What do you sleep with?

While making my son’s bed this morning I took a moment to marvel at all the stuff he sleeps with. Holy Moly! At the risk of being cliché, I’m surprised he can actually fit in there. There are the standard pillows, of course (he insists on three). There is the giant dinosaur pillow. A small square blanket. The toys – both the cuddly and non-cuddly variety. A bottle. A sipper cup. Two books. And a tennis ball. 

Now, as far as I know, it is standard for toddlers to fill their beds with things. But it got me thinking, what about adults?

I, for one, have a list of items I take to bed with me that is not particularly short. It starts with the husband, obviously, unless he’s in the dog house. Then there are the standard pillows. The cushions. A wheat pack. A book. A glass of water. Some Gaviscon. And I am on the hunt for a maternity pillow to shoulder the weight of my growing abdomen.

But my list is not stagnant. It grows and changes with the stages of my life (and the size of my belly). When I was younger and my parents went away for the weekend, I used to sleep with a bottle of Windex beside the bed, intended for spraying any potential intruders in the face. (Digression: I reasoned that a cricket bat or knife could be used against me, but what intruder would think of using windex as a weapon? Genius, right?). In the early part of my first pregnancy, I used to take dry crackers and ginger ale to bed ready to eat in the morning to stave off morning sickness (Spoiler alert: it didn’t work). When my son was a newborn, I used to sleep with (don’t judge) a can of diet coke on the bedside table that I would swig upon waking in the wee hours of the night before running to my crying child. During the same period I used to take a small hand- towel for (warning: almost certainly TMI) drying my leaky breast-milk during the night.

But, without giving away too many peoples secrets, I know I am not alone in my strange bedfellows. A good friend of mine takes a hot water bottle to bed every night no matter the weather, a habit that (when intoxicated) has subjected her to two, very painful leg burns with permanent scarring.

An ex-boyfriend of mine used to wear a mouth-guard to bed to stop him grinding his teeth.

My husband takes earplugs, an i-pod, and a pad of paper, for writing things down that he remembers during the night.

My Mum takes an eerie ability to wake up immediately at the slightest noise, or answer the phone on the first ring (yet, strangely she will often miss her ringing phone during the daylight hours).

My Dad takes the responsibility of being the grumpy person in the household, a task he takes very seriously.

And lets not even get started on some of the things new couples or singles take to bed with them…

So, as it turns out, perhaps my toddler isn’t as unusual as I thought?  Perhaps he is just preparing himself for all the strange habits he is sure to develop as he grows? Perhaps, sleeping with a giant, plastic dinosaur head (with actual, sharp teeth), isn’t crazy when you compare it to sleeping with windex and a hand-towel?

What do you think? Do you take odd things to bed?