I realized that while I showed the two incredibly uncomfortable options for parents sleeping here (way too short and hard loveseat, longer but very narrow and hard bench), I haven’t yet shown the solution. Here are my sleeping quarters. Every night at 8, when Annie gets her vitals taken, I push the loveseat over to her bed and let down the Ikea foam mattress that Hannah lent me. I added our old featherbed mattress topper from home, so it’s not my mattress at home, but it’s a big step up from the other options here! With the loveseat in between Annie and me, she’s less likely to stay up looking at me and trying to talk to me for hours like she does to Janie back home. The worst aspect of it all, of course, is crawling down in and out of bed, and whenever Annie wakes up and decides she needs to try to use the potty, I have to decide if I’m going to clamber up and take care of it or if we ring for the nurse who may or may not come in time but probably will turn on the lights and fully wake us up.
