Last night, I decided it was time to move Target Baby into a bed other than ours. Those of you in shock, please understand that we are a somewhat co sleeping family and Target Baby had some serious life threatening issues as an infant that required him to be in our room. Target Boy slept with us for awhile, but was definitely out before he was Target Baby's current 16 months. Target Man is fine with the boys in our room. He loves when they are snugly and now that they aren't infants he misses his snuggle time. So when Target Boy wakes up in the middle of the night, Target Man just brings him to our room. Well, for me, its time for a break. I would like to sleep without little feet on my back or a head slamming into mine for at least a few months.
A Sunday morning, after I got out of bed to take a shower.
So last night, I put Target Baby to sleep on the other side of Target Boy's twin bed. They are both so tiny, they love to cuddle, and Target Baby has never slept by himself so I figured it might be better to just put him in the same bed as Target Boy. After probably an hour of screaming with me beside him he finally went to sleep (This really didn't interfere with Target Boy's sleep, because he has now started a new "I'm terrified of the dark and my bedroom in general" thing). Well, it lasted until about 3:30 in the morning, after about 4 times of waking up (totally normal for him), Target Man finally just brought him into our room. At some point, Target Boy ended up with us too, but I don't remember that. He was just there when I woke up.
I actually felt that it went better than expected. Today, though for nap time, I am having second thoughts about the sharing a bed thing, and concerns about sharing a bedroom (though I'm determined to make it work).
So for all of you mothers of more than one child out there, how do you handle sharing a room at bed and nap times? Also, anyone else have a 16 month old that has never slept through the night? Target Baby wakes up an average of 4-6 times a night screaming? Any thoughts?
3 comments:
Aspen had "night terrors" from about 18mths and still a few every now and again now, but she was never in our bed, so I would give her 2-3 mins. to calm herself down(the doctor said they usually are still in a sleep state during it) if not I would go in and help calm her down. . .but that usually meant just giving her a binky(does he have a security object)--we are such a binky family.
I always have just started with the bassinet beside the bed, so that way they are in the room but not in the bed and all naps are usually in the crib so they are use to sleeping in there also.
Target Baby would never take a pacifier. He is now just barely getting attached to a Llama "Leroy". Target Boy has "night terrors" still, but with Target Baby its different. I think it still may be reflux issues. But as an update. They both slept in Target Boy's room all night! I fell asleep in there for about an hour and then this morning, went back in cause Target Boy tried to get up at 6, which is really not acceptable in our house. But, amazingly, Target Baby only woke up once (definatly reflux coughing) and put himself back to sleep!
Do they have to share a room? Maybe a large closet to put Baby in just for naps, in a playpen? Maybe Boy will nap on a sofa. I've never had that problem, cause I've never had more than one kid nap at a time. They quit by age 2. Well, sometimes K does the 5 o'clock special, but that's on the sofa. S quit her naps right when K was born, and I remember the feeling the day I realized that there would always be SOMEONE awake - that I'd never have alone time again!
K and S share a room now, starting when K was 2 1/4 and S was 4. I was nervous how it would work out, but there was surprisingly little trouble. They rarely wake each other up, even if one is crying with a bad dream. But that's older than your two are.
Good luck on getting a real night's sleep! I don't know how you have survived so long.
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