“Nnngh . . .” Twilight groaned into her covers. How long had she been turning in bed? An hour? Several hours? The whole night!?
 
She had expected some sleeplessness after coming home from the hospital with Dawn a few days ago, but this was ridiculous. After spending the whole day taking care of her newborn, weathering the bouts of crying, and tending to royal duties that couldn’t be pushed aside, she felt sure she would pass out the moment she laid down. Yet here she was, groggy, sore, and struggling in her half-asleep state to get anything resembling rest.
 
Heaving another sigh under her breath Twilight tossed from her back to her side, semi- conscious enough to carefully avoid jostling her sleeping husband Stygian. At least, she assumed he was sleeping. He didn’t give her any signs otherwise, but she knew from his dark, puffy circles from the past few mornings that he was struggling too.
 
Sliding a hoof under her pillow, she poofed it up so as to better cradle her head and drew the blanket up and over her shoulder. Her matted hair hanging over her face was a slight nuisance, but she was too tired to fix it. Instead, she concentrated on drawing in slow, deep breaths.
 
Inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale.
 
Within a minute or two Twilight began to feel the effects. Her anxiety over her sleeplessness faded from her mind, and her new position felt immensely more comfortable than the previous one. She found it hard to focus on her breathing now, and could sense her consciousness slipping into the dark, cozy void that-
 
 
whimper
 
 
Twilight’s ear twitched at the sound, forcing her out of her sleepy haze. She internally sighed.
 
“Don’t tell me . . .”
 
 
hic . . . hic wwwaaaahh hic wwwwaaaAAAHHHH! hic
 
 
“ . . . Of course.”
 
 
Twilight squinted her eyes, trying to adjust to the dark, when she suddenly felt the bed lurch and the pony beside her bolt upright.
 
“DAWN! TWILGHT!? DOES- IS SHE-”
 
“-she’s alright Stygian, don’t worry,” she said calmly, rising up as well and placing a comforting hoof on the stallion’s tense shoulder. “Dawn is fine, she’s only crying. Just go back to sleep, I’ll take care of it.”
 
Twilight’s soothing assurance calmed Stygian’s nerves. After a few deep breaths, he said, “ok then, if you’re sure. But if you need me just wake me up, ok?”
 
“O - yawn - K.”
 
As Stygian hesitantly laid back down, Twilight chuckled quietly to herself at the irony of the situation. Before Dawn’s birth Twilight was the “bundle-of-nerves” parent who obsessed over every detail and panicked about the “what if”s. Meanwhile Stygian was calm, level headed, and quick to reassure her that “no the baby wouldn’t cause an empire wide panic like Flurry did” and “yes she is more than prepared to be a mother”.
 
But now that Dawn was finally here, it was her husband who seemed the most on edge and was quick to assume the worst any time he couldn’t get Dawn to stop crying for three minutes. Twilight felt the opposite. She felt calmer and more in control than she had during the pregnancy, often taking charge in comforting both her child and frazzled husband.
 
“I guess it’s because I‘m more prepared than him” she thought, glancing at the checklist beside her bed that she couldn’t quite make out in the dark. Oh yeah, she was prepared alright. Picking up the pad with her magic, she could barely see the words by the light of her horn.
 
 
Night Crying To Do List  
By Twilight Sparkle (edited by mother)
 
Step 1: Check her physical state. If she’s in her bed crying (ei; not on the floor or struggling to cry/breathe) then she is mostly likely ok. Also check the bed for anything that could cause her to cry.
 
 
Twilight rubbed her eyes, ridding them of what sleepiness was left, before shoving off her warm, cozy covers and embracing the cold castle air. Slipping her back hooves into her slippers, she trotted the few feet over to Dawn’s crib, the checklist still levitating beside her in the dark.
 
Lighting her horn up just a bit, Twilight looked down inside to see Dawn squirming from side to side as she cried and hiccuped. There was nothing in the bed beside her little fleece blanket and owl plushie that resembled owlicious (courtesy of pinkie pie at her foal shower).
 
“Shhhh it’s ok Dawn, it’s ok. Mommy’s here,” she whispered softly, levitating Dawn into her forelegs. She felt no bumps, bruises, or cuts, causing her apprehension to dissipate. Teleporting a quill from her desk, she checked off the first box and moved on to the next item.
 
 
Step 2: Check her diaper. 6 out of 10 times, foals cry due to a midnight potty break. Change her, rock her a bit until she stops crying, and put her back to bed.
 
 
After both looking, smelling, and feeling both sides of Dawn’s star-patterned diaper, Twilight found nothing and concluded this wasn’t the problem.
 
“Well the good news is Dawn that you don’t need to lay out on the cold changing table!” Twilight cooed, rubbing small circles on her daughter’s fuzzy tummy. Apparently this wasn’t good news to Dawn as she continued to cry just as loudly as before.
 
Twilight frowned, and turning back to her checklist, she sighed. “Alright, what else can I do?”
 
 
Step 3: Check to see if she is hungry. This is self explanatory. Aftwards, rock her a bit and burp her before putting her back to bed.
 
 
The alicorn set right to work, confident this was the issue. After all, she had read that a good deal of wake up calls were for motherly midnight meals, so chances were this was one of them. Quietly, she moved over to the floor pillow beside their bedroom window and sitatuted herself to feed Dawn. She then levitated both Dawn’s blankie and her own throw blanket and wrapped them each around their respective owner.
 
But no matter what she did to feed her, Dawn wasn’t interested in the food provided. She instead cried harder now that she wasn’t in her mother’s embrace. Twilight felt a twinge of panic run through her. Despite her best efforts not to jump to the worst conclusions, she was now running out of options. She quickly scooped up and cradled Dawn to her chest, which caused Dawn to quiet down a bit. Not that Twilight noticed, as she was too busy looking at the next step.
 
 
Step 4: Check her temperature. Make sure she’s not running a fever and if she is, give her a dose of the vial in the left dresser drawer. That should lower the fever until the morning. Stay with her a bit to make sure it takes effect and then put her back to bed.
 
 
Twilight’s pupils dilated. “Maybe that’s it, she’s sick! But she’s only a week old!?”
 
The thought spiked her anxiety to the point where she was about to reflexively call out for Stygian. But another second passed and she thought better of it. Instead, she wasted no time in teleporting a foal thermometer in front of her and applying it to her still wailing foal.
 
She held her breath as she watched the red liquid rise within the tube that Dawn protested be removed from her ear. When the line stopped at the average temperature for a newborn, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. She gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, grateful her child was ok and that she didn’t rouse her husband over nothing.
 
However, Dawn still continued to cry, albeit it wasn’t as strong as before.
 
She shook her head. “Why is she still crying? What else could it be? Did I miss a step!?”
 
Twilight swiftly pulled back the window curtain causing the room to fill with cool blue light from the full moon. She glanced over at Stygian, and seeing the light hadn’t woken him, she turned to her floating notepad to scrutinize it more closely. The new light didn’t reveal any hidden details or scribbled notes. She hadn’t missed a single step either, save for the very last one:
 
 
Step 5: If she’s not running a fever, hungry, hurt, or needs a diaper change, chances are she’s just upset and needs comforting. Rock her, sing to her, and comfort her until she falls asleep again.
 
(mother’s note: try signing the lullaby I used to sing to you, Shinning, and spike.)
 
 
Twilight blinked.
 
Sing a lullaby? Rock her to sleep? Why hadn’t she thought of that before!? But what was the lullaby mother used to sing?
 
Twilight thought back to childhood. Whenever Spike got an upset stomach, her mother used to rock the baby dragon in her arms, with Twilight anxiously at her side, while she sang the family lullaby to comfort him. Despite the fogginess of her mind now, the words and melody came back to her as if she had heard them sung yesterday.
 
Clearing her throat, the alicorn began to hum and softly sing the lullaby as she swayed side to side.
 
La, la, lu, La, la , lu  
Oh, my little star sweeper  
I’ll sweep the stardust for you.
 
La, la, lu, La, la, lu  
Little soft fluffy sweeper  
Here comes a shooting star for you.
 
La, la, lu, La, la, lu  
Little spell caster  
Lay down your horn, close your eyes.
 
La, la, lu, La, la, lu  
And may love be your keeper  
La, la, lu, La, la, lu, La, la, lu.
 
Once she finished signing the lyrics, she continued to softly hum the tune. But already Dawn was down to a few hiccups and whimpers. By the time she had hummed through it again, Dawn was slowly breathing, snuggled deep within her blankie, and drifting off to sleep.
 
She wasn’t the only one affected by the lullaby though, as a loud, nasally snore from Stygian told Twilight. Even Twilight herself felt calmed by her own singing, and she felt sure the moment her head hit the pillow she’d be out like her family.
 
“Heh, it’s funny what a simple lullaby can do.”
 
. . .
 
“OH! Of course!”
 
Twilight would have face palmed if she had any free hooves. Of course Dawn only needed a comforting song and snuggle to lull her back to sleep! It was so obvious to her now that Twilight felt a bit embarrassed she hadn’t realised it sooner. Trying that before all the feeding and temperature taking would have saved her a lot of worthless panicking.
 
She looked down at the notepad on the floor and chuckled. She was prepared alright- a little too prepared. She let the list cloud her motherly instincts. The steps helped some, no doubt, but they were meant to be a help, not a hindrance. Ah well.
 
Twilight sighed wearily, before turning to smile at Dawn. “I have a lot more to learn about being a mother,” she thought.
 
“And you’re going to teach me every step of the way, won’t you, my little Dawny.”
 
 

 

 
This here is a part of a birthday gift for my dear friend Celestial-Rainstorm, featuring her version of Twilight and her nextgen daughter, Dawn Star.
 
 
The idea for the piece came to me after watching “The Lady and the Tramp” a few months back. In the classic movie, the mom sings a beautiful lullaby that when I heard it I immediately thought of Twilight. After all, Dawn is her little “star”, and the sparkle family are all star/lunar related so it made sense for this to be their family lullaby passed down. Of course, I did change some of the lyrics to make it more ‘star / unicorn’ related, so I don’t know if that makes it a parody? It’s still mostly word for word, so idk.
 
 
Of the three fics, this one was by far the easiest to write; it’s short, sweet, and simple. I do love writing Twilight, as she’s my second favorite of the mane six. I never liked how the later seasons portray her as being perfect and calm all the time- she loses the dorky “overthinker/over-planner” part of her personality that I love so much. I feel like if anypony is going to over do it to the point of having a checklist for her child crying it’s going to be Twilight.
 
 
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it! Feel free to give Celestial-Rainstorm some birthday love as well as check out the rest of her amazing art and characters!