Ode to Amby

My son has been crying for the last hour or so (I use the term “so” loosely). Not consistently—I’m not heartless—but enough that I am contemplating adding a shot of tequila to my corn flakes. He doesn’t like his crib, and I can’t blame him.

For the last few months he has been sleeping in a lovely cocoon-like sack suspended from a spring, which is attached to a metal stand. It’s called the Amby bed and it’s a miracle. We bought one on the recommendation of some fellow parents who sang its praises and rightfully so. His typical night of sleep is 11 hours. Unfortunately the bed has a 25 pound weight limit—one he is rapidly approaching. So we have begun the daunting task of getting him to like his crib, which in comparison probably seems like a sprawling, 20-acre theme park.

I knew we would face resistance. It’s so comfy-looking that people who see the bed ask if it’s available in adult sizes (it’s not, we checked). We’ve toyed with the idea of making a bigger version of it ourselves. All we’d need to do is hang a sturdy spring from the ceiling, suspend a sack from the spring, and my son would be able to continue his blissful slumber well into his teen years. But it might be awkward when he brings girls over. Like hey, how come you sleep in a cocoon?

And what if he got so used to it he wanted to build a double bed version of it and his wife wasn’t into that? Not everyone wants to sleep suspended from the ceiling. Having sex might prove awkward. I mean, what if it fell on the floor in the midst of all that bouncing? Then his future wife would surely call me a bad mother for creating a man-butterfly.

People have started to voice their concern over my son’s affinity for the Amby bed. One of our friends—a fellow mother—recently said, “Oh God, is he really still sleeping in that sack?” Like we have him suspended from a rusty nail in the basement in an old potato sack! My mother worries about the lumbar support; I do, too (the sack sinks down in the middle quite a bit).

So into the crib he’s gone. Screaming. Kicking his legs (in the Amby bed, when he kicks, the suspended sack shakes him gently back to sleep; in the crib, he just makes the mattress thunder). Nothing works: not singing, the pacifier, the mobile, rubbing his forehead.

Nothing.

Which is why, after almost two hours of crying, whimpering, and making the mattress shake he is peacefully asleep in the Amby bed. I moved him. And the house is wonderfully quiet. For now.