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When the Honeymoon Suite Turns Into an All-Night Hospitality Suite

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Dear Vicki: My husband and I have not slept alone for an entire night in eight years. When my two kids were babies, I read all the books about getting them to sleep alone through the night, and I thought I had the problem licked. Nowhere in the books did it mention that this lesson didn’t last throughout childhood.

Not only am I embarrassed that I haven’t managed to get the upper hand with my kids, but my husband and I feel really inhibited about sex, since we never know when someone is going to come in and surprise us.

The problem has gotten so bad that I dread having friends and relatives visit for fear they will learn that my husband and I have no real intimacy--at least not like we had before we became parents.

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Am I a wimp? Am I scarring my kids’ psyches for life? Will my marriage survive this unromantic lifestyle?

--MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE

Dear Monkey: The only thing married couples lie about more than the frequency of their sex is the sleep habits of their kids. Even those moms and dads who embraced the “family bed” concept for their infants and toddlers are reluctant to admit that they have children who know long division sharing their bed with them.

OK, I’m going to come out of the closet here in the interest of getting more parents to admit that they haven’t slept in the nude since the second trimester of their first pregnancy. The Iovine parents’ bed during the wee hours is like a hospitality suite at a Shriner’s convention.

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Our youngest falls asleep in our bed--then she is moved to her own once her adenoidal breathing begins. Our sons arrive together sometime after midnight, usually with an explanation like, “I’m just walking him in to talk to you because he had a nightmare.” Then, my husband returns them to their beds (it’s his job because they are both too heavy for me to carry, or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). By 5 a.m., our other daughter comes in to announce that she’s awake and ready for breakfast. We quickly invite her into our bed because, at that point, we’d rather sleep like sardines than get up and make her a Pop Tart while it’s still dark outside.

Trust me, all four of these perfect little people were successfully “Ferberized” (you moms know what that means) by 9 months of age. I really believed that the 16 days of migraines I endured while they wept and screamed before learning to put themselves back to sleep would pay dividends for a lifetime. . . . Not!

As soon as they were old enough to climb over the crib side, they were standing there beside my bed at all hours devoted to slumber. Here’s the bottom line: Unless you and your mate are willing to get up and walk your kids back to their own little bunks every single time they drop by unannounced, you are doomed to a curtailed sex life and getting elbowed in the head several times a night.

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With each developmental stage your kids go through, there will be new reasons for them to prefer your bed to theirs. Toddlers just like to wander at will. Preschoolers have separation anxiety. Six- and 7-year-olds will have nightmares. And older kids will know that “Conan O’Brien” is on Mom and Dad’s bedroom TV shortly after midnight.

I really can’t tell you if your marriage will survive several years of the two of you sleeping dressed like firemen, ready for any emergency, since I still haven’t come out of this tunnel. Let’s just agree to be optimistic.

I can tell you, however, that as difficult as it is to get up and enforce the one-man-one-bed rule, it definitely pays off in a better night’s sleep for everyone concerned.

The other thing I know to be true is that there is no age short of puberty when it’s easier to teach a child to stay out of your bed. An 8-year-old is going to be as traumatized as a toddler, so it doesn’t pay to put off the inevitable.

If it’s any comfort to you, I don’t know many parents who are any further along on this learning curve than you and I. In the meantime, rather than beat ourselves up, let’s just remember how warm and safe it can feel to have “all the chicks in one nest” every once in a while. Treasure the memories--then boot them out!

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Vicki Iovine is the author of the “Girlfriends’ Guide,” a columnist for Child magazine and parenting correspondent for NBC’s “Later Today.” Write to her at Girlfriends, Southern California Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A., CA 90053; e-mail GrlfrndsVI@aol.com.

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