Aidan: “Mommy, I’m lonely when I go to sleep all by myself at night”
Me: “You don’t have to feel lonely baby, remember that God is always with you”
Aidan: “Yeah, but everyone else is lucky not to be alone and have somebody. You get to sleep with Daddy, Yeh-Yeh and Yin-Yin have each other, and I have nobody”.
Me: “Caleb sleeps by himself, and when I was little I slept by myself till I married your Daddy”
Aidan: “But since I’m marrying you, can’t I just sleep in your room now. Or maybe Daddy and I can take turns so that it is fair”.
Me: “Well, I got a better idea. How about if you show what a big boy you are by going to sleep right away every night without stalling, then Daddy and I will talk about moving Caleb into your room so that you two will never be lonely”
Aidan: “O.k., that sounds fair! I’m going to sleep right now!”
When I told Mike about this conversation he laughed. We both agreed that even though we might lose a few nights of sleep that there were more positive reasons to move the boys into a room together than negative. And what are those, you might be wondering? Well, here is what we came up with:
Pros:
• Aidan starts Kindergarten in the fall for a full day, which means that he and Caleb would see less of each other so it would be great to continue to foster the close relationship they have already by having them share a room.
• We could turn the spare room in the basement into a study room for both boys to do homework, file, and display their school work.
• Mike and I could listen to the TV without headphones and not have to whisper for fear of waking Caleb.
• Aidan could practice piano, do homework, or play in the basement while Caleb took his naps upstairs in their joined room.
• We would only need to listen to one baby monitor at night instead of two.
• Tucking them both in at the same time would be much quicker at bedtime
• Caleb has a limited vocabulary right now, so it is not like they can talk all night long…
Cons:
• Both boys will probably take a little longer to go to sleep in the beginning of this process, because they are going to talk and goof off.
• If either of them have trouble sleeping during the night, that means going up 2 flights of stairs from the basement.
• There will probably be occasional times when one will wake up the other in the middle of the night due to a bloody nose, feeling sick, or nightmare.
So when the time came to move Caleb into Aidan’s room, Mike and I basically picked a weekend where we were both physically and mentally ready to lose sleep. Here is a short video of what the beginning of their first night together was like:
Luckily the first night wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. They ended up talking for a while but finally went to sleep around 10:30ish. Now that they have been sharing a room for a couple of months we have learned a lot of things:
• They are always trying to get out of bed and play with each other (especially Caleb. He is often trying to climb into Aidan’s bed).
• Even though Caleb can’t carry a conversation, he and Aidan manage to talk A LOT after being tucked into sleep.
• How quickly the boys fall asleep hinges on Aidan. If Aidan is exhausted from a busy day, both boys are more likely to go to sleep by 9:00ish. But is Aidan has had a nap during the day, then both boys are more likely to go to sleep around 10:00ish.
• Caleb sleeps like a rock at night. Aidan has recently been talking in his sleep and sometimes even yelling in his sleep, and yet Caleb has never woken up!
• Both boys are definitely closer. Aidan is often telling me things that he knows about Caleb’s personality that I don’t even know!
• Even though the boys share a room, they both need their own story for story time.
• Tucking them both to sleep is quicker, but only based on how you look at it. We can put them into bed, kiss and say goodnight, and shut the door because they are eager to have time together in the dark. However, we do have to come into their room a couple of times during the first hour and ask them to be quiet and go to sleep.
Even though we know that it is possible that the boys might not want to share a room together as they get older, so far they are very happy to be together at night. And when they are happy and growing in their relationship with each other, Mike and I get joy from that. Here is a video of them after being tucked in a little over a month later (they even created a team cheer in this video about going to sleep "Go Sleeping!"....it obviously wasn't working fast enough).
