Mummy, Don't

I am extremely soft-hearted when it comes to Riley. I don’t think twice about her sharing our bed when she wants to, lying down with her if she needs company to go to sleep, reading her a story when I’m trying to get work done or cuddling her through a tantrum. It’s not always convenient, somtimes it’s even boring (I challenge you to sit in a dark room for over an hour and not get at least a little bored) and it can be tiring. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And every now and then something happens that just breaks your heart in a good way.

I have been encouraging Riley to go to sleep on her own. She had been happily going to sleep on her own, but we had a bit of a disruption with our trip and she had been needing me to either sit in the room with her or lie down next to her. So my routine goes something like this. I hug and kiss her goodnight and put her into bed. She gets out of bed and slaps the door. I go back in, put her back into bed and give her another hug and a kiss. Repeat until either she’s tired enough that she’ll go to sleep or if she gets upset I’ll stay in with her. It’s unpredictable, sometimes she’ll go to sleep straight away, sometimes she just can’t. But things are slowly returning to normal.

Tonight we were doing this night time dance and I had gone in for about the third (or fourth) time. I walked into the room and there she was standing there, in the dark with only the night light on. She reached both her hands up, ‘Mummy’. She doesn’t say ‘mummy’ that often, so it’s pretty heart-melting at the best of times. I pick her up and we have a really long cuddle, with her head resting on my shoulder. After a while, I put her back into bed. As I stand up, she looks up at me with those big saucer eyes of hers, reaches out both of her hands, ‘Mummy, Don’t’. No one could resist that. No one. And who would want to?

Needless to say, Mummy didn’t.

Tagged as: parenting to sleep, sleep, talking, toddler