Daddee Yah!

It’s not too surprising that Asian parents let their children sleep in the same room as them; with the cot or the small toddler-sized bed in the room. Not surprising cos we all do it

Since Caleb’s arrival, and since we are unsure about our medium-term plans, we have not invested in re-arrangements of rooms and sleeping plans; or even continued looking for places to buy – Caleb had simply taken over Caitlin’s bed turned (back) into a cot, and Caitlin started sleeping in our bed with us- between us! We have a super-king-sized bed so it’s actually not that crowded.

Obviously this isn’t the ideal nor near-term solution, so we had to do the hard thing of starting Caitlin to sleep by herself in the other room (harder for me!)- there is another double bed there from my previous life

The other main reason is also that our room is air-conditioned. We’ve found that it is that that’s causing Caitlin’s recurring and persistent coughs; and if you’ve been reading here lots, you’d know that when she gets into a coughing fit, puking is usually “followed through”. It’s never a friendly household when there’s puke on our super king sized bed.

And honestly, since she’s started sleeping there, her coughs are few and far between.

So, being so attached to me has its big downside. It’s been just over a month now that Caitlin’s been sleeping there at nights. Most nights she’s been waking in the middle of the night asking for me, on the real pretext of needing to pee. Sometimes she’d also wake from screaming, requiring some Daddee comforts to go back to sleep. When there happen it’s somewhat laborious- we insist she locks her room, and we lock ours too (we have the key to her room). So she’d have to knock and wake us when she does this.

“Good nights” are when she is dead tired from the days’ activities; either we were out doing something physically active, and/or that she’d missed her daytime naps and just knocks off into deep sleep quickly.

Lately, we’ve been coaching her to make her own toilet breaks. A main “obstacle” from before was that she wasn’t tall enough to reach the toilet light switch. This week I’d noted that she is just tall enough now, with the aid of a step-stool. I made a positive hoo-ha about it, and so far she seemed quite proud of that ability.

From a personal Daddee perspective, this is a bittersweet milestone. Hot Mummee is keen for them to quickly be independent, whilst I am one to indulge in their natural stages of growth. I don’t/didn’t look forward to Caitlin’s flailing limbs smacking me/us in the middle of my sleep, but I sought comfort from her being next to me, from a parent’s perspective as well as knowing she is okay, safe, and that she feels the same too.

Yes, Caleb is now sleeping in the cot in our room. So far, as far as I can tell, there is no jealousy from his jie-jie. We’ve been advocating that this is a grown(ing) up thing to go through.