My furry toddlers
Coral, the robber of blissful slumber
Years ago, when my daughter was little, I remember thinking that one day she would be an adult and then I would be able to sleep in on the weekends.
She’s all grown up, and yet my husband and I still find ourselves awakened, usually in the pre-dawn hours, every Saturday and Sunday. That’s because we have four-legged toddlers now.
And? They are never going to grow up.
This past Saturday morning, I was awakend just before 5 a.m. by Coral’s wet nose in my face. I rubbed her ears for a few minutes and told her to go back to her bed. She didn’t move. I peeled my eyes open to see that our other greyhound, Melissa, had taken over Cora’s preferred bed, leaving Melissa’s usual sleeping spot as the only one open.
And that bed, despite the fact it’s a memory foam orthopedic mattress on top of another fluffy pillow, is apparently not acceptable to Coral.
Trying to cause as little disruption as possible — thus hoping to get back to sleep — I made the mistake many parents make when awakened by a resltess child: I invited Coral to hop into bed with my husband and me.
So 65 pounds of long legs and lean muscle mass snuggles right in between Phil and myself. I closed my eyes and tried to resume my much-needed slumber.
Within 10 minutes, the sprawl began, as Coral’s back leaned into Phil, pushing him to the edge of the bed. He tried to push back, but a sprawling greyhound is pretty close to an immovable object.
Within 15 minutes, I realized Coral would need to have her toenails clipped later that day as her front paw was wedged pretty firmly in my ear.
By 5:30 a.m., Melissa became uncomfortable in Coral’s bean-bag bed and got up to re-fluff it. For 10 minutes, this dog waltzed on that rustling pillow like she was auditioning for “Dancing with the Stars.”
“Melissa!”, I mumbled, “For crying out loud, lay down!” And she did…finally…with a loud whine.
Coral, still not content with the amount of landscape she had claimed on a queen-size mattress that already held two chubby humans, deposited one of her hind legs squarely in my back, thus giving her the leverage to push Phil just a little more toward his edge of the bed.
Minutes later, when I heard the familiar sound of our cat Thai’s paws scaping at our closed bedroom door, I gave up.
Well, at least we can sleep in on vacations, I told myself as I sipped my coffee at 6 a.m.
March 6, 2013 - 12:46 PM
Molly is only 10 lbs. but she seems to think that she only “allows” me to share the bed with her (full size bed). She likes to snuggle for awhile and then the legs start pushing like I am invading her space on one side of the bed.
You know its bad when you are sleeping on one little slab on the edge of the mattress while she is sprawled accross the rest. She snores also so we don’t get to do much sleeping in either.
I can totally relate! My husband and I share our queen-size bed with two 10lb Shih Tzus, Chester (5mos) who usually sleeps at or on my head and Max (2yrs) who sleeps either on my feet or between us, snuggling into backs or sides or behind knees. Talk about being afraid to move during the night!
And the snoring! (well, actually, that’s my husband….)
I know exactly what you mean. Simone likes to be a bed hog! All 50 plus pounds taking up as much as she can while I get a forth (if that!) of the bed. The couch is out of the question. If I’m laying down on it, she lays on the floor next to it until I decide to move. Apparently she likes to sleep there at night now. And they say dogs are dumb! Ha!
Our biggest challenge – “co-sleeping” with our 20 pound Boston Terrier – is covers. She loves to cuddle under the covers, but she doesn’t regulate temperature well, apparently. So every 1-2 hours, she crawls out from under the covers to lay on top of the bed. When she gets cold there, she crawls back under the covers – pulling them down the bed with her. By the time my husband wakes up, he’s lucky to still have the sheet up to his knees! I wonder how you train a dog to “dress in layers”…
We have the same morning issues with our cat Daisy. I spend many a weekend mornings being woken up. If she is cold, I have to get her under the covers, if she is hungry I have to try to get her to hold off just a little bit longer. All of this involves a lot of bouncing across the bed, using my husband and myself as a trampoline and very loud purring. We had to start raising our blinds so she could see outside because she was so loud trying to get her head behind them. If she gets really fed up with us staying in bed she will go into the closet and start knocking things down and going thru bags, whatever makes the most noise. And then when we finally give up and get up, she looks at us with the sweetest face that says, Mom, Dad, I’m sooo happy you are up! Now fed me!
I should mention that once my husband and I are up, and Thai points out all the water dishes that need to be topped off in the house, the dogs all curl up on the couches and chairs and take their early morning naps.
The early morning naps are usually followed by mid-morning naps, which gets them ready for their afternoon naps.
One of my cats used to jump up on my dresser and start meowing loudly to get me up. If that didn’t work, she’d start pushing things around on the dresser. If I still refused to get up, she would open the drawer on my jewelry box that holds my rings, would pick them out one by one with her paw, and drop them on the dresser, looking defiantly at me the whole time. That usually worked…
#6 Nona, I know the feeling on the naps, ha ha. For my dog, I mean (more ha ha…). Someone once told me that based on my indulgence of our dog, I’d be a horrible parent. I informed them that when we raised our kids I held my children to standards, but that I treat our pets like royalty. My only rule about bedtime is: non-humans do not get under the covers. On top of the covers, with legs flexed against the small of my back seems to be the default position. When they’ve passed on to doggie heaven, I’ll miss the lack of sleep and be glad I spoiled them (without consequence to others) when I had the opportunity.
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The things we do for (the) love (of our pets).
Try a 100 lb. boxer mix. At the end of a long hard day nothing gives me greater pleasure to climb into bed, have my baby hop into bed, snuggle into me and off to slumberland we go. I’ve never slept better or felt safer. God bless our furry toddlers.
I am pretty fortunate. My 12lb dog Ziggy (min pin/chihuahua mix) will come to bed when I do, sleep like the dead (he doesn’t move at all and I did have to put my hand on him once to see if he was actually breathing) and doesn’t emerge from the deep cave of covers at the end of the bed, until I do. The only advantage he has? He goes back to bed five minutes after breakfast, while I grumble getting ready for work.
I freakin love this blog! I totally hear ya on the long legs and attempting to share the bed. I totally sympathize with morning nap, afternoon nap, evening nap, and most of the night nap. What I wouldn’t give to be a retired rescued grey!
My 60-pound mutt is only allowed on the bed first thing in the morning, which is nice because I get a good morning kiss, but not so nice because he snuggles up and makes it harder to get out of bed.
I’m the spoiled one and not my dog because my attitude is that my sleep is more important than her sleep so she is not in the bed. She’s pretty spoiled in every other way so I don’t feel too bad for her lack of human bed time! Besides, like others mentioned above my dog gets to nap during the day. How I would love to be able to do that at work!