Under the Bed!

Since the past one month, my son Abhay has regressed back into co-sleeping with us instead of sleeping all by himself in his room and I have no clue what to do!  It all began when he fell sick with a viral infection a month ago and it was just more convenient to have him in the same room so that we could periodically check his temperature. Once recovered, my six year refused to move out! No matter how many eviction notices we’ve served, he hasnt  budged!:-) No matter how much we try to glorify the idea of sleeping on one’s own bed, he just doesn’t buy it! It’s not the dark that he is afraid of but he just prefers the comfort and warmth of snuggling up to his parents at night  as opposed to lying all by himself on his big boy bed. Well, at times when we challenge him to it, he succumbs and makes an half hearted attempt to fall asleep in his room with the night light on, only to tiptoe back into our room in the dead of the night!

So in order to help him to overcome his fears, if any, I read “Under the Bed” by Paul Bright and Ben Cort, which is a story of a little boy but might as well as have been a story of your little one. A little boy is asleep all by himself on his bed under which there are few interesting and not-so-interesting things – pieces of jigsaw puzzle, purple pants, apple core and his smelly shoe. Not only that, there appears to be much more! Under the bed there are bugs, beasts nibbling crumbs, but not to worry as they seem too busy to think of the boy or your little one whom you’re reading this to. Under the bed there is also a dragon dozing, a pizza-eating alligator, a grizzly bear who can’t stop scratching himself, a strange looking creature with warts on his nose and knots on his tail or any such imaginary monster your little one complains of, but all of them seem too busy with themselves to bother the sleeping boy. But it turns out that all those creatures under the bed are suddenly scared out of their wits as they have seen something frightening on the bed! So out of the room flee the dragon, the alligator, the grizzly bear, bugs and beasts and every other imaginary monster for the frightening thing on the bed is ….. the boy  alias your little one! Abhay scoffed at kids who are petrified of the imaginary monsters under the bed and was sure not to have any lurking under his own! Pleased….I tucked him in and kissed him good night hoping he’ll stay there the entire night only to find him sleeping soundly next to me as I woke up in the morning! :-)