For Christmas one year, my husband and I bought our then 2-year-old son a Nugget Couch. It was amazing, and more comfortable than our mattress. Wait, was our mattress really that bad?
I was pregnant and had thought it needed replacing (after all, it was over 10 years old), but the play couch pushed us to make a mattress purchase, which, on some days, I think we rushed into without considering some important things.
We chose a queen mattress, the same size as the one we were replacing. At the time, the king seemed like a luxury we didn’t need. And we certainly didn’t need to spend the extra money, either. Now, I see things differently.
Adding a second child changed the dynamics in our bed
When it came time to shop for our new mattress, my husband casually mentioned upgrading our queen bed to a king, but I had little interest, and we never discussed it much past that.
I’ve always felt like king-sized beds were too spacious. At hotels, they required scooting over to reach the center of the bed. Who wants to do that?
We went with the queen, and things were fine for a while. After all, when just one child toddles into our room and climbs into bed, there are cuddles and coziness. However, when two children wind up in our bed, there are feet in each other’s faces, and everyone winds up a bit uncomfortable, especially now that they’re 4 and 6.
Sometimes a child will wind up lying sideways. Once, I might have suggested that someone sleep at the end of the bed, where one might picture a dog or cat (neither of which we own). The extra space a king-sized mattress would provide sure would come in handy now.
We play games on our bed
My husband started a game with our kids where he pretends that our blanket is a “hungry house” that will eat up and envelop them. The kids also love it when we pretend they’re airplanes and toss them into the bed, where they squirm like rollie-pollies. These activities take up a lot of space, and having more room to roll around and play would be a plus.
Once in a blue moon, our kids will decide to bring all their stuffed animals into the bed and make a suffie mountain, or play hide-and-seek under the covers. Then there are the nights when our daughter climbs into our bed and announces herself with a doorbell sound. I cherish these silly moments of connection and know they won’t last forever, so I want to encourage them as much as possible now.
Courtesy of Anne James
I feel like I missed our chance to upgrade to a king-size bed
Now, four years later, I question why I didn’t consider my husband’s suggestion to upgrade to a king-size bed seriously. As an item that’s only replaced every 10 years or so, and with a higher price tag, it’s a big decision.
It seems too late to change mattress sizes now since we’d need both a new bed frame and mattress, and it doesn’t make sense to replace ours, which works perfectly fine.
At some point, our kids will stop crawling into our bed. By the time we’ll need a new mattress again, I likely won’t feel the same desire or need for a king-size bed. But if I chose again with younger kids, I’d get a king.
