A Night That Didn’t Need Fixing

— Reflections on family, emotion, and quiet growth.

A small everyday moment as a mother shops with her child at the supermarket – illustration by Moriteck.

When a regular sleep rhythm had finally settled in,
I thought I could rest again.

That night, however, he woke up in the middle of the night and refused to fall back asleep.
I had already been struggling with insomnia for two consecutive nights, and my body and emotions were close to their limit.

I tried to soothe him.
After more than ten minutes, nothing worked.

I asked, “Shall we read a book?”

He immediately said yes.

I turned on the light and opened a book.
As we read together, something became clear to me:
my frustration was not caused by his waking up, but by my own lack of sleep.

Since waking was unavoidable, and I wasn’t actually sleepy,
why resist the moment at all?

Reading a bedtime story is one of the most meaningful ways parents can build a strong emotional bond with their children.

In that instant, I stopped fighting the night.
I stopped trying to make him fall asleep.

Instead, I allowed myself to be present.

We read, played, listened to music, and spoke English together.
After more than an hour, he grew genuinely tired and said,
“Mom, let’s sleep.”

He fell asleep almost immediately.
Not long after, I did too—tired, but quietly content.

I remember thinking:
perhaps we could wake up a little later tomorrow,
and start the day more slowly.

The next day, we were both in surprisingly good spirits.
There was no headache, no heaviness—just enough energy to return to daily life.

I realized that I had grown.

This was something my child brought to me,
and something I had slowly learned for myself.

He does have brave moments.

The slide, for example.

Now he climbs the stairs and slides down smoothly, joyfully, again and again.

But in the beginning, he was afraid.

He wanted to try — and yet he was afraid.

So every adult who took him to the playground did the same patient choreography: first holding him all the way down, then supporting him from the side, then waiting at the bottom with open arms.

Gradually, he took over the whole process himself.

He didn’t leap into it like some children do. He needed time. He needed repetition. He needed reassurance.

But eventually, he found his own rhythm with it. And he found joy.

For me, that is enough.