I don’t. And I don’t mean my 16-year-old, either. I mean my younger kids, ages 7 and 5. I don’t know where they are in the middle of the night. But it doesn’t worry me the slightest bit, either. Bad parenting? No…I don’t think so. I just know how my kids are.

See, my boys are just the craziest sleepers. Neither one of them is very skilled at remaining on his mattress for an entire night. They roll all over the place, sometimes ending up in really odd places by morning. I have gone in to wake them and found both boys on the same mattress, for example. Or, I have gone in and found one of them curled up on the floor next to the closet or next to one of the mattresses. Sometimes one of them will even be laying on the floor in such a position that they are blocking the door–I have to nudge them awake before I can even open the door! I never know just where the boys will be laying when I go in to wake them in the morning, and there have been many times when I have wished I had my camera with me because their positions are rather amusing.

Damien (the 7-year-old) is a little better at staying on his mattress than Xander (our 5-year-old), but really, both of them would need to be tied down if we wanted to keep them on their mattresses. And that wouldn’t be a very good idea…it would pretty much guarantee nighttime accidents, don’t you think? Not to mention, tying the boys to their mattresses is something I would consider to be abusive. So, that just isn’t an option at all.

What do we do, then? Well, you may have noticed me using the word “mattress” instead of the word “bed.” There’s a very good reason for that. Our boys don’t have beds–they have mattresses on the floor. Some parents may be recoiling in horror at the very thought of this; some parents may think it borders on abusive to make children sleep on mattresses on the floor instead of providing beds. But trust me–my husband and I weighed the pros and cons of this issue, and this is the best solution for our boys. After all, if we got them beds, they would be falling out of the beds constantly! Sure, we could get side rails for the beds; however, our boys are very rough-and-tumble. Side rails wouldn’t last very long, I’m afraid, since their shared bedroom is also their playroom. So, for now, mattresses on the floor is the best solution.

But you know what? The boys actually like this arrangement! They often pile up the mattresses to give themselves more play space. Or sometimes they arrange them vertically to build a fort. So, whenever the topic of “are the boys ready for beds yet” comes up, Damien and Xander have been quick to tell us that they don’t want beds!

With parenting, I tend to follow the theory of “whatever works.” And having mattresses on the floor instead of beds for the boys definitely fits under that theory. It keeps our boys safe at night, for one thing–after all, I would rather them roll all around the room in their sleep than fall out of bed several times a night! And, the boys are happy with the situation. While it may not work for your family, it certainly works for ours. And that’s all that counts for me right now!

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