Discovering your children's combinations

Last night as I settled into bed after tucking the children in, I replayed each child's goodnight in my head. Each was different, and always has been. There are little secrets, little rituals and subtle gestures that unlock their soft and sleepy side. I know this because if we ever skip them, or heaven forbid, suggest they grow out of them and be big boys and girls, all heck will break loose. Also? You lose a little bit of yourself as you let each one fade away.

My oldest has always needed a repetitive routine: hug, pull away, hug, pull away, hug, kiss, kiss, kiss, touch my arm as I smooth his hair and move away. At nine years, the ritual has stuck, and I have never had a hard time getting him to settle down at bedtime when we have the Official Tuck In. In fact, we still do the Tuck In if he will be getting right back up again for a book or to brush his teeth, so I don't have to come back whenever he's done securing his nine-year-old perimeter.

My middle child was the first to sleep with me for an extended period; he was catastrophically ill in the first month of his life, and needed medications for six months after he came home from the NICU. His heart was healing and needed round the clock doses - not to mention the fact that he came home addicted to morphine and I had to wean him from it one milliliter at at time. If I had to line syringes up on the nightstand, I was going to have his right there with me, along with the color-coded clipboard to make sure he got the right amounts of each medication.

Perhaps that's why he's been the easiest to put down at night -- the knowledge that I'm always right there -- or if I'm not, I'll be at his side in a moment if he needs me. Every night I put him in his crib, I pulled each of four little blankets over him, naming each in turn, and finishing with, "Good night, my special, special boy. Will you come see me in the morning when you wake up?" And he would nod, wide-eyed as I spoke, and turn his head as he snuggled down to sleep. He's seven now, and it still works, only now I pretend each layer weighs a metric ton as I heave it over his shoulders and give him an exhausted kiss as he giggles at my efforts. It never fails to slay him.

My youngest, my daughter, broke the family record for co-sleeping, and still tries to wiggle her way into my bed when she can. There is something about my body, about how I smell, that soothes her and triggers the calm before sleep. From the time she was born, she slept facing me, with her face in my side and head snuggled up against the underside of my outstretched arm. We're trying to break her of her thumb sucking habit, but as she puts it, "It's too hard - whenever I smell you or snuggle with you it just pops into my mouth! I can't help it, you smell so good!"

This common element of smell and touch is the key to discovering my children's combinations. All those nights of ritual and closeness have given us a secret handshake, a magic balm that can be applied in almost any situation to re-set ourselves and impart calm.

Boys get hurt while roughhousing? They can run to me for a quick hug and surreptitious whisper and they're good as new. Middle child teasing the youngest? I just need to kneel down in front of him, hold him a minute, and ask him if he'd like to help his sister feel that safe and happy. Not that he doesn't try to kill her again ten minutes later, but it does re-set him so that I can short-circuit the escalation.

I can't believe it took me so long to articulate exactly what the common element was and discover the combinations to each of their locks -- until I noticed it works with grownups, too. Last night, as I sat in a restaurant toward the end of the meal with one child melting into each side of me, I looked across at my boyfriend and smiled.

"What's so funny?"

"I know someone else who loves to sniff my shoulder and snuggle close when he's sleepy."

  -- Melinda Roberts is author of The Mommy Blog

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