Couch comfort needs an upgrade

We’re going to need to upgrade our couch to something more comfortable if this keeps happening.

You know how when we’re sick, even as adults, sometimes we just need the comfort of our parents?

Two weekends ago, Baby Schanz was impacted by some sort of virus and all she wanted was either me or my wife.

(I swear, I’m not trying to write each of these columns about someone in my household being sick. It just seems she chose her first winter as the time to build her immune system — and destroy ours.)

She’d sleep for a few hours during the night, and then sometime between 1 and 4 a.m. she would wake up hysterical.

She would get a bottle, be rocked to sleep only to wake up as soon as she would be put into her crib.

We’d rock her to sleep again — to the point in which she would spit the pacifier out of her mouth because she was practically unconscious — and she’d wake up once again.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

For hours.

Eventually, I’d set up a spot on the couch so I could hold her and have her fall asleep in my arms, since apparently that’s the only thing that made her comfortable enough to sleep.

It happened three out of four nights. This was also during the same stretch of time in which she wasn’t getting good naps throughout the day, which puzzled us as we figured she’d sleep better though the night if she wasn’t getting in her naps.

Wishful thinking, apparently.

The one night she didn’t need to be comforted, she got in a big nap during the day and was able to sleep throughout the night.

Baffling.

For a couple more nights our daughter would wake up during the night, either needing food or a clean diaper, and we’d be able to get her back to sleep.

But the sleep regression and need for comfort returned shortly thereafter.

And we spent two more nights on the couch.

It didn’t matter if we gave her Tylenol to help a virus or ensured she had a clean diaper, she just did not want to be alone.

The contact sleeps are what she wanted most, much to the chagrin of her father.

I took on the duty of sleeping on the couch with her because I know I am able to function better on less sleep than my wife is. Chrissy needs her sleep, whereas over the course of the last two decades I have perfected being able to get by on far less thanks to careers that required late nights followed by early mornings.

I am usually lethargic and in need of copious amounts of caffeine, but I can generally make it work.

However, I don’t sleep well while sitting up — I can’t sleep in airplanes no matter how tired I am. I can’t lie flat with Baby Schanz when we’re on the couch, which in terms of comfort level is nowhere near that of our king-sized bed, so sleeping there is not easy.

And if it’s what my daughter needs to get through the night, it’s a sacrifice I’m going to have to make.

In a seven-day span, I spent five nights on the couch.

I know it’s just temporary, that sleeping on the couch won’t be an everyday thing for her. She’ll grow out of it eventually, despite her mother and I not wanting her to grow up to that point yet.

For the time being, it seems, if I’m going to be spending more nights on the couch than in my bed, I need to find a way to make it more cozy. 

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Chris Schanz is a former CR Sports Editor who is also a sleep-deprived dad. Send sleep tips to [email protected].