For three weeks my daughter Mia repeated the same unusual sentence every night before going to sleep.
“Mom… my bed feels too tight.”
At first I assumed it was simply one of those odd expressions children use when they cannot properly describe discomfort. Mia was eight, full of imagination, and occasionally a little dramatic when bedtime approached.
“What do you mean tight?” I asked one evening while pulling the blanket up around her.
She shrugged.
“It just feels like something is squeezing it.”
I pressed my hand into the mattress.
It felt perfectly normal.
“You’re probably growing,” I said. “Beds can feel smaller when you get taller.”
She didn’t seem convinced.
That night she woke close to midnight and walked quietly into my room.
“My bed is tight again.”
I went in to inspect it. The mattress, the frame, the sheets—everything appeared completely ordinary.
When I told my husband Eric, he laughed.
“She just doesn’t want to sleep alone.”
But Mia continued insisting.
Every night.
“It feels tight.”
After a week I decided to replace the mattress entirely, thinking perhaps the springs inside were damaged.
