A Switch Gone Bad
Posted on August 26, 2008 - Filed Under Kids |
So, last night I decided to get Dante out of our room. The boys aren`t sleeping well, either of them, so I figured they could not sleep together. Maybe they`d entertain one another.
I moved the crib into Dorian`s room nice and early and the boys played around in there. Dorian was quite excited to have his brother sleeping in his room.
Later, I bathed them and dressed them in Pjs in the new room. Dante jumped up and ran into our room and waited for me, until I called him back for stories. We all three snuggled up on Dorian`s bed to read and the boys had a little wrestle, then I tucked Dorian in according to our normal routine and rocked and sang to Dante before putting him to bed, just like normal. As soon as I closed the door, he started to scream.
Now, I`d expected that the two of them would have a hard time falling asleep when they had a playmate in the same room. When Dorian was about a year old, he moved into his own room and immediately began to sleep better (our snoring had been waking him), so I didn`t really consider the possibility that Dante would be so attached to one particular sleeping space. Oops.
Kids are so different. Dante totally flipped out and was hysterical about the situation. I ended up putting him back in our room where he promptly fell asleep. So now we aren`t sure what to do.
One thing I thought of is that I usually do time outs in Dorian`s room, so maybe Dante associated the closing door with a punishment. The other thing is that he literally sleeps anywhere during his naps, so I`m thinking of having him nap in there and sleep nights in our room. Just to get him used to the idea. We`ll see. At the moment, I`m kind of reeling from the fact that my youngest son is so resistant to change when his older brother, usually the one who needs that strict routine, had no issues with moving out of our room.
This may also put a cramp in our plans to take the boys on a two day vacation to the lake, I`m not sure how I`ll get him to sleep in a hotel room, even if we take his crib.
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5 Responses to “A Switch Gone Bad”
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I am a firm believer in attachment parenting and we only moved our kids out of our room when they were ready - well, we didn’t. They did. We just set up their new bed and said “Here you go! Your big boy/girl bed. You can sleep here when you want.” Lots of talking about it and a positive attitude. It took a couple of weeks for our son to move, and when he did (right before he turned 2 and a half) he wasn’t interested in coming back, even when I wanted him to when he was sick and I wanted to watch his fever closely!
Our daughter took a bit longer. She was 18mos when we moved into this house and she had her own room then. She napped there no problem. She had more time to get used to the idea, but she still wasn’t ready to move until about the same age as her brother. She went back and forth a little too. She is a very light sleeper and still (at 5yo) wakes up and visits - altho often she’ll stay 15 minutes or so and go back on her own.
I think two things helped both kids, 1) we let them know that they were making their own choice. Having control is so helpful! 2) we let them know that it was ok to come back if they needed comforting or anything. They weren’t locked into a place they didn’t want to be, or forced to a place/situation they were not ready for. Let them know what they could do, then we stood back and let them do it. We did the same with potty training. Gave them a potty seat and nice underwear, explained what was what, and let them go to it.
Good luck! Hopefully your two will learn to enjoy being ‘big boy’ roommates soon!!
Poor thing, YOU that is!!!
IT is so hard trying to change a routine and the little folks don’t want to play ball… Even the little things, like sleeping, can be difficult to achieve.
Maybe it is the ‘time outs’, maybe not. Maybe it is change, but then again, maybe not. If anything, I would have thought it would have been the other way around and Dorian, the older brother and ‘owner’ of the room, NOT wanting to share HIS room with his little brother!!
Oh well, you have tough times ahead, so Good Luck with it all!
My philosophy is that when I was a teen-ager, none of my friends slept with their parents. - - And neither did I - - !
So some time between now and then - it will happen, don’t get crazy over it.
(Pretty much agreeing with what Connie said…)
Ok, I have a slightly different opinion. Grayson slept in our room until he was three and a half. He had no intention of moving out. Moving him to his own bed was HARD and there was lots of crying involved, but we stuck to it and it only took two nights before he understood that this was the new normal. I felt terrible making him stay there, but at the same time, I HAD to have my own space and my own time at night. Him sleeping with us meant I had to lie down with him to get him to sleep every night, sometimes for an hour or more. More often than not I fell asleep with him, and so had zero time to myself every day. That’s just not okay for me.
I said all that to say, don’t feel badly if you need him out of your room. You and Irving having time alone together is important to your relationship. If you two aren’t great then the kids suffer as well. Also if Mama isn’t getting the recoup time she needs, everyone feels it.
Sorry to leave such a long comment. I just wanted you to know it’s okay for him to cry for a couple of nights. He gets tons of love all day long, and an hour of unhappiness doesn’t cancel that out. He’ll adjust a lot quicker than you think.
Thanks for the support Jessica! I think we`ll wait a bit, but I don`t know how long we can handle tiptoeing around our own room. Luckily, Dante doens`t need anyone to lie down with him so he sleeps, but our snoring wakes him up during the night.