DEAR AMY: My husband and I have a four-year-old son, and I am pregnant with our second child, due in two months.
Lately our son has been leaving his room and crawling into bed with us.
He has done this periodically for the past year, but now it is almost every night.
I have been taking him back to his room, but I am physically pretty uncomfortable getting in and out of bed.
I’m wondering what you think we should do.
– Losing Sleep
DEAR LOSING SLEEP: Leaving their own bed and climbing in with a parent is a fairly common occurrence for children at this age. Sometimes, they don’t even seem quite awake as their homing device leads them to a parent’s bed.
Your son is also experiencing your pregnancy as a child will – with a combination of anxiety and excitement. You can expect him to possibly regress a bit before and after his sibling’s birth.
The most obvious answer is for your husband to take on this nightly task as a way to provide some closeness and comfort for your son while he puts him back to bed.
Otherwise you can do what many parents have done and make a “nest” in your room for him, with a sleeping bag and pillow.
Continue to put him to bed in his own bed, and if he wanders in at night, tell him that mom and dad need their good night’s sleep and if he wants to, he can either go back to his room, or curl up in his nest until morning.
Also use these last weeks of your pregnancy to snuggle in with some extra closeness with your son. Don’t go overboard with “You’re a big boy now,” but adjust to his needs, answer his questions about your pregnancy, understand that he might be anxious, and offer him lots of reassurance and love.
(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)
