Couch Time

A while back, the Monster decided he’d rather sleep on the futon in his bedroom instead of the toddler bed… or really any bed.

Where I sit, this isn’t a problem.  I don’t care what he’s sleeping on, as long as he’s getting enough sleep and isn’t putting himself in any real danger.  The wife’s of a slightly different mind, and would rather he use a bed.

Whether it is “normal” to sleep on a couch or in a bed isn’t really something that matters in the grand scheme to me.  And the fact that he likes the futon is a big motivator to me to let him sleep on it, since he’ll actually announce to us that he’s ready to go to bed.  “Time to go to the couch!” he’ll call out sometimes… and he’ll get upset when you tell him it’s time to “go to bed”.  (I’ve actually shifted to telling him that it’s time to go to sleep, to be more generic.)

I have my guesses as to why he likes the futon.  When it’s as it is – set up as a couch – it almost a depression that he’s sleeping in, so it might be exerting pressure on him in ways a flat mattress doesn’t.  That, too, might help with getting him to settle in for the night with fewer problems than a lot of other parents who have children in similar situations.

And this issue really stalls us from discussing, now and again, whether we’re going to get him shifted over to a real bed, given that we have two beds in the basement that probably just need new mattresses.  It would be easy to give him a “real” bedroom with beds and furniture if we could get the futon moved out of there, bought the new mattresses and get him set up.  But he’s very attached to that futon at the moment and I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *