Sleep Issues

I am pretty much an open book. There are not many things that I think are inappropriate to share. But there is one thing that I would never talk about in mixed company. I have committed one of the worst parenting sins. I lay down with my kids before bed every night AND they sleep in my bed every weekend. There – I said it. I used to lie about it. Especially when my children were babies. For some reason moms measure their worth as a parent on how well and where their kids sleep. I have failed this test from day one. My oldest daughter would not sleep at all unless she was laying on my chest. It became a means of survival. This child was a horrible sleeper. Never napped longer than an hour. Wanted to be up all night. All the other moms would talk about their baby sleeping through the night and I'd be like - “Well, I haven't slept more than an hour in 8 months.....” At one point we figured out that she would fall asleep in the car so we would give her a bath in the evening and my husband and I would just drive around for half an hour until she fell asleep. We were desperate. We tried “crying it out” when she was 9 months old and I remember sitting outside the door and listening to her scream. After 5 minutes my husband was like, “We can't do this.” “Don't give in – she will fall asleep.” Then 20 minutes went by and I gave up. I will never forget walking into the room and my little bald baby with tears streaming down her face looking at me like I betrayed her. In that moment I completely surrendered. My youngest was easy to get to sleep but she still does not sleep through the night on most nights. I can count on hearing her little feet pitter pat into our room and climb into bed with us. Both of my kids sleep walk. Sometimes they will walk into my closet and try to use the restroom on the floor. Sometimes they just stand in the hallway like creepy children from The Ring. They just have sleeping issues. I never made a big deal out of their terrible sleeping. I make sure they go to bed early and just tell myself that this will pass. I am confident that my kids won't ask me to lay with them before bed when they are 16. They won't come home from college and want to sleep in my bed with me. So for now, I lay with them before bed. It is my favorite part of the day. I take turns with the girls. We lay in bed and talk for 20 minutes. We joke, we talk about the day. This is the time that the kids ask me serious questions or tell me about things that are bothering them. We talk about the places we want to visit and upcoming events. There are no distractions and we have each others full attention. We snuggle. I love it. I know that at the end of my life I will not regret all the time I spent laying with my kids before bed. I treasure our conversations and all the mornings I have woken up next to them. I don't care if I win the bad mom award.