two boys, one room: this is how we do it

are you ready? are you ready to learn how two highly skilled parents force two not-so-sleepy, wall-climbing, dirt- (and bathmat-) eating screecher boys to go to SLEEP in one room at approximately the same time each night. well, let's use last night as a for instance...

after clyde cried through dinner because he could see the neighbor kids playing outside from his place at the table, after forfeiting the dollar i promised him if he kept all his couscous off the floor and instead scarfing down the food quickly so he could go play, after playing with the neighbors in the front yard, after taking our nightly family walk, and after ed gave the two filthy, filthy varmints baths (ahh, my 7.5 minutes of sweet, sweet respite!), the bedtime routine commenced.

places, everyone. take your places, please.

i topped off leo in the tv room (perfectly coinciding with the reunited ep i missed last week). ed wrassled clyde into a toothbrushing. they played their quick little game of pre-bed hide 'n' seek. i yelled for ed to keep it down cause leo has to twist, look, and backbend if he hears so much as a closet moth scurry while he's nursing (yes, we still have closet moths—what the hell?). and quite frankly, i couldn't hear my show either. ed read to clyde. leo was too wired up and wouldn't quit backbending. i put him in the swing to fall asleep. ed finished reading and closed the boys' door. clyde came out and said, "mom, i need to tell you something" three or six times. i threatened him the loss of some coveted animal if he didn't stay in his bed. ed moved now-sleeping leo to his crib. they both "slept" in their room until leo woke up crying around 2 a.m. and wanted to sit up in our bed and dive off the sides and not nurse and cry and try to wake up the whole house (well, only clyde was really left) and basically test the bounds of his parents' marital strength.

the night before went similarly except leo didn't wake up. well, at least not first. clyde did. at 2 a.m. with the croup again. coughing, barking, crying, panicking. which, of course, woke up leo. and we had to start our whole bedtime routine over again in the middle of the night.

i hope these couple of tales do not scare those of you out there trying to make the shift into the shared bedroom. after all, it's my own fault that it's been going this poorly the past few nights. i remember the night i royally messed it up for myself. i was in the dark hallway. the air conditioner was on. my bare feet padding softly across the cool hardwood floor. it felt summertime good. and it was quiet. i passed the boys' room an hour or so after the bedtime routine had smoothly "stuck" for like the second or third night in a row, and then i actually thought these words, "THIS...ROOM SHARING...HASN'T...BEEN...SO...BAD..."

[insert sound of a needle scratching off a spinning record]

yes, i actually thought THAT. so see? it's my own fault. i jinxed the hell out of a damn good situation.

anyway, how do we do it? well, sometimes it goes well. sometimes it goes poorly. sometimes if leo falls asleep quickly, clyde goes to sleep in our bed, and then we carry him to his own bed later. sometimes leo goes to sleep in his swing. sometimes clyde falls right to sleep, but most often he gets up 434 times to tell us "something." most nights leo goes down around 9 or 10 and stays in there until 2 or 3 before coming to our bed. more and more, we put him back 13 times cause he can't stop moving around in our bed and trying to dive off the bed. and sometimes, but this is very rare, they both sleep the whole night in there. it has happened. but we don't usually speak of it.

now it's time for me to gently remind you how there's no secret formula to this either (no such luck!). nothing works every night. i imagine other households abound—room sharing or not, one kid or seven—are dealing with the same frenzied nights full of bed swapping and sleep losing. and if you're not, then we don't really want to hear from you very much.

here, it's a swell surprise every night. you never know what you're going to get. so you can either worry or pretend you love the adventure. cause that's what i do. the best gifts in life come wrapped as two little boys who were simply not meant to come into my life and sleep soundly in their beds. they were meant to give us dark-sky adventures and moonlit coping mechanisms (still working on those). what wild ride will we embark on tonight, my dear boys? where will you take us this time? and when will these adventures include refrigerator raids? that's about when we'll finally see eye-to-eye, i suppose.

Comments

[Christa]

We cheat and let them both sleep with us. Well, me. My husband took the twin bed we bought for Hamlet and sleeps there most nights, because he is a total wimp about having legs draped over his face at 2am.

Anyway, bedtime isn't an issue for us so much as naptime is. As in, the baby is lucky to get two good ones. The only time he ever gets real naps is in the car, or when Rain Dog is home so one of us can get him to sleep (either nursing or rocking). Argh, I SO KNOW this is going to come back and bite us at some point...

[Sheri]

Yeah, naptime isn't such an issue here since Clyde is in school three days and at my mom's a fourth. On Fridays, I try very hard to get them down for the afternoon at the same time, usually using our room as a backup. I have pretty much made stories a naptime "extra" for Clyde but not always a "have to" in case I'm also getting Leo down. On the weekend, when Ed's home, it's much easier with two sets of hands and two sets of minds, oh wait, whatever...

[Christa]

Yeah, Hamlet doesn't nap at all, so that's the biggest challenge. I am thinking of instituting "quiet time" for him while his brother goes to sleep, although I can see brother being too interested in what we're doing to sleep! I may just have to go back to wearing him once a day, even though it's summer...

[Shannon]

First of all, I have to express my sincerest thanks to you for writing this post. It made me laugh, it made me sigh, it made me say to myself, "Um, why rock the boat? Genevieve can stay in the guest room till she's 18! At least they both sleep all night this way!"

Bummer about the no magic formula. Really: big bummer. I was so hoping you'd have the magic solution and that you were keeping it to yourself until you were ready to write a parenting book about it (just that; nothing else) and become rich from all the parents who want their kids to share a room.

I really want my girls to share a room. They're small people; it doesn't seem like they each need their own room. I would like to maintain a (small, but still) place for guests to sleep when they visit. Or maybe we'll convert it into an office so the playroom can be an actual playroom. Either way, I don't want the baby in there forever. And the crib is just standing empty in the nursery where my 3-year-old "lives". It seems like the baby should just...be in there too. Like we planned. But my girls aren't the greatest sleepers unless they are totally undisturbed. And my older girl doesn't always nap, preferring to sing at the top of her lungs for an hour. Not conducive to baby-sleeping.

It seems like kids used to share rooms more. How was this done? Did parents just suck it up and learn to live on little sleep? Did no one ever nap?

Thanks again, Sheri. And if you do happen to stumble upon the magic secret at some point....maybe you'll post again?

[yasmara]

My boys (2 yrs and 6 months) don't share a room, but their rooms are practically next door to each other and in our small house it's similar.

I try to get the baby to sleep first (nursing then crib or swing) and then put the toddler down. When it happens in that sequence, and when both of us are home (husband does toddler's bath/PJs/etc. while I nurse baby) it works great. LOVE the tag-team approach.

It's when one of us is trying to put them to bed by ourselves (probably worse for my husband since the baby likes to nurse way more than he likes the bottle) and we can't get the baby to go to sleep that we start spiraling down into shrieking and screaming and crying from various household members (hopefully not me).

Toddler hates having his bedtime routine messed with by having the baby around and the baby is in a major don't-put-me-down stage as well as a major grab-everything-in-sight stage. It's impossible to rock them at the same time because the baby grabs the book, toddler's hair, etc. and the toddler strikes back. Toddler is still in a crib so I can't sit next to him while he lies down and read stories with the baby out of reach.

It seems like on nights like these different strategies work at different times. Baby sometimes tolerates playing on the floor while I read to toddler and then I can put baby to bed later. Toddler sometimes will stay in his crib and lie down while I nurse the baby in the rocking chair and sing songs (Mama only sings when toddler is lying down). Baby might fall asleep and I can put him in his bed and come back to toddler (who by this point is probably jumping up and down in his crib yelling for me). Toddler might let me leave for a while but then start yelling/crying a few minutes later (hopefully baby has fallen asleep in between).

Even if both are sleeping by 7:30 (we are early bedtime people and toddler is almost always in bed for the night by 7:30 or 7:45 at the latest, sometimes as early as 7 if his nap was crappy), it is exhausting. Neither one reliably sleeps through the night but their night wake-ups are usually brief, ended by a quick (5 min. or less) snuggle for toddler or nursing for baby.

I am really, really, really, really looking forward to sleeping an entire night w/o one or both of them waking us up!

[Suzanne]

I love it when the kids are FINALLY asleep and i'm heading to bed in the dark - then I trip over a toy and wake everyone up. I swear, I imagine it before it happens. Maybe I should clean up? hmmm

[Natalie Clark]

oh you tired tired mommies! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Mine are 2 and 3, exatly.... yes they were born on the same day. No, and I mean hell no, it wasn't in the plans. After reading all the posts I had to tell you guys it does get better. Mine sleep in the same room every night and they love it. Now that doesn't mean that on some nights they are in there having a party, because it has been known to happen. At 11:00 I slowly open the door and peak in (fully expecting to see them peacefully sleeping)only to see two wide eyed boys staring at me from under a pile of books and Thomas trains. Sometimes when I do go in, they are totally crashed on top of a zillion books or on top of each other. The best part about this story is that everyone gets sleep and no one is crying. I will tell you it didn't start that way and there was a series of transitions to the present sleeping arrangements which consists of two single top bunk beds serving as, for all practical purposes, extra large cribs (the key is the side rails so they don't fall out at night). Also, the door stays locked until they fall asleep (we have a video camera in the room also). We started with the door knob covers, but that didn't last long. The moral is that two in a room can be a blessing. My favorite part is that it creates a special bond for the boys. They feel safer together, they have someone there when they get scared, and I wouldn't seperate them for all the sleep in the world.
***As an aside, we do have a pretty loud air purifier in their room that helps drown at misc. scary noises in the night.

[Jessica]

well to be honest all this sounds a little crazy to me---we have three boys in one room ages 5, 4, and 3 we do not fight with them hardly every ( you can't say never becasue there are days one of them is just having a hard day) we have this special chart, one in the bathroom, on the bedroom door, on their dressers and by the bed, when they go to sleep without any problems in the mornign they get to put a start on the chart (there are 30 spaces) and when they get them all filled up they get to pick a special dinner they would like to have and it can be any dinner they want. Now even though they are small they do not all get a star if they did not earn it and they are never rewarded with toys or candy just a special family meal, Also they have a set bed time, no later than 9pm EVERY NIGHT, the only time they are aloud to be in our room to sleep is if they are sick. It blows my mind that bed time is so hard for people, teach your children and be consistant and your life will get easier

[Jessica]

well to be honest all this sounds a little crazy to me---we have three boys in one room ages 5, 4, and 3 we do not fight with them hardly every ( you can't say never becasue there are days one of them is just having a hard day) we have this special chart, one in the bathroom, on the bedroom door, on their dressers and by the bed, when they go to sleep without any problems in the mornign they get to put a start on the chart (there are 30 spaces) and when they get them all filled up they get to pick a special dinner they would like to have and it can be any dinner they want. Now even though they are small they do not all get a star if they did not earn it and they are never rewarded with toys or candy just a special family meal, Also they have a set bed time, no later than 9pm EVERY NIGHT, the only time they are aloud to be in our room to sleep is if they are sick. It blows my mind that bed time is so hard for people, teach your children and be consistant and your life will get easier Oh and NO TV AND NO TOYS ARE IN THEIR ROOMS, THEY ARE FOR SLEEPING ONLY NOT PLAYING.

[Wendy]

I have a 6 year old and 3 year old boys who share a room and like you said some nights work out and others don't. Just like last night I put the youngest to bed and hoping he would fall asleep before I would bring up my 6 year old...but it didn't happened. The youngest fell asleep around 10:30 finally and my oldest was up longer. But, I do usually put my youngest to bed first and when he falls asleep I put my oldest to bed and it USUALLY works! Good luck and don't get discouraged!

[Stacey]

We have three boys, 4, 5, and 7 in the same room currently. This has been the sleeping arrangement from the time the youngest got out of the crib at 28 months and potty trained himself then too(hard to believe but it does actually happen sometimes with number four). You cannot rush the bedtime routine is the painful lesson we learned and forget to stick to from time to time. It may take one and a half to two hours to get through a regular routine. So give yourself plenty of time for bath, snack, short video or story.

From early on we have stuck to a bedtime of 8:00. Everyone sleeps in their own bed, not with Mom and Dad which is what we decided for our own well being. Neither of us operates well on interrupted sleep. I do get up if I hear one of the kids so I have to admit uninterrupted sleep is something I would like to experience on a more regular basis

The bedtime routine has been difficult with the longer summer days. But with the extra time outside we explain to them up front that there is no story and just lullabies. And possibly snack outside to, to shorten routine.

What we are dealing with now is how to accommodate our seven year old who might be able to stay up slightly longer. Now what?

[CB]

I have a 2 1/2 and 4 year old boys in the same room. They've been together since the little one was about 9 months. I used to put in the older one and then the baby. Now they go in together. They are allowed some toys (not too many), books, and sippy cups of only water in their beds. They do talk, sing and giggle on some nights, and some nights go right to bed. They are not supposed to come out of their rooms once put in (though they sometimes do,but not often). I rarely need to go into their room in middle of the night. The only time thet are allowed to sleep in my room if they are getting to wild or fighting. Then I'll put one in my room and move him when asleep. We're pretty strict about them not sleeping in our beds when we're in them.

[Shantella]

I really needed to read this story. My mother was starting to make me crazy about my boys sleeping habits. My 4 year old and 2 year old boys share a room and no two nights are the same. I have a regular dinner and bathtime routine, but after that it all falls apart. Some nights they will go without a fight. 9 is the scheduled bedtime. Other nights they will fall asleep in my bed sometimes I carry them to there own bed and sometimes I don't. 6 out of 7 nights one and sometimes both of them will come to get in my bed between 12 and 4 am. My husband is usually on the road so most times I don't mind sharing the bed with the two fighting sleepers, but when dad is added into the equation it makes sleeping a little hard. When that happens I usually take which ever one is closer to me into there room and we share one of the twin beds. Hey you have to go with what works for you!

[Ashley]

Bedtime Routines are a must in my home with two very strong-willed children running about. First, we start at 630 with a bath. They get the bubbles and the toys in separate bathtubs (due to age/gender differences) I let them play and check on them while doing other household chores as I pass by the bathroom. This helps them get rid of that last little bit of pent up energy from the day. Then I take the youngest out of the bath first, get him dressed, we brush our teeth and I read him a story while my oldest is finishing her bath. Then, while my son stays in bed looking at a book, I follow the same process with my daughter. Yes, I brush my teeth twice at night ~ leading by example works great for my kids. I use a reward chart for each of my kids at night for their cooperation. They get stickers for brushing their teeth, staying in bed, remaining quiet while looking at their book in bed, and since they have some bedwetting problems ~ they get a sticker for being dry the next morning. Once they get a certain number of stickers, they get a prize. The kids get to put their stickers on the charts with help and its rewarding and educational because they get to "count" the new stickers at the end of the week.

[Jenny Giltner]

We have a pretty good routine; they are in bed by 8 pm. Go to sleep around 830 on a good night. But we usually get the I cant sleep because my sister is crying, or she cant sleep because she is too hot. It is very stressful sometimes unless they are completely wore out from the day(like today). My kids are 3 and 5 years old.

[Heather]

We have 2 boys, ages 3 and 7 in the same room. I tuck our 3 year old in first, give him his 'lovies' and give him kisses. Then I do the same thing with our 7 year old. I don't really have too much trouble with the routine. I turn out the light and close the door. Sometimes there is talking and giggling, but not very often. On the hard nights, my husband helps. As of this moment, they only have a tv in their room, since my 3 year old broke their fan.

[Kelly Burrow]

Oh my goodness you girls make me feel half way normal! Bed time is a nightmare at our house! My three year old twins don't share a room but our new house echoooooooos so bad that when someone is yelling Mommy I wannna snuggle snuggle with you then the whole house is up! All I can think of is that my son must think he is still nursing! He is up about every two hours. Many nights I end up in his room all night because I am desperate for sleep. (work full time). And on the few nights he has slept all night, my daughter wakes up. I FEEL LIKE A MEXICAN JUMPING BEAN ALL NIGHT LONG!!! Ok so I am blogging to ask you.....What about your husbands?? Mine puts extra pressure on me because he thinks that this is abnormal and that my place is beside him in bed....available for what ever may come up....if you know what I mean. He thinks we are the only family with this problem. HELP...Also...FYI My son is taking 1 ml of liquid Melatonin (approved by his Dr.) and it seems to help his sleep patterns.

[Nicole Gillette]

I have three year old twin sons and they sleep in the same room. I have had to try many different thing before I found one that would work at bedtime and only bedtime. First it's a bath and brushing teeth, then they get into bed and I let them pick a movie I set the timer on the TV for 1 hour, then I plant Dream Seeds in their heads( they get to pick what they want to dream about that night), then I shut off the light and they are usually asleep before the TV timer goes off. I wish this work for me at naptime. I can't get them still long enough to take a nap at a specific time.

[magdalene conner]

I have a little boy thats 4, and a little girl thats 2, and a almost 3 month old. the 4 and 2 year old share a bedroom, baby sleeps in our room. before bed time, one picks a movie, and the other picks a book. then it changes the next time. when the movies over we take them lay them both down in their seperate beds, and the 2 year olds bed is closest to the door b/c she's the light sleeper, then we read the book and its lights out, i have a little battery operated wind chime in their bedroom thats put on the lowest setting (for some comfort noise) and they have a night light. and we really don't have a lot of problems because you just have to keep putting them back in bed, over and over, then eventually they just dont fight it anymore, because they no hey mom and dad are not going to give in. and my 4 year old just knows better (and who ever does not listen that night does not get to pick a movie or book the next night) ~but you have to stick to it and not give in. unless their sick then i let them sleep in the family room, and ill sleep in there with them. you just have to be strong! its really hard some times, but hard repetitive work pays off after awhile.