Ugh. Sometimes I exhaust myself with my constant need for change.
Don’t get all psychoanalytical on me, but I have a hard time keeping things the same for longer than 6 months. We’re constantly moving furniture around, reorganizing closets, making up new little systems for how we do things around the house. Of course when I say “we”, I totally mean “me” because it drives my husband bananas.
The boys have a long, sordid history of sleep issues, which are catalogued here on the blog quite extensively. My apologies to those of you who have read these posts and knew exactly what I should do to make things better. I’m sure you’ve rolled your eyes, chuckled to yourself, and thought “One of these days, she’ll get it.”
I’m not sure I’ll ever “get it,” but I think we’ve at least made some major progress around here.
To review:
- Both boys have co-slept with us from an early age, either in a bassinet/crib in our room, or in our bed.
- At some point around age 1, we let them cry to learn to self-soothe and get them sleeping in their own beds and in their own rooms.
- Ultimately, for the last year and a half or so, they’ve been going to sleep in their shared room but coming to our room, into our bed, every single night.
I made sure they could see each other from their beds in their new, separate bedrooms
They’re getting bigger and much less fun to sleep alongside, so we knew drastic measures were in order. After a few nights of blockading our door and enduring tantrums from both boys, Miles is doing most fabulously, dutifully sleeping in his bed all night until around 6:30am or so, sometimes later. Spencer continues to wake around 3am but with very little prompting, goes back to sleep on the living room loveseat for the rest of the night.
My biggest hesitation in moving them out of their shared room is that the 3rd bedroom downstairs is their playroom. I love having a playroom with all of their toys in it, but in the end, I am sacrificing the playroom for everyone’s sanity and better sleep. I divided up most of their toys, so each boy’s room has some big and small toys, and the train table and two other large play sets (a restaurant and a tool bench) are now up in the bonus room. The bonus room is big enough to be part playroom and part guest room when needed.
I’m sure I’m having a harder time with separating them than they are. I think they’ll like having their own rooms, bigger beds soon, and getting a better night’s sleep, but I’m still a little sad. I enjoyed sharing a room with my sister and envisioned a long shared room situation for the boys. Unfortunately, my plans and dreams don’t always mesh well with reality. Obviously this doesn’t have to be a forever situation, if they simply can’t bear to be apart, we can always move them back. I’m sure I’ll be read for some other change in a few months anyway!
About Krista
Every now and then I let Langley and Gillian sleep together when they ask as a treat– so you can always do that. It’s a fun sometimes thing
Arielle – Yes, I’ve already thrown out the “Ooh, you can have a sleepover sometime!”
Glad someone else moves everyone around all the time too! I went backwards though, I just moved my boys into one room because we have a possibility of moving and my husband will soon work from home so we needed to transform the 3rd bedroom into an office. The boys (1 and almost 4) LOVE it so far… Hoping it stays this way!
I’ve never let the kids sleep in my bed, so we never had much issue with it (they slept in our room, but separate until they were six months old). That said, we have had an INCREDIBLY hard time getting the kids to sleep in different rooms, so we’ve decided to let them share a room until they want to be in different ones. We have a baby gate over their door to keep them from wandering and they both have access to a book they’ve picked that night to leaf through by their tap-light if they can’t get to sleep right away.