My 4 year old daughter’s been having trouble sleeping lately. Her name’s Carol. Carol’s used to sleeping with her blankie and only a few days ago has she lost it. For the past few days, she’s been pestering me about it: having tantrums both day and night, constantly asking for me to find it. I’ve tried giving her every blanket we have and she rejects all of them.
I get it, children need to feel protected at night. So, as a responsible mother, I went out to buy an identical blanket. Obviously, I didn’t tell Carol that, I just added the familiar ketchup stain on it to make it seem more real.
Weirdly though, her type of blankie wasn’t being sold at any store. I can’t remember where I bought it but I expected it to be easy to find as I’ve never bought from anywhere that I considered sketchy or overly priced. But I needed it desperately. I couldn’t take her coming into my room at 2 in the morning anymore to ask if I found it yet.
It was a distant corner shop on the other side of town that sold it. I found it lying on a dusty shelf at the back of the store. As shady as it was, I reminded myself that I so needed it. While checking out, I noticed how scrawny the store owner was. Her arms seemed to just be bone wrapped in a thin layer of pale skin. While I was handing the overly expensive $10 to her, a cold air seemed to come off her. I instantly retracted my hand, and power walked out the store with blankie in hand.
I slept uninterrupted that night. Carol, might I say, was fantastic. I didn’t even have to wake her up! When I entered her room the following morning, she was already up and hugging blankie. She hopped out of her bed with never-before-seen excitement. I would never normally start the day with this, but I asked her if she wanted to get ice-cream. She ran downstairs and waited by the door.
This did seem like a miracle, to be honest. Normally with the blankie that she used to have, she would be fussy and tired in the mornings when I woke her up. She would also ask to sleep with me every other day. But now 3 days have passed since I got her the new blankie, and every morning has started the same: lively and energetic. I couldn’t be happier for her.
A few months ago, I installed a baby cam. I just wanted to make sure my baby was sleeping fine at night. I would look at the baby cam in the morning to check that. I decided to check for the past few days, as I haven’t checked in probably the past 2 weeks. I wanted to see how she’s been sleeping recently with her blankie, especially with her acting so well.
I opened up the history of my baby cam, and was intrigued to see how she was on the first day. When I put her to bed, she cuddled her blankie, as expected. Uhm..? She seems to be mumbling to it. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, and I’ve also never seen her doing this to her old blankie before. After about 2 minutes of me watching, occasionally skipping forwards, she appeared to drift off into sleep.
I shrugged it off, thinking it was probably her just talking to it. I’ve read some bits about imaginary friends and how to support young children with them. I clicked on the second day. I put her to bed, blah blah, and the lights are off. Ok, she’s pulling it close… Huh? Ok, she’s sitting up now, and looking down at her blankie. Instead of mumbling, she seems to be whispering, or talking at a low enough volume. I still can’t hear her. This is starting to creep me out a little. She dislikes bedtime, but normally, as soon as I tuck her in bed, she curls up and seems to drift off within a minute. This time, it seemed like 10 minutes of her constant quiet chatter, and then she seemed to close her eyes, sleeping whilst sitting.
I was honestly frightened to see what she did the night before. I didn’t want to believe my daughter was having trouble sleeping fast because of a blankie, and surely a child psychiatrist wasn’t needed. I clicked, hesitantly, on the third day. Lights off. She hugs her blankie, similar to how she’s been doing for every other previous day. I clasped my mouth as I saw her leap out of bed. She placed herself on the carpet, with her arms outstretched in front of her, holding blankie. This time, I could hear everything she was saying.
“I know you’re not real blankie. But you’re so much better! I love love love love you, new blankie!”
Just as I thought that was the end of it, she looked right into the camera and said:
“Thank you mommy!”
She leapt back into bed, lights still off, and curled into her signature sleep position. And just as I was about to click off, I saw her old blankie, ripped into 10 long strips of fabric, stuffed beneath her pillow.