My deepest bond with my son in the first years: Potecting him at bedtime.

Napping with me during by cervical back issues for 6 weeks when he was 3

The single most touching moments in my time with Shaw for me is reading him to sleep. I can feel the deepest primeveil pull from him wanting me to be close. I lie on his full sized mattress on the floor of his room with him. He clutches me sometimes. I think he knows on a root level that he's vulnerable in our house. he can't open doors or windows. He wants me close.  Shaw is not a fool. Nor are most babies and toddlers. They know they are small, weak, and vulnerable.  Given the choice, I believe they would usually prefer to fall asleep near an adult. Now some kids are ok with cribs in other rooms, maybe not crying at all as long as when they awake some parent responds. 

However, personally, my deepest bonding with Shaw is bedtime. I read to him from the 70 or so library books my wife keeps circulating in our house, until he falls asleep. He knows I'll leave and he'll either wake up around 3am and go into the big family bed with momma and baby (I'm in the guest room a lot with the nursing baby in the bed). Or he'll wake up in his room and find us. But I swear I can feel the pull of millions of years when we were within feet of our kids to protect them from predatores. Shaw's in another room now, but I still mostly fall asleep with him while he's in a bed on the floor that he can get up from, and we always leave the door open so we can hear him and he can walk to us.

The progression towards sleep after reading, when he was about 2 years old.