Hi Dana!
I’m a long time reader of your blog! I stumbled across it last year just as you were moving into your temporary apartment living situation. I’m a mom of two boys {just turned 1 and 3 this month} who share a room. I’m curious. Have your boys always shared a room? Has it always worked out as easily as it appears on your blog?!
I apologize in advance if this question is too personal. I just don’t have any friends that can relate as their children all have their own rooms. I love your blog – especially your posts that keep it real. Blogland can make a momma feel really inadequate about her space! Take care. -Joan
Blogland does a good job of providing parents with tips and ideas for decorating and organizing a children’s shared bedroom but I’ve yet to see a post that delves into the logistics of siblings sharing a room and how it works or doesn’t work. Maybe I’m not reading the right blogs? I see the slick bedrooms with two twin beds, pretty bedding and toys styled on the rug but WHERE ARE THE KIDS? My guess? Probably playing on the iPad or at the sitter’s. Anyhow, I thought Joan’s question was worth addressing on the blog. Here we go.
Our previous home had four bedrooms and while we casually talked about our boys {we only had the two boys at that point} sharing a room sometime in the future, we never attempted it until it was forced upon us. Everett {age 3} slept in a crib in the nursery and Layne {age 5} slept in his own room which had two twin beds. After the sell of our previous home and during the renovation of our current home, we took up residence in a two-bedroom apartment. We weren’t keen on either of the boys sleeping in our bedroom so we were forced to put them together.
I’ll be honest. At first, the idea of my two boys sharing a bedroom made me anxious. Separately, they were great sleepers and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. Mamas like their sleep! The other issue was that while they both slept through the night, they had different sleeping habits. Layne typically went to bed a little later than Everett and woke up a lot earlier. He’s never required a ton of sleep. He’s always been our early riser – still is. Layne is also a light sleeper.
Everett’s always been my sleeper. He slept through the night from the day we brought him home from the hospital! {I wasn’t as lucky with my other babies.} It wasn’t unusual for Everett to sleep until 9 most mornings and if we had an early morning commitment that required me to wake him up earlier, Everett was a bear. Everett is a heavy but busy sleeper. He talks in his sleep and from the looks of his bed in the morning, it seems he practices gymnastics whilst sleeping. I worried that Layne’s early rising would disrupt Everett and that Everett’s crazy sleep antics would be bothersome to Layne. Oh, and did I mention that Everett was also transitioning from a crib to a real bed? Yeah, that was happening too. Me = one nervous mama.
Luckily, Everett had no problem transitioning to a twin bed and the boys {with the help of a sound machine} didn’t wake each other during the night. Whew. BUT we did have problems with bedtime and wake time. Initially, we tried putting the boys to bed in their room at the same time thinking one bedtime routine would be easiest for us – the parents. Wrong. The boys would get all wound up and we would have to make several warning visits to their room before they fell asleep waaaaaay past their regular bedtimes. Then, in the mornings Layne would get up at his regular time {the kid only has one wake time no matter what time he goes to bed} and, inevitably, wake his brother. We had sleepy, spazzy, grumpy kids for weeks until we figured out a solution.
We started putting Everett to bed in our bed and carrying him to his bed after he had fallen asleep. Since he’s a heavy sleeper, he never woke when we moved him and, plus, he was lighter to carry around than his older brother. We would just put Layne to bed in his own bed. Still, we had morning problems. No matter how hard he “tried”, Layne almost always woke his brother. Everett is really, really, REALLY cranky when he doesn’t get his sleep and we noticed a change for the worse in his daytime behavior. I made him nap in the afternoons and that helped but I was determined to get him back on track.
I had a talk with Layne about being very quiet in the mornings so as not to wake his brother. He told me he was trying to be quiet but that Everett always heard him open the bedroom door. So, I moved Everett to the bed further from the door and when I woke in the mornings I would go ahead and open the door slightly so that all Layne had to do was slip out quietly. That was the best I could do and it worked most days but we still had random days where Everett would be up before his natural wake time. That was good enough for me!
Then we moved to the house we live in now – with a newborn. With three bedrooms, I was tempted to put Mabrey in our room to give the boys their own rooms just for a little while. But I decided against it. I figured they were going to be sharing a room at some point so we might as well make it work. And it worked! I think it had something to do with the new bunk bed and hideout curtains. Even though Layne and Everett share a room, they sort of have their own little spaces within it and they can’t see each other from their beds – unlike to two twin beds on the floor.
Having our boys {now 5 & 8} share a room is second nature to us now. Every once in a while we do hear some giggling coming from their room after bedtime but we rarely have to go in and give warnings. Most mornings, Layne is up bright and early and Everett sleeps until he’s fully rested. Sometimes the boys tell me they wish they had their own rooms. But I think back to when I was little and shared a room with a sibling. {I come from a family of six and we lived in a three-bedroom, one-bath house until I was a teenager. Everybody shared a room.} Sure, I dreamt of having my own room but for the most part I liked sharing a room and having a sleep/play buddy. And it made me that much more thankful and respectful when I did get my own room for a few years as a teenager – just before I went off to college and started the whole room-sharing thing all over.
I do think it’s important for kids to have quiet alone time but that doesn’t require separate bedrooms. When the boys are at each other’s throats {yes! my kids fight and bicker on a daily basis!}, I’ll send Layne to my bedroom with a book/toy and Everett to his bed with a book/toy and have them read/play quietly for a half hour or so. Sometimes they just need a little time apart, that’s all. I don’t feel bad that each of my kids doesn’t have his/her own room. Sharing a room can indirectly teach kids good lessons. Like sharing {duh} and being respectful of others’ things/privacy and working together to clean up. Don’t get me wrong…some days I don’t see those lessons being learned at all! {Hello, MINE party.} But I know they are there, sneaking into their little brains. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with children not sharing rooms either.
I will say that I can see us switching up the room sharing at some point in the future. Every day it becomes more and more apparent that Everett and Mabrey are kindred spirits. It’s likely that Layne would move to the current nursery and Mabrey would move to the current boys’ room. Everett and Mabrey would share a room. And then somedays I think of just piling them all into the same bunk room and making one of the bedrooms a play space. I dunno. We’ll see where this room-sharing adventure takes us.
What advice do I have for Joan? Remember that learning to share a room is a phase just like everything else with kids. Sound machines work wonders. Try putting your boys to bed separately or staggering bedtimes. And when worse comes to worst, give one boy your bed and sleep like a rock on the couch. Heck, put the baby in a pack-n-play in a bathroom or closet if you have to!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on and experiences with siblings sharing bedrooms. Everyone talks about the decor, the non-matching versus matching bedding BUT what about the logistics? Do your kids share a bedroom? How did/do you make it work? Maybe it doesn’t work at all? As a child did you share your bedroom with a sibling? Any advice for Joan who has two younger kiddos sharing a room? Let’s do the opposite thing here in Blogland today and make mamas feel adequate about living modestly with kids!
images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
family life, kid-friendly