In his travel cot beside our bed, my son was staring into the same halogen dark as me.
Eyes wide, pupils dilated, hearts racing.
Neither of us was getting any sleep.
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Or how often you have sex.
Or how much you pay in taxes.
It invites a tsunami of imagined judgement to crash against your tenderest places.
But, you see, I was just too scared.
When I was pregnant, a good friend of mine was working at a hospital as a paediatric radiographer.
Her job, like all paediatric radiographers, often involved performing x-rays on babies that had died.
Of course I asked her about it; I couldnt help myself.
But even that put a quite literal fear of death into me.
According to The Lullaby Trust, around133 babies die each yearin the UK in co-sleeping situations.
But it should be said that the majority of these are not planned co-sleeping situations.
It is also worth pointing out that for some parents, co-sleeping isnt a choice.
They might not have the space or means to put their baby in a separate room.
They might have a disability that dictates where and how they sleep.
They might have a baby with a disability that does the same.
And so, eventually, I changed my approach.
After years of clear, flat, separate sleeping spaces, I let him in.
In truth, I now love sleeping with my son in our bed.
I even love climbing the short ladder to sleep on his single bunk bed.
I sleep terribly, of course.
I suspect he does too.
If I have another baby, Im not sure how well sleep.
Id like to think that Ill do it safely and sanely.
But what I really hope is that Ill just get more sleep.
