Zzzzzz, an update on the sleep issue & the Prental bed issue

When I was pregnant with the Princess, amongst other myths I felt I had to believe in, was the one of never sharing the parental bed with your child. Stupidly (or maybe just stars in the eyes), I proclaimed that our bed is our bed, and not to be shared. With her it actually mostly worked out - she has always loved sleeping in her own bed and in her own room and must be one of the world's best sleepers. Even now, when she is sick and I want her close to us, she prefers to sleep on the mattress we keep in the room, rather that between us. But some times, it is her biggest comfort - like the night before her operation when she snuggly slept between us.

Que in the arrival of the twins. For the first few months, it actually went fine. When sickness struck, I (at first reluctantly) gave up our parental bed and shared it with them. Later followed sleep training and they mostly slept in their own beds. Or we slept in the extra bed in their room. Now, with them having big boy beds, and L's sleep issues, things are rather changed. A few weeks ago when we had 3 sick kids we just abandoned the parental bed - we let all 3 the kids sleep in our bed and we slept on the double bed mattress that lives below our bed. For that period of time it was actually a life sleep saving plan. Through the Princess and my time in the Berg, Hunter and the boys shared the parental bed and the next two nights we moved them to the mattress and us back into our bed. And eventually last week, them back to their beds. Since than, sleep has been rather scarce again - C seem to wake every night and then wakes up L. But the last two nights C has slept though in his own bed and L comes to our bed, to get in and quickly fall asleep again. In fact, he even moves to the mattress so we are (possibly) moving on.

Last night was a horror night though - the ones I describe as epic sleep failures - but due to our second, more specific sleep issue. Regular readers might remember me telling about how Little man L wakes up and then can not go back to sleep for anything between 1 to 4 hours. It is exhausting, Last night was one of those. But we have only had 3 of those in the last month - compared to about 3 a week before, it must be positive.

A while ago the sport teacher at the Boys' school told me that her 16 year old son also have SID and that he describes that, up to today, he wakes in the middle of the night, his mind racing and body aching. It immediately made sense to me that this is what he is experiencing. We wriggles around (body sore?) and speaks and talks about his day (mind racing?). Her son first slept through at age 6.

The weighted blanket we bought at great cost does not seem to be our answer as it is for a lot of SID kids. So I resorted to SID forums and the rest and the word "Melatonin" kept popping up. It has also been suggested by US bloggers but all the pharmacists I talked to did not want to try it on a 2 year old (which is when I last enquired about it). So I called our pediatrician. who asked me for a day to research and called me back the next day, giving me the go ahead on 1mg per night. And it has made a difference - not that he sleeps through - he still wakes up every nioght and crawls into our bed, but that he does not stay awake for hours (barring the 3 odd nights in between). So despite the tough night last night, I remain positive that we are heading for better sleep times. It just better get a lot better soon.

So do you share your bed? Do you believe in the parental bed?