A Mommy Story

When it comes to bedtime, we’ve been fairly lucky. As a toddler, Cordy went to bed without complaint each night, happily chattering away to her stuffed animals in her crib until she fell asleep. Even now she rarely protests much.

When she does object to bedtime, it’s usually expressed as some reason why she can’t go to her bed. Now that the switch has been made to daylight savings time, the sun is still up when she goes to bed at 7pm, leading to protests of, “I can’t go to bed – the sun is still awake!”

But really, going to bed is a minor problem. The real problem is keeping her in bed in the middle of the night. Her sleep pattern is very odd – she usually wants to go to bed around 7pm, then wakes around 11pm for a couple of hours. Around 1am she’s snoozing again until 3 or 4am, when she’s awake for another hour or so before dozing off and on until 7am or so.

The second wake-up is often the hardest, as it is close enough to morning that she sometimes wants to be up for the day, and will wander into our room. Cordy then stands right next to the bed and stares at me until I wake up.

Does anyone else have a child stare them awake? Is it not the creepiest thing you’ve ever experienced?

At this point Cordy will tell me “Mommy, it’s a beautiful day!” with her biggest electric smile, as if that will somehow convince me to get out of bed at 4am. When Aaron and I try to explain that it’s still night and she needs to go back to sleep, we can usually expect to hear “But I can’t – my eyes are open!” or “I can’t – I’m afraid of the dark!” She keeps her overhead light on half the night, so it’s not like her room is dark.

Last night I groggily opened my eyes to see her running up to the bed, eyes wide and with a worried expression. I glanced at the clock, and still remember the glowing green light said 4:24 am.

“Mommy, I saw a ghost.”

“Cordy, there are no ghosts. Go back to bed, it’s still too early.”

“I saw a ghost, mommy. I’m scared – can I get in bed with you?”

That was a first. She’s never claimed to see a ghost before. I asked Aaron what he thought. Usually anytime she wants to get into bed with us, it involves a lot of kicking, squirming, and talking to herself. She never goes to sleep. We decided to let her into bed and see what happened.

For the first time, she actually fell asleep in our bed. And I’m not sure if that was better than the squirming and kicking, because while Aaron still had his entire side of the bed, Cordy pushed me to the edge, giving me about two inches of space. And she snored loudly.

At least one of us got some sleep.

Parent Bloggers and Sylvania are collecting stories of your kids’ best excuses to avoid bedtime this weekend. If you share your story, you could win one of two Sylvania light packages!