Attachment Parenting: Nighttime Parenting Sick Children

We’ve been sick again.  You knew that.  But I’ve been meaning to get a picture of our “sick bed” when it’s relatively cleaned up.  And today, at the end of this latest round of sickness I did.

I’ve written before how we handle the stomach virus with lots of little ones – Round 1 and Round 2.  This would be the “how we make it through the night” addendum.

I have a queen size mattress that I keep standing on its side in our walk-in closet.  Yes, I do.  When everybody starts getting sick (even if it’s the middle of the night) I go to the closet, drag out the mattress, sheets, and lots of towels.  I lay it in the middle of the living room floor and set up camp.  This allows me to be close to all the sick ones at once: I now have room for the Baby to sleep on my arm, one child next to me on the other side, one child across the bottom of the mattress, and one child on each couch if need be.  This is the end of the sickness up there, so the sheets that were draped across the couches are washed and put away now.  And I so kindly removed the trash cans from the room as well.  You’re welcome.

With the mattress in the living room I can let my husband sleep through the night (I explain why I do this inRound 2 of the Stomach Virus), I can listen better for children that may be in their beds and newly getting sick in the night, I can turn on lights easily, be closer to the washing machine (yes, even in the middle of the night), fit more children near me and monitor them all more closely.

I leave it out in the middle of the day most of the time.  It allows us to keep the kids in place to get the rest they need while still letting them be apart of our daily goings on, instead off in their room alone.  If I only have one child sick and need the floor space I put the bed away and let the sick child rest on the sheet covered couch.

And yes, sadly I had my best friend sleep on this “harbinger of death” when she came to visit last time!  But I promise I spray it all down with Lysol and I gave her clean sheets!!

So, that’s it.  That’s how we handle sickness with lots of kiddos in our house.  How do you do it?