Room to Spare?

We have a king sized bed. Nick, my husband, is a big guy with big physical boundaries. We were given the bed as a wedding gift from my uncle who made it by hand. It is simple and beautiful and I cherish it's squeekless solidity. When we got the bed we had one bun in the oven and she slept with us til the next one came along. Then we clamped a wee little twin that had once cradled my grandmother as a girl right up next to our bed. There was a tiny little path to Nick's side, then bed, bed, wall. We called it the room of bed. Our first slept in the twin, touching me by toe or hand and the new baby slept in the king with us. And on it goes until we had all four of our kids. Today sleeping arrangements go something like this: Youngest in bed with mom and dad, next two boys take turns every other night sleeping on the wee twin mattress on the floor (the bed itself went the way of the basement, I sacrificed the intimacy I get from sleeping on level with my kids for an actual matching bedside table). The eldest sleeps almost exclusively in her own queen bed which she graciously usually and sometimes reluctantly shares with alternating brothers. Yes, the brothers do have a room of their own. No, they don't sleep in it.

I have been asked if I like this sleeping arrangement. Some people think I am a big family-bed advocate and for some time I was. Now I don't care what other people do. I just know what we do and I cannot honestly justify or explain it. I've complained about it and I've ruminated about it. I once, for about six months did experience sleeping sans kids and not pregnant in our big bed. I think that that luxurious time was a turning point for me. I liked it and I am longingly looking forward to that day to come again. For now, I share my half (I believe against my husbands carpenterial objections that I actually only have one third of the bed but for harmonies sake I will say half) of the bed with a three year old. Sometimes a nine or seven year old will crawl in post-nightmare and nest in between my legs like a little puppy. I sleep like this unwillingly and willingly.

Sometimes, and at times in the past always, my husband "flips" and we sleep head-to-toe. I am surprised at how odd my friends find this. No one else I know has ever done this. It is kind of brilliant. We both get the shoulder room we crave and I actually like snuggling his toes. His ankles are much more inviting than his snoring back which is turned in defiant determination to sleep for consecutive hours uninterrupted. But there are nights, when I am awoken for perhaps (I really wouldn't know, have you ever tried keeping count of such a thing?) the 8Th time (and it's only 3AM) and I have to readjust the three year old so that he has covers, his action figure and skin to skin access to some part of my body, that I imagine us from an aerial perspective. I wonder, who else does this?

This is a unique intimacy, our families sleeping arrangement - as it is with all families and their personal culture. I think this is true. Perhaps it is only a justification, romanticising what is in reality a neurotic inability to set boundaries for God's sake! Perhaps it is laziness or perhaps I really do believe that this way of co-sleeping is better for my kids, for all of us. Somehow, after 14 years of it, I have stopped wondering. This is just us.