Post #25: A Bed for Cooper

Dear FinallyNana readers,

Thank you for coming to my blog to read my 25th post, which I began composing way before the coronavirus became an expansive and worrisome development throughout the United States. As with my prior posts, I tend to write with humorous introspections, which continue to be my tone despite the levity of the frightening COVID-19 pandemic. As I publish this post amidst uncertain times and worldwide concern, I am not oblivious to the increasing anxiety of the situation. But I hope you will appreciate my blog as a welcome diversion from the current upsetting news and extraordinary circumstances.

With that reflective preface, I begin …

From what I often heard from my daughter Stacy, and what I indeed observed when we were all together, my grandson Cooper was never an easy sleeper, from infancy going forward. And by the time he was a toddler, Cooper was very difficult to put to bed for the night, whether he had an active day or took a nap at some point. Just when you were fairly certain, perhaps around 8 o’clock, that slumber would be overcoming him, Cooper would perk up with a second wind of boundless energy even though his parents would be nodding off before him. And by the time Cooper could pull himself up to stand in his crib, he often woke in the night, crying continuously from his upright position, until he was rescued from his isolation and allowed to resume blissful sleep in his parents’ bed. His predilection for sleeping perpendicular to his parents, creating the dreaded human “H” formation, was not a good recipe for a restful ménage à trois.

I realized that dad Jason often worked late hours as head chef at a busy restaurant, and he was actually glad to spend time with infant Cooper after work so was not overly bothered by the late bedtime. But when everyone finally went to sleep, both parents did not particularly appreciate slumber interruptus. Despite diaper changes and bottle refills, and assuring that Cooper was not otherwise suffering from some inexplicable issue, his sleep-deprived parents were reluctant to wait out the excruciating pleas loudly resonating in their small house in an attempt to let their hopelessly inconsolable son eventually cry himself back to sleep.

So what might Nana have been thinking about all this? I admit that I wanted to say to Stacy loud and clear, “You need to get your kid on a schedule!” And I probably did say something like that in slightly less disapproving terms such that I wouldn’t be alienating my daughter forever with subsequent loss of all grandmother-ing privileges.

I had sort of learned my lesson when I visited them in Fiji when Cooper was only four months old. I observed that Cooper was still sleeping in his parents’ room in a bedside bassinet, even though they had a perfectly lovely crib set up in Cooper’s own bedroom decked out with all the usual colorful decor and toys of babyhood.

Baby Cooper and mom Stacy in Cooper's bedroom, only used for a playroom with crib full of framed art, waiting to be hung on the walls

“So if the baby’s right next to you all night long,” I had told Stacy, “you’re going to wake up unnecessarily with every peep. If he’s further away in his own crib, he may whimper and soothe himself back to sleep without your even hearing him. A win-win for all of you.”

I was just trying to give some motherly advice from an assumed voice of experience. In our small first family home in Wellesley, Massachusetts, our 1970’s master bedroom was isolated on a second floor from the children’s bedrooms on the main floor. After the first month of bedside bassinet, which facilitated my late night newborn nursing, I had successively installed my babies in their own rooms in a charming yellow Jenny Lind crib and adorably coordinated bedding, most of which would probably not be considered safe in today’s cribs (nor the crib either with its slide-down side panel).

Okay for 1975: Infant Stacy in her crib with bumpers and blankets

Baby Stacy with Mom Beryl in Stacy's bedroom with Jenny Lind crib (1976)

I assured Stacy that when the crying was loud enough, I woke up to attend to my infants’ needs. I was sure my postpartum brain was selectively wired to wake to the important infant ministrations. And to further illustrate, I reminded Stacy that her father, being an orthopaedic surgery resident during those years, was on call every other night. Jesse often took bedside phone calls which sent him back to the hospital and home again in the middle of the night, most of which I was rarely aware as I maintained my necessary mother’s sleep. And on the other side of the coin, or bed, Jesse never heard our infants or roused to attend to them.

I certainly wasn’t suggesting that Stacy, a busy working mom herself, be the only parent to attend to Cooper’s middle-of-the-night demands. But I did think that both Jason’s and Stacy’s sleep might greatly benefit from some nighttime infant isolation.

So Stacy accepted my well-intended advice, and moved Cooper into his crib in his own separate room. But first-time father Jason did not take the separation very well. He wrote on their kitchen dry board of significant events, “Cooper moved out. Empty nest begins.” And Stacy even reported to me that despondent Jason even climbed into Cooper’s crib with him at some point. I have no idea how he fit in there.

I went home after a couple weeks, so I really didn’t know if my crib-moving advice was even temporarily successful. But I am pretty sure I got my first tag by Jason as meddling mother-in-law.

So that’s why I was somewhat reticent to offer more advice when toddler Cooper was sleeping most nights in his parents’ bed rather than his crib. At my house our two kids had always slept in their own cribs or beds in their rooms, and generally napped and went to bed on a schedule reasonable for all of us.

Stacy seemed to need a nap until about three years old, and her demonstrated exhaustion, day or night, was often punctuated with a cranky exclamation of “I’m not tired!” To my exasperation Benjy gave up his nap at about two years old, but actively exhausted himself enough all day to go soundly to sleep at 7 pm and sleep continuously until 7 am. So you see, I was used to a schedule for my children, and perhaps just lucky that they obliged.

But of course, Nana couldn’t resist giving some advice to my sleep-deprived daughter and son-in-law, who even slept separately at times in a spare bedroom for space and sanity as growing toddler Cooper dominated their marital bed.

“Cooper is probably too big for the crib now,” I said, when Cooper was past two years old. “He may be ready for his own bed.” That came from my experience with our son Benjy who, around two and one-half years old, began crying out at night to get out of his crib or just climbed out of it by himself and came into our bedroom, worrying us for his safety. Jesse suggested that Benjy needed a big boy bed. That sort of solved the problem. With his ability to easily exit his own bed, several nights a week Benjy independently left his room and joined us in our queen-size bed, arriving rather silently with his favorite blue baby blanket Noonie and a surprisingly large selection of stuffed animals.

This went on for a few years. I suppose I didn’t deter Benjy’s behavior because our sleep was not particularly disturbed, just the space in the bed for the three of us. So I probably know what you are thinking. I wasn’t the most rigid mother either when it came to children’s sleep habits. Basically, we parents mostly adapt to what our kids throw at us.

Anyway, when I suggested to his parents that Cooper might need a big-boy bed, I didn’t mean just any bed. I had already been highly impressed by the beautiful pieces of furniture that Jason had creatively constructed from driftwood and other components, including a daybed, table, chair, storage cabinet and standing chalk board for Cooper.

Cooper resting on the daybed that daddy Jason built, on porch with table and chalk board, also constructed by Jason

Cabinet built completely by Jason

And I saw that Cooper was greatly enamored with vehicles, always ambulating his world with fistfuls of miniature cars and airplanes, and listening intently for the motor rumbles of trucks and buses on the roads and helicopters and planes in the sky.

Cooper often carries a toy vehicle with him, here holding airplane on play gym.

Cooper loves every kind of vehicle, playing in basement of Nana & Papa's house

“Jason should build a bed for Cooper,” I suggested, “in the shape of a car or airplane. He certainly would want to sleep in that.” I certainly repeated that multiple times over several months. Until, Jason began the bed project. And what a bed it was, a fire truck bed, or what Cooper had been calling for quite a while, “wheee...ooo!” Because that’s the sound that fire trucks make. It was not some do-it-yourself kit from IKEA or Amazon vendors. Jason completely made a twin-size fire truck bed from scratch in their yard, with basic wood materials, painted fire engine red, and adorned with all the fire truck bells & whistles, tires, lights & horn. Honk, honk, wheeeoooo! I could not imagine where in Fiji had Jason managed to locate all the specialty parts to adorn the fire truck bed. But he did. Just check out the photos.

How Jason started building Cooper's new bed

Daddy Jason building Cooper's fire truck bed

Cooper's new fire truck bed, built by his dad

The bed was fantastic! But problem number one, the frame was too big to be maneuvered indoors and into Cooper’s bedroom. However, the problem was only minor for handy Jason, who managed to cut the truck in half and put it back together inside the room. Of course, Cooper loved his new fire truck bed. And everyone who saw it or its photos was amazed (adults) or envious (kids).

As the bed had reached its completion, Stacy found bedding with fire truck designs on Amazon and ordered them to my house, for us to bring to them in Fiji. And I have bought Fireman Cooper successively-sized fireman designed pajamas, raincoats and boots to don with his fireman’s hat.

Fireman Cooper by his fire truck bed

The fire truck bed is the center of kids’ activities when there are parties at their house. And often needs repairs, post parties, by its original creator.

But would Cooper sleep in it? A very good question, and essentially problem number two. At first Cooper was so excited to be playing fireman in his new fire truck bed at night that he was too involved to fall asleep. At this point, the fire truck bed has been a fixture in Cooper’s room more than a year, and he certainly loves it. But I am not sure to this day that Cooper regularly sleeps in his bed at night.

So I suppose my bed-for-Cooper suggestion did not fully have its intended result. But if Cooper wouldn’t sleep at night in his fire truck bed, I suggested that his parents should swap beds with him all together. I joked that fireman romance could be very hot. I’m not sure they wanted to hear that from Nana, but I said it to them anyway.