We have lived in this house for exactly five weeks and we are already moving kids around. This is a regular occurrence for this household, since the family dynamics are always shifting. Family members come and go, new babies arrive, sibling relationships change, and so do roommates.
Today's musical room game was not brought on by any of the above mentioned reasons. Today's juggle is courtesy of Parker and his new-found discovery of my bed. I have the world's most fabulous bed and Parker has discovered a weak link in his parents. I am usually so GOOD at crib training. At four months old I let the babies cry themselves to sleep and teach them very early on to stay in their bed all night long. I pride myself on fabulous sleepers that ALL go to their own bed and fall asleep on their own at bedtime! YAY me.
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Until Parker came into my life…..
This kid is going to be the death of me! He gets away with MURDER, and all because he is SO. DAMN. CUTE. ( Not that my other kids weren't as cute, but they may not have been so charming.) We tuck all the kids in at seven on a school night. Parker snuggles down, has his red blanket, aka "red," under his arm, and his thumb in his mouth, and we walk out the door. He doesn't make a peep. We think he is asleep, BUT by 7:20, he is sitting between us. He doesn't pitch a fit, or even cry, he just climbs quietly out of his crib, opens his door, tiptoes out of his room, dragging "red", thumb still in mouth, and climbs right on up on the couch where we are sitting. Brandon usually says, "What are you doing out of bed?" To which Parker signs, "later." And we just think he is the cats meow, so we let him hang with us for a bit and re-tuck him in "later."
Have I mentioned lately how damn cute he is?
Anyway, the past few nights this is happening at 1 am, 2 am, 4 am…. You get where I am going with this? And we are simply too tired to haul his butt back to bed, so he just snuggles in between and goes to sleep. I love sleeping with babies. The more the merrier. When I married Brandon, that all changed. Brandon came to this family with a "no kids in his bed" rule. I married him anyway. I told you all I made sacrifices, that was the ONE.
So Brandon is softening and Parker is gaining power over us very quickly.
In an effort to make Brandon's life easier, we are moving Parker into the nursery. It is attached to our room with it's own private staircase. He is going to join Ellie up there, and maybe that alone will make him think twice about leaving his crib. He will now, for the first time in his life, have a roommate.
This could end up being the biggest waste of time, or the best decision of our lives. I am not sure yet. But for now, I am off to move his crib down one flight of stairs and up another. If this move is a success, and Parker and Ellie share well together, and Parker stays in his crib, then I will probably move Ellie to Parker's room. Or, I may move Kate and Jazzi to that room and give Pickle her own room….. So many possibilities.
Stay tuned for more musical rooms as we still try and find the right place for everything and everyone in the new house.
After this morning's shuffle, this is the room situation.
Bronson and Hunter
Hadley
Jayden, Colby, and Jace
Jazzi, Kate, and Pickle
Empty room
Dalin and TY
Ellie and Parker in the nursery
Sailor Grace has fifteen more days of "up all night long, bottles when she wants them, half the night on her mom's chest because mom is too exhausted to walk ten feet to her crib," cushy life. AND then, we endure 4 days of hell, horror, and "thank God she is the last one," awful nights. But she will will come out knowing how to sleep all night long and will move upstairs to the nursery with her fellow siblings.
Paddycakes is six and still between us! It happens. But as soon as we get in our new house he has a Lightening McQueen racecar bed and it he better stay in it. Or mama may use it herself!!
My husband always had the same rule about kids in the bed, so ours never came in. We had to do the 4 nights of hell with our son and thank God, we survived, but it was 4 nights of HELL!!
Good luck now with Parker and in 15 days with Sailor!
Ok, just hypothetically speaking, if we came to visit, I'm down with Jayden, Colby and Jace. The babe is getting either the empty room or the nursery. And just a little tidbit of past family history here; When ex-teenage food processor #1 got the boot off the tit and into his own room, I had to PHYSICALLY block the hallway between the squawler and the bawler. They were inconsolable…….. for about 3 or 4 days. #2 only took 2 days, because despite the squawling, the bawler had wisened up. Just sayin……..
With all due respect, but letting a 4 months old child cry itself to sleep is very cruel – your child depends on you to make it feel safe and loved. Being left to cry alone does not contribute to a healthy relationship.
You go mama. It's hard, I know, and being pregnant with my 6th right now, I'm totally dreading the whole "cry yourself to sleep" phase. It's heartbreaking, and every time it gets harder. It doesn't make sense. We're also suckers for our 3 year old who snuggles in between us every night. He's just too damn cute, and he says "You're breaking my heart, mama" when I tell him he needs to get in his own bed. Crap. They have so much power over us, don't they???
Six nights a week, the kids' dad and I do shared parenting time. He has them both or I have them both, depending on the schedule. But Saturday we each take one, to give us a chance to enjoy one on one time. The kids really like it and so do we. On those nights I let whichever kid is with me to sleep in the bed – but I am finding that adding just that one kid to a bed that already has me and three large dogs is one person too much! Everyone but me sleeps just wonderfully, and I get kicked in the back all night. I have a feeling I will be re-establishing the "no kids in bed" rule very soon, good luck while you and Brandon get things back to "normal." (I say "normal" rather facetiously
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Musical rooms sounds like fun. We had the babies sleep with us while they were nursing…I had the babies sleeping with me while they were nursing, hubs was an OTR driver then and I needed the snugglers. Plus we had a King size bed – there was room for ALL of us! Snuggling babies are the best!
I hope you keep some kind of road map so you can keep up with 'who's where' in the shuffling of the arrangements!
I also hope you get some good sleep soon.
I co-slept with all my babies. I couldn't imagine doing the cry-self-to-sleep thing. You must REALLY love Brandon, lol!
They all turned out to be good sleepers, going to bed on time and staying there all night, and everything.
Luna, it's a debate that is eternally ongoing, there are pro and con arguments for both sides but my personal experience with two children has taught me that teaching a child to fall asleep on their own is in no way cruel and in no way creates an insecure child, there is a big difference between closing the door on a child and letting him cry himself to sleep and teaching your child to sleep, through letting him cry, i'm sure that the majority of mothers using this method all stand behind the door listening to the crying and checking on the child and reassuring him that he can sleep safely, that they are still around…
I have a seven year old who hates bedtime, ends up in my bed every night and will do anything to make bedtime difficult – she was breastfed, co-slept, carried in a sling and never ever left to cry… then a three year old that I sleep trained from three months onward who shared all the same advantages, apart from the co-sleeping, as her sister who goes to bed with a smile, waves goodbye telling me she loves me, sleeps through the night and wakes up with a smile. I personally know which method I'll use if ever number three comes along…
Many, MANY moons ago…I worked nights, and almost every morning I would wake up to my little girls snuggled up with me…I loved it, simply because I worked so many hours that it was nice to have some baby time without having to DO anything but cuddle them…..they got so good at sneaking in my bed without waking me…they were like stealth toddlers! LOL
Except for the time I woke up with two little girl heads, one on each shoulder and my arms over my head….I don't know how long I had been sleeping like that, but I had to have my hubby move them and then pull my arms down because both my arms had no blood in them and were frozen in that position!! That was an interesting morning!! I miss that!!
Um, Luna?
Calling someone cruel for making a parenting decision that differs from yours is not particularly RESPECTFUL.
Best of luck Sandi!
Great post…never done the baby crying thing..but I have with puppies…….and it kills me to leave them in their kennel the first few nites ( not that kids compare to puppies) but that is all I have to compare to! But oh how they LOVE their bed after they figure that out…
Now we only have a 125 lb berner in bed for 10 min at bedtime and 20ish in the am…his choice but he likes the cool tile floor…
Natasha,
interesting point but I suppose it depends on how much negative emphasis you put on the word cruel.
I let my kids co-sleep and then we also do the cry thing. My children have very different personalities. My oldest STILL sneaks into our bed at night but he is such a great snuggler and my hubbie is such a sucker for him that he gets away with it. Our second (and youngest) doesn't mind hanging out on our bed to watch TV or play or whatever but sleep time? He wants HIS space.
Luna, if that is what you have to add to the conversation then perhaps you should take a look at your RL friends– do you have any that don't parent the same way you do? If not then perhaps you need to evaluate WHY you seem to have an inability to "play well with others" that do not share your EXACT SAME parenting style. If it bothers you that much then just be thankful that you get to parent your kids and Sandi gets to parent hers!!
We have one bio .baby & 5 adopted. Bio. baby didn't sleep throgh the night until just after her 2nd b-day,when I stopped breast feeding. She slept every night in my arms until she was 6. yes I mean six YEARS old. We both had major seperation anxiety when it was time for her to start school. She is the most talented, inteligent, compassionate person I have ever known. when we started adopting we put cribs, then cribs & toddler beds in the master. That took up so much space. my husband worked nights, I loved having them in my bed on the right my husband work. It became the routine even on his days off. I kept saying they are only little once.Honnestly laying in bed and hearing all those little people breathing and all snuggle up with eachother was my favorite part of the day. It made me feel like it was my reward for all the hard work I put into parenting everyday. then they just kept getting bigger. We moved to a new house, hubby put down the rule no more kids in the bed. but I was addicted to them. I argued what if there is a fire?! I wouldn't have trouble getting everyone out. but even I knew I had created a problem, when out 4yr. old saw me hanging Daddys shirts in the closet & said why are you putting Daddys clothes in "our room"? "Caity this is Daddys room too','no Daddys room is the couch!" the youngest still sleeps with us, the other kids come & go from night to night. Yes my 12 year old still asks about 5 nights a week to sleep with Mommy, We let her a few times a month. Now that shes older, if she sleeps in the bed he sleeps on the couch. she say when she has her own family & they come to visit, her husband & kids will sleep in her old room & she sleeping in my bed. I hope she does!
Andrea,
your reply is exactely why I've decided NOT to dwell further on the subject, as it seems that there is no common ground to be found here. For you to imply that "I don't play well with others" based on a single sentence reply is the equivalent of a 7 year old taking his/her ball and going home as the supposedly set rules of communication were broken. Nice touch
I did the CIO at three months (THE HORROR) for Andrew and planned to do it w/Benjamin but we never had to, for he started STTN at seven weeks. Thomas will be doing it at 12 weeks if he hasn't already on his own. It was four nights for Andrew but he's never had any issues ever since, and he's almost four.