Column: Enough sleep despite child? Does not exist!

            

Blissfully sleeping super-kids? All lies!

It took me until I found out the unbelievable: Everything was lying! The dark circles of the mothers with their alleged super-children were not the result of a failed make-up, but had the same origin as mine. At some point, the werewolf broke through in them as well. Then it was wildly beleagured at the little Serafina, who apparently had her first tooth for weeks and did not want to sleep for one night. Big howls also about the otherwise so blissfully slumbering Frederik, who threatened to suffer a heart attack at every look on his cot. No, at that moment I realized with no small amount of satisfaction: Not only was my child a nocturnal alien. All children are aliens when it comes to sleep!

This insight really comforted me at a time when I had already learned to fall asleep standing upright without falling over. And not only that: at that moment, the saying of shared and half suffering was closer to me than ever. This felt solidarity again gave me a certain looseness. Educational counselor on the topic of sleeping, which I enjoyed reading my moonlight rounds, I banished completely from my apartment. I did not get much smarter though. But suddenly I had the certainty that the rhythm would come. That I just have to trust Marlene and me and our relationship. And suddenly it also worked with sleeping.

Falling asleep obstacles: Manatees and Child Raiders

Of course, there were still tons of different sleep obstacles. There was, for example, the phase in which Marlene did not want to fall asleep without first wishing everyone in the apartment a good night's sleep. Or those in which incredibly large manatees under the bed were at work. Not to mention the evil wizard in the closet. And only the child robber, who would sneak into our apartment at night, in the opinion of my daughter, to steal them.

We have always found some amicable way to deal with these difficulties. Against the robbers there was a magic spell that locked the front door. The manatee we put an apple under the bed. And the evil wizard was transformed into a lovable doddle that was too stupid to find his way out of the closet.

"Please, another five minutes!"

Even the phase in which Marlene began at night to tiptoe into my bedroom, to lie down next to me and rob me of sleep with her to-and-fro, we mastered well. We agreed: If she is afraid at night and feels alone, she can come to me – but not in my bed, but on the couch next to it.

But one day that was over too. Since she was five years old, she is the most uncomplicated sleeper there is. And I do not just say that now, because I would like to quote my blissfully sleeping super-kid. No "Please! Five minutes!". But a girl who puts on her pajamas herself, rubs her eyes at 7 pm and yawns: "I'm going to bed now, Mama, I'm tired." Not ten seconds later, and she is sleeping soundly. It's almost scary. But – how could it be otherwise – we have another problem now. No, actually it is the same. Only the time of day has changed. When I wake her up in the morning, I hear the same thing as always in the evening: "Please, five minutes!"

        

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