Life with two kids: A little improvement in sleep

[andrewducker]

Project: "get Gideon to sleep in his own bed" seems to be going well. After almost exactly a month of putting him to sleep in his own bed, and then bringing him through when he wakes up and shouts for us, the last two nights the shouting hasn't been until 5am.

He comes through hungry, and then goes back to sleep for another 2-ish hours. Now, if he'd stop napping* and go to sleep at 8:30 rather than 10, that would be lovely.

 *this happens whenever something exciting is happening at lunchtime. And will happen all the time once he moves to the next room at nursery in 6-9 months.

Comments

[channelpenguin]

I marvel that people can survive this! Well done.

As far as I can recall, until we moved when I was 5 and my sister was 2.5, there only was one bedroom in the flat we lived in, So we must have all been in one room anyway. (but I could be wrong, I'd have to ask my parents). I'm not sure if that's easier or harder.

I don't recall that when me and my sister DID have a bedroom (together) that we then EVER left it at night except to go for a pee. We were pretty good sleepers though, and Gillian was cat-like in hiding any illness (I just was hardly ever ill). I'm sure my parents either really appreciate their luck - or have no idea that they were lucky!

Hopefully Gideon will soon stay awake all day and you'll get more peace!

[andrewducker]

I think that if Gideon had been used to sleeping in his own bed until now then transferring to his own room would be pretty easy. But he's going to struggle a bit to go from "Sandwiched between two adults" to "All by myself", and we're not going to make Sophia's sleep even worse by trying to comfort him at 3am directly under her. So it may take a while before hes putting himself back to sleep. But we're now giving him the space to do that, and I understand that self-soothing kicks in after a couple of months. We'll see!

[snippy]

The recurring change in base conditions is the hardest thing I found to adjust to, when I was parenting under age 6s. You reset all your habits for this week's change and about the time you're used to it, it changes again!

[andrewducker]

Yeah - it's near-impossible at that age to tell what was something I've done, what was a change he's made by himself, and what was something else entirely.

Thankfully his language is increasing rapidly now, so soon he'll be able to refuse to tell me!