Confessions of a Bad Mom

Fischer has a hard time sleeping through the night. He always has. We've had long phases of good sleeping but many sleepless months. We are having a sleepless YEAR in 2008. He has always gone to bed well - without a fuss and has always napped well- without protest. However, he is really inconsistent with sleeping completely through the night. We are tapped out of ideas.
We've experimented with bedtimes, routines and food.
We've comforted him with songs, cuddles, milk and stories.
We've rocked him.
We've tried to settle him with little to no attention.
We've waited increasingly longer amounts of time before going in.
We've let him cry it out.
We've put him in our bed. (This is what we are doing now because we are ssooooooooo tired.)
We have tried all of these things and so many more - a million times.
Now, we are just getting used to it. We know that he'll go to sleep fairly quickly and we can get a few hours of sleep before he wakes up and the juggling begins.

SO, when he decided a few days ago to put up a fight about going to bed - THERE was absolutely NO WAY we could take it. After a week of having to go back into his room a hundred times to settle him down, fix his blankets, find his binky, adjust his music, give him a drink, give him a toy, sing a song, say another prayer, get him a tissue, turn his fishies on, check his diaper... I had to put an end to it.

He yelled and cried for all of the above along with "Mommy open door", "Daddy, where are you?", "Mommy, come! Mommy, come RIGHT NOW!" etc etc. All the while jiggling the plastic knob that covers his doorknob and finally was able to get out. He walked into my room (I had to hide my face to keep from smiling - because I was a little proud that he outsmarted the plastic doorknob). He asked me to "put blankets on" - which means he wants me to lay him down, and carefully lay each of FIVE special blankets over him. But, I'd already done that six times tonight!
So I said, "NO. You need to go back in your room, get in your bed, and put your own blankets on."

He stared at me.

So, I looked away because, I really just wanted to pull him into my bed and let him cuddle with me.

Then he walked out, went into his room, closed the door, got into his bed and went to SLEEP! Not a peep after that.

I should be celebrating! I won! But, instead I feel so sad and guilty and strange that he wanted me and I refused him, and he had to make himself feel better. I feel really bad. Part of me wants to wake him up and hold him - but that is just weird and a little sick...so, I won't. Plus I'll get to hold him in a few hours when he wakes in the middle of the night, anyway!

This whole motherhood thing is INDESCRIBABLE! Every scenario comes with a million feelings and most of the time they contradict each other! Right now I should be proud of him for listening, following directions, self-soothing, and being independent. Instead, I'm ready to confess to Bad Mothers Anonymous.