My Kids Don’t Sleep. Neither Did I.

I’m doing everything right. I promise, it’s not me. …Is it me?

This piece originally appeared in the parenting Substack The Pomegranate.

It’s 7 p.m. I’m jamming my two-year-old’s plump feet into the leg holes of his pajamas while he sings an unhinged remix of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” His teeth have been brushed (by me) and his splayed toothbrush bristles vigorously chewed (by him). I zip the pajamas up and he cackles with delight, waving his dinosaur-face feet off the edge of the changing table.

It’s 7:30 p.m. We’re reading We’re Going on a Bear Hunt for the third time. I come to the end, once again, flip past the family squashed beneath the pink comforter — “we’re not going on a bear hunt again” — and turn to the final, wordless page. “And the bear goes home to his cave,” I say, as I always do. My toddler kisses the bear, as he always does. I start to put the book down, to say “all done” and he wails.

“No more books,” I say. “We’re going to sleep. I’ll rock you.”

He won’t lie down in my arms, will only consent to sit upright, clutching his stuffed Tigger. His snowflake blanket, a spur-of-the-moment Aldi find last winter which has become his inseparable bed cover, is draped around his legs. He fusses with it, getting it just so. I wrap my…