Do you remember how your parents put you to bed?

[Haydies]

I have two memories. I spent a lot (like, a LOT) of time with my Grandmother, to who I felt was more a mother figure than my mum. So I have two memories.

I always started the night off in my own bed, but where I ended up depended on which house I was at.

Grandma: Tucked into bed with a kiss and cuddle, right up until as long as I can remember - probably early teens. No problems being able to come in if needed. And I vividely remember getting up in the mornings until Humphrey came on, which told me it was 9am, and going bolting down to grandma's room to crawl into bed for our morning cuddle.

Mum on the other hand, not so much. I usually said goodnight where ever she was, usually watching TV and took myself off to bed. I remember one night of a lightening/thunder storm when I was little where I was allowed to crawl into her bed (with a sigh mind you), but I wasn't allowed to touch or cuddle up to her as she needed her sleep.

Any nightmares/scary nights when I was with my mum would just leave me with my head under the doona and praying to go back to sleep. Or wishing I could go in there with her... or worse, I remember a few times wishing I had someone else as a mum that would make everything ok.

My mum was such a safe place for me, very important because I didn't have a dad to protect me.

That actually brought a bit of a tear to my eye - that's the perfect wording for how I hope all of my kids feel with me (and DH). My mum was single nearly my whole childhood, but I would never have described her as you have yours.

I crawled into bed with my dad on the morning of my wedding, just laying in his arm and talking about how precious that day was and him telling me how proud he is to have me as his daughter.

Aaaaand there go the tears. That's such an awesome thing and I am very jealous.

[~clover~]

I just remembered that when my sister was having trouble sleeping mum would sit on her bed & my sister would pinch her arm. For some reason that relaxed & settled her.
I remember car trips where mum would spend half the trip with her arm between the seats so my sister could pinch her to sleep! She didn't hurt, just soft pinching over & over til she was settled or sleeping.

[paradise lost]

Bjrose you just described EXACTLY what DD does to the tail of her bedtimelamb toy! In fact he's getting so worn out i'm going to have to make him an all-in-one so he doesn't fall apart, but i'm gonna leave a hole for his tail so she can do it

Bx

[~clover~]

Its wierd the things some kids do.

[meow]

Wow- thanks for sharing. I love reading everyone's memories- it's helps me ponder my own parenting and the memories I want to create

I was just talking to my H on the weekend and I remembered something else. My parent's told me that you had to be in bed with your eyes closed when the sandman came by to put sleep in your eyes (similar to santa on christmas night). I was a very gullible child and I don't think they realised how much so. From this I believed that you couldn't sleep without sleep in your eyes so if I woke in the middle of the night with big bits of sleep sticking into my eyes and being uncomfortable I would be too worried to brush it out because the sandman had already been and I wouldn't get a second chance! But then the darn stuff would keep me awake