enormous guilt at our barren little nook. Worse yet was the Natural Kids catalog with the guilt-inducing copy: “No outgassing for my precious little bundle from heaven! We use only organic wool futon mattresses sewn by indigenous women from a country whose parenting practices we exalt above all others!”
I was strongly against the family bed concept. I read Tine Thevenin, Three in a Bed by Deborah Jackson and Dr. Sears and decided they were a trio of nutjobs. Especially Ms. Jackson who apparently wrote her book before her baby was old enough to crawl (spare me the advice of the sincere mother who hasn’t faced the toddler years yet). I thought that children needed space and independence and parents needed sleep. Sadly, my poor baby would have to sleep mere steps away from our bed in a shoddy little portacrib with a poisonous mattress but at least he wouldn’t have to be coddled and spoiled by sleeping with his parents.
Then Noah was born. And I took him into bed with us not only for ease of nursing but because it was cold and I was afraid of SIDS and darnit, I missed him. I would dutifully start him out in the portacrib (now shoved up against our bed in the “sidecar” style) and as soon as he began to rustle awake an hour or so later, I’d pop him into the crook of my arm.
The kid hasn’t left.
Oh sure he has his own room and he starts out there but more often than not, we hear the pitter-patter of not-so-little feet and he clambers over us to slip right between us with a contented sigh. He doesn’t even wake anymore; he never remembers climing in.
“I feel safest in the middle,” he told me one morning. “I’m going to sleep here forever.”
This time we aren’t even bothering with a nursery. Since our family bed is now crowded by the oft-visiting 7-year old and his canine companion, we are taking the precaution of using a Snugglenest. Without nursing and postpartum hormones, I’m not sure that I’ll have that same psychic link that new mamas often have, which kept me on the alert that Noah was curled up next to me. This seems like a sound compromise. Also, our friend gave us a bassinette in case this is the sort of baby who sleeps best on her lonesome.
I love sleeping with a baby and it is especially important to me to have that time with a little one who is missing her birth mama. I hope I get the chance to do it soon.
I hope so, too, mama.
Oh yes, much snuggling/cuddling will be the remedy for what ails the heart(s).
I could have written this - as our first place was in the back of a house, our bedroom was the *main room* and exactly like you, we had a tiny corner of the room as “nursery” with poisonous bedding ::wink::. Our bed (queen) pushed in the corner - me under the window air con. i spent many a night learning the ins and out of mothering in my rocking chair, in the middle of the room, nursing/rocking/humming.
i TOO love the family bed!
IKWYM. I often think about the irony of us having enough money for the pricey, cutesy nursery, and how I’d never even consider doing it if we were to have another child. I think that Snugglenest is a neat concept, and I’m glad that Noah won’t be displaced from your family bed; that was important to me when my second child came along. I’m hesitant to ask this, and if you want to delete my comment from the queue I will totally understand, but what do you mean by “without nursing”? I had thought you were going to try to nurse the baby? Hope I’m not over-stepping here, but you’ve got me curious…
Aww . . . Very similar story here: Steven, too had a nursery nook in the corner of my room that I had at my mother’s house. With the cheapest crib I could find, and homemade bedding. I wanted that Guess denim comforter set something harsh. And I cried over it.
This kid (assuming it happens) will have it’s own room and a matching crib, changing table, and dresser, and that way-cool John Lennon bedding that I was SO JEALOUS over when my SIL was using it for my neice.
And probably never use any of it, because he/she be in with us.
Funny how things change. ;o)