We are a family who likes to sleep.
We are also a family who likes to sleep in places other than our own beds. As I am typing this, my husband is asleep in the chair across from me, my toddler is tangled up in the covers in my bed, and the rest of the children (minus the baby) are having a slumber party in the boy’s room!
But, the actual sleeping isn’t usually the issue in a growing family, now is it?
It’s either the getting to sleep or the staying asleep that causes us angst.
Nicole asked
How do you deal with sleep issues?…I feel exhausted with nursing a baby and having waking toddlers. I’m leery of them sharing a room too soon because I’m scared they would wake each other up! How do you do it? Do you sleep train your kids?
To answer these questions, I thought I’d give you a glimpse of what we do, what works, what doesn’t, and what I’d like to see us do better, and then turn it over to all of you!
The rooms are divided up as Girls and Boys. The baby currently sleeps in our room in his crib for most of the night and in bed with me some of the night (he is very easily congested and doesn’t do well co-sleeping).
I usually move baby out of our room about the time baby turns 10 months or so. That is a totally arbitrary age. It just seems, for some reason, about that time frame is when I feel like I need them to start sleeping through the night, and sleeping through the night is better facilitated outside of my room. It usually takes me another couple of months to get them to the point of sleeping through the night. So, yes, in a sense I do sleep train, but it’s a pretty wimpy version of what most people mean when they say “sleep train.” I really like the book, The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I use a lot of her ideas when I move baby to a different room.
The room I move baby to depends on which room is the calmest at night. Currently, that would be the girls room; however, this has not always been the case. I have a daughter who struggled with sleep issues for many years. A couple of years ago, her room would not have been a good place for baby.
When I moved Micah out of our room, he went into a room by himself for a time. I managed to create this environment by putting our preschool aged son in his sister’s room and moving my oldest downstairs to a small room of his own (which he hated, by the way…so much for kids needing their own rooms, huh?). We kept this arrangement until Micah was able to go to sleep calmly, at which time we put his brother back in the room with him.
I have found that at a certain point, children become immune to the cries of a baby in the night. I don’t know what the precise age is, but around here it seems by about 20 months, they don’t even flinch in their sleep when they hear a baby cry. In fact, I remember nights of babies crying very loudly for a very long time and my oldest son sleeping right through it all!
In order to cope with the inevitable sleepless nights, we have a mandatory Rest Time. Each afternoon, I either snuggle up with the toddler or the baby while everyone else heads to their beds or another secluded area of the house, for an hour of rest. And yes, I sleep too! I find having the children in their own beds works best for keeping them “restful” during this time. However, if I really want the toddler to sleep, he almost invariably has to be in my arms…which is fine with me since warm squishy toddlers make for warm sleepy mommies! It isn’t uncommon for me to get the toddler to sleep while we sit cuddled up in the recliner, only to eventually move to the couch with the baby because he’s awakened and fall back asleep with him in my arms. (I seriously look forward to this time of day!)
As you know, bedtime here is later than in many households, and all the children (except for the baby, who is usually down by 8pm) go to bed at the same time. This greatly reduces the desire of the children to get up and see what might be going on that they are missing by being in bed. I suppose at some point this will have to change, but for now, it works well.
We try to keep a rhythm to our evenings as well. Around 7:30 or so, life begins to slow. On bath night, they bathe and put on jammies and often snuggle up on the couch for Bible Time or a movie or grab a book to read. About 8:50, the evening paraphernalia is put away and teeth are brushed, prayers are said, and children are carted off to bed.
We do not allow a lot of commotion after everyone is in bed. That means no jabbering, no getting out of bed, no asking Mommy for this or that. Now, don’t get me wrong, all this still happens, we just keep a pretty tight rein on it all. That said, I do try to stay in tune with my children to decide if what they need is truly a need. I do take the time to sit up and talk with children who need to hash something out or get a drink for a child who truly is parched. I’ve come to realize you cannot parent with an iron fist because not everything is done in defiance. Parenting with wisdom is much more effective.
Tracy @ Hall of Fame Moms says
Thats a good reminder about not ruling with an iron fist. Rules are rules, but sometimes they need to be bent for real needs. Thanks for the reminder.
Jennifer says
We love the book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Dr. Eric Weissbluth. It addresses lots of sleep issues for babies through teens and is more about noticing your children’s natural rhythms than forcing them onto a predetermined schedule. We have tried same room, different rooms, early bedtime, late bedtime; but I have noticed that as they grow their needs change and we as parents try to stay tuned into that and remain somewhat flexible. Our nighttime routine or bed arrangement changes once or twice a year (at least while they’re “little”).
Angela says
We have a routine but Bedtime for us has not ever been an issue. I am pretty firm but most of the “rules” are just in my head, I watch the clock and don’t let little ones stay up too late. Even on weekends or holidays it doesn’t pay to keep children that are young up past 9:30. At least not in my house. My children are not homeschooled so I keep in mind when each child has to be up for school and what works best for us. We have 4 bedrooms for kids. One is for the baby only. Our son had a cradle in our room until 5 months and only had naps in his crib during the day in his room. We have our oldest, 16 yr old in her own room. Then we have our 13 yr old and 7 yr old daughters in one room and our niece, 6 and nephew, 5 in one room. When our son moves to a toddler bed this summer we will move our 5 yr old nephew to my sons room (he will be 2 over the summer)….just a little background there.
By 7:30 we also are doing baths or showers. I split up days on who gets them also. Every other night little girls, every other night little boys bath. Teen girls are on their own schedules 🙂
After baths or by 7:50 roughly all kids (for our house we have 4 little kids) so the 4 youngest are in jammies and by 8:15 roughly we have a “nigh nigh snack” (night night). We do every day. It helps those that didnt like dinner, or got hungry since dinner…fill up a little and it’s part of the routine…the kids know what happens at night and that is part of it.
So, nigh nigh snack. Then brush teeth, potty, wash hands and hop in bed. I lay the baby down first then go to the other 2 bedrooms for kisses and adjust nightlights. We still hang the colored Christmas lights on the ceiling, they love them. So I turn them on, give a kiss and off I go.
My older girls are teens so they are getting ready around 9:30 and by 10 its quiet, no cellphones, no internet…and by 10:15 I don’t want to see any lights on for teens (on school nites).
Thats my house 🙂
-Ang
Amy says
Have your younger kids had any trouble with the older ones being allowed to stay up? Or has it just “always been this way” so they don’t notice?
Angela says
The younger ones don’t have trouble with it. They notice the older girls are up but I think they realize they are a lot younger. I don’t hear anything but maybe amongst eachother they complain!
Tonya says
I’m certainly not the best at getting my kids to sleep through the night (my 2-1/2 year old crawled in bed with me last night and nursed), but we seem to do fine. We have a set bedtime, which helps with my sanity. One other thing we’ve done IS put the kids to sleep together. When my 4th was needing to get out of the crib, we put him in bed with his older brother. They still share that queen size bed 3 years later. And on the whole baby waking up the other kids? There must be some age where they START waking up again. When they’re little, they do seem to sleep through the baby crying. But we recently had to move my 9 year old out of the toddlers room because my 9 year old was waking up and bringing the toddler to me – when I wasn’t hearing the crying!!! 🙂
Amy says
Oh my! That is funny having the baby brought to you because you didn’t hear! So often I’ve stumbled in to get a baby and stumbled back to bed without ever realizing what I’ve done until morning when magically, there is a baby in my bed!
Dana says
The biggest thing that helped us was just turning off the lights and going to bed. When everyone goes to bed at 9 (or whatever time) there just was no objection. I’d get back up later a lot of nights, but it usually only took 15 minutes of a quiet, dark house for everyone to be out.
andrea whitwell says
this is a very timely post or me, I am currently VERY tired due to lack of sleep!!! We have 4 small children, smallest being 8 wks, who we are co sleeping with. But I dont find this the most tiring thing at all! We also do resttime after lunch, and i have a sleep wih my baby and todler in our king size bed, and my other children (age nearly 6 and almost 4) are suppossed to play/read quitely in their rooms, well today they were sneaking aound the house in a not so quite way!! any ideas anyone? am i expecting too much from them?!
rachel says
sounds similar to my house! my husband’s work schedule recently changed so we’re sleeping a little later in the morning. our 3 y.o. is not. yesterday my 6 y.o. came into my room to inform me that that little guy was behind the chair in the living room eating all the candy out of his valentine box. i tried not to laugh, but the expression on his face when he realized he was caught was priceless! i would love to do rest time in the afternoon, but i’ve found that it would make it tough on some of my older ones at bedtime…some kids just require less sleep. plus w/ a 10 week old and 2 toddlers, we really need their naptime to accomplish some of the more challenging homeschool tasks. i wish i could give ideas, but i’m in need of them myself!
Amy says
I’ve had to forgo sleep for a few days to stand diligent watch over my little ones during Rest Time. A few days of realizing mom expects them to stay put and they “usually” do…of course, children are foolish and will still try stuff from time to time. 😉
Jennifer says
So great Amy! We have missionaries in Africa, homeschooling single mothers, and more… but I cannot stress the need to minister to sleepless new moms!! Just know we love you and this too shall pass.
Mama K says
sounds like a great “plan”! our kids changed rooms around 12 months. it was always easiest for me to get more sleep by having them with me so i didn’t have to REALLY wake up to nurse them at night.
we only have two thus far, 17 mo. a part, and i never really had much of a problem with our older sleeping through everything…probably because her room in on the other side of the wall from ours so she was hearing any crying anyway. since she’s 3 and he’s 2 they’re both in the same room (nursery) right now. once #3 is born we’ll probably have to decide based on the sex or whether the boy’s sleeping well yet.
THAT’s been our fight. we finally got our little girl staying in her bed once it’s bed time, but now we need to get our boy in his bed without the crib side up…
we also seem to have had a number of seasons for each of them wanting to sleep with us. our little girl would sneak out of her room after we went to bed with her pillow and blanket to sleep in the living room, outside our room. right now our 2 yr. old is waking up around 3 and wanting to sleep on our floor. that’s been a great compromise since an old queen doesn’t fit us and a kid very well…plus i seem to get better sleep without feet pushing on me, etc.
Jenn says
Our routine is pretty similar to what you do. But you are so right, parenting with wisdom works much better than an iron fist.
rachel says
I’d say our “routine” is similar, but flexibility has been a biggy. We have 2 girls in one room, 4 boys in another and the baby with us. He’ll likely stay w/ us for quite some time. If he’s really fussy I’ll take him to the living room so that at least my husband can sleep. We had a really hard time getting our 4th to sleep through the night. We had 2 boys in one room at the time, and the 2 girls, but our older daughter slept very lightly. She would wake up at the slightest wimper from the baby. Needless to say they weren’t sleeping much at all. Finally I moved our older daughter in with the boys, and that helped everyone sleep better.
Bren- says
Wow! Sleep? What is it? I couldn’t imagine a restful nights sleep. With 2 special needs babies, one with a sleep disturbance disorder, due to neurological issues. And another with breathing/aspiration issues. Sleep is broken and scattered for me. I am lucky to get between 4 and 6 hours on a good night, and never uninterrupted. Tatum co-slept with us, as all of the previous 6 had, until she began to take over the entire bed. Then we added a full sized crib to the side of our bed and rigged it to the same level. That allowed me a tad more sleep on occasion. I live in a constant state of brain fog and confusion as a result. The blessing is, I have never really needed as much sleep as others, and though Tatum’s nightly screaming and my waking in a state of panic to Tatum’s screams has added a tenseness, I seem to be able to keep up! Not bad for a mom in her late 40’s. 🙂 On the other end, the teen end…we allow a very lax approach to sleep. But I have been rethinking that lately. As the lax approach to bedtime on my end, has fostered a lax approach to waking on their end!
Amy says
Bren – I would never ever have guessed you were in your late 40’s!
Amy R says
This is a timely post as it’s something that’s been on my mind somewhat the last few months. We’ve got a 2.5 girl, a baby girl who will be 1 on March 5, and I’m scheduled for a c-section with our first boy the last week in March. Our older girl slept well in our room for at least 6 months (I don’t remember exactly) and mostly in our bed. Younger daughter didn’t really like co-sleeping, she was restless and preferred to sleep by herself, even so much that although she was still waking at night several times to eat, I moved her into her own room around 4 months because she could not sleep well with us. Every move I made woke her up. (She still doesn’t consistently sleep through the night, but she’s getting there!)
We live in a 3 bedroom home, and sometime in the near future after baby arrives, youngest daughter will have to share a room with either him or her older sister. I think I will base it on how mobile she is at the time that he’s ready to move, whether she can safely sleep in a toddler bed, to avoid big sister climbing into the crib with her. If not, she can stay in her crib, room-sharing with her brother. I’m still thinking it through. 🙂
Anita says
Amy I’m hoping you might be able to give me some insight in what we’re doing wrong with our older two (4 and 2.5 yrs) right now with bedtimes… they repeatedly get up, play with toys, talk to each other, come out to us complaining of a bad dream (having not slept yet!), needing a drink, a sore “something”, all manner of excuses.
It feels like we’ve tried everything- smacking, ignoring them, etc… but it just doesn’t seem to make any difference… they can still be awake two hours after going to bed and it makes our evenings quite stressful… it seems like it’s the only time in the day and the only issue where they won’t obey and I just cannot figure out why it’s different on this.
It’s especially sneaky, so unless we hear them whispering to each other or their footsteps, we don’t know it’s happening… we feel like we’re going in and out like yo-yos dealing with it and that they and not us, are in control.
It seems that even if we put them to bed an hour later, they’re still doing it.
Any chance you (or someone else) could give me some advice on how you would handle this situation (simple and brief step-by-step methods would be ideal if possible!)… it’s been going on for months and we are so tired… At the end of the day we (my husband and I) really need some time to rest and relax and have a bit of time together, but with this going on it’s really hard.
Please help, we’re a bit lost! And with them and an eleven month old (and I’m sure I’ll be happily pregnant again soon with the previous pattern of things), we really need to sort this out (well, also for their attitude etc too!)
Amy says
Is it possible they are not tired yet or that their evening has not been calming enough? You may need to slow the pace of the evening, make sure you’ve addressed every “need” prior to them getting in bed (and then stick to your guns about staying in bed), and possibly reconsider bed time.
For months, I had to stand or sit outside my 2 yo’s bedroom door because he would not stay in bed. Every time he even acted like he might get up, I called him on it and told him to lay back down. It was tedious, but we don’t have to do that anymore, so it was worth it! Perhaps if you simply stood right outside the bedroom door for a while, so they realized you would immediately enforce the rules (rather than them being able to get by with it for a while before you notice), they would soon tire to trying to disobey.
Hope that helps!
Anita says
Hi Amy, thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I think that it’s possible the bedtime routine has not been calming enough.. I always sing them a lullaby, but sometimes that’s about it in terms of bedtime prep (other than going to the toilet, nappy on, pjs on- we don’t do bathtime every day) and maybe they do need more time to wind down first.
Hmm… yes, standing at their door sounds a bit tiring, but if that’s what it takes! Did it take long for him to fall asleep? By the end of the day I sometimes feel like my feet are about ready to fall off! I’m sure you probably have the same thing though!
Thanks, I will try that.
I am pretty sure they are tired, I know for sure my 2-year-old is!! My 4-year-old has been told recently that if he remembers not to leave a mess next to his clothes cupboard, he can read for half an hour with a lamp each night in bed, but he hasn’t yet remembered!! :S Maybe that would help, as I think sometimes he eggs her on.
I guess I need to ignore them while I’m standing there unless they go to do something they shouldn’t?
Amy says
Yes, I just stand there (off to the side a bit), reading a book, or some such thing with the door cracked so I can see in. That way I can be immediate with my response. On average, it was 10-15 mins of me standing there before he fell asleep. Much better than hours of up and down! 😉
melissa says
HI! thanks for the info. 🙂 I have an almost-4-year-old who has been waking up several times a night and super early in the morning. He’s been doing it for over a year now. He recently dropped his naps and it’s difficult to get him to stay in his room for “quiet time” without him waking up his baby brother whose room is next door.
Do you have any tips on how to get him to sleep through the night again?
thanks!
Amy says
I have a child who doesn’t sleep well. You might look into something natural like Calms Forte or 5HTP or even just seeing if he needs a snack of protein right before bed. 🙂
melissa says
Thank you! I’ll try some 5-HTP. I have some but probably not for kids. I appreciate your time!
Kirstie says
I did a search on your website because I figured as a mom of 7 you might have something to say about night time sleep issues, and viola, I was right. Here’s my particular question… if you have time to respond, that would be awesome. I only have 3 at this point, 8, 5 and 14 months… but it feels like many nights are just one long endless parade of coming in and out of mommy and daddy’s room. Someone has a bad dream. Someone is afraid to go in the bathroom by themselves. Someone says “I have been awake for HOURS and I just can’t get to sleep.” Sometimes there is a tantrum in the middle of the night when the parent refuses to get out of bed to find a certain stuffed animal that has disappeared and said child has to be taken to the basement at 3 am where they won’t disturb their siblings and disciplined. And sometimes a child who has a legitimate reason for getting us up gets their poor head bitten off because it’s the 4th time someone has been in our room that night (add a dog who sometimes starts howling because he is lonely downstairs in his crate to all this mess). Like all things, there seems to be phases where this happens a lot and phases where we actually get restful sleep. If you have any thoughts about dealing with such things, I’m all ears.
Amy says
I’m not sure I have any great answer. We have children who manage to find their way into bed nearly every night, but when Daddy says, “No one in our bed tonight,” (usually when he needs a really good night’s sleep for an event the next day), they typically listen. It’s the craziest thing. One thing we do is put a palette on the floor for the stragglers. I would also really work to create a very solid relaxing nighttime routine. Wakefulness at night usually has a lot to do with what has been going on during the day. And as with so many things about parenting, there will come a day when you will wonder where those crazy days went. 🙂
Kirstie says
Lol, so what you are saying is basically “it comes with the territory.” So I suspected. This is a growing area for the Lord to sanctify me in the middle of the night. We may have to go with the pallet idea and just encourage them to utilize it *without* waking us up whenever possible (except, of course, with my supersonic mama hearing I wake up as soon as a toenail hits the floor in a room down the hall). Thanks for taking the time to reply!
Amber says
I have 3 kids girl (5), boy (4), boy (15mons). We just moved into a small home where everything echoes and there are only two kid rooms. Right now the boys share a room and my daughter has her room. Every since we moved none of us has sleep in our own bed consistently. I call it musical Beds. My 4 year old son, doesn’t even get to sleep in his own bed because of his little brother sleeping in the shared room. The problem with us is finding a solution that will work with the boys sharing without waking baby when putting 4 year old to bed. My baby wakes up to easily. So my 4 year old is pushed out of his room. The older two my daughter and son have either shared a bed or one of us (husband and I will sleep with one and the other with another child. I’m so tired of playimg musical beds and not having a bed time routine. I’m lucky if I can get my older two in bed by 10! Some nights I need to go bed early and I can’t. My older son cries when he can’t share a bed with dad, and I’m tired of it. I want my kids sleeping in their own rooms and beds. My daughter doesn’t care staying in her room as much as long she has some one in their with her. I really want to start them being separated. Any suggestions to my issues would be appreciated. How do you put your older kids to bed without waking up another child who has been asleep in that room?
Jen Holm says
I know this is an older post, but I found it interesting that (at the time) your little baby was easily congested and didn’t co-sleep much. My currently 4 month old is the same way and I had no idea that was even a problem that would exist. He was in an arms reach Co-sleeper by 3 weeks old.
Also, on the topic of sharing rooms: So far we have 3 littles (almost 4, 2 and 4 mo) and our babies transition out of our room at 6 months (maybe a little later with our 3rd), but when we do allow our girls (the first two), to share a room ocassionally for “sleepovers”….oh my word! The 2 year old blabs on and squeels until 10 PM before falling asleep. My oldest is good and quiet, although she can be prone to approach the crib and chat with her little sister. They are just so excited to be in the same room together for night time. Maybe if they got use to it the 2 hours of chatter would stop? Also heard them chatting at 4 AM!
My 2 year old is relentless and totally doesn’t care if I discapline her for being noisy.
I am starting to wonder if room sharing for the girls would be better if I waited till my 2 year old is 3 and mutured more. And possibly putting our baby boy in with our oldest whenever we are ready to transition him and let our wild little 2 year old be the one with her own space.
Thoughts?
Not sure how 2 year old would act with baby in her room.
Or just keep getting them use to sharing a room. It has been nice having babies have their own room when they hit those bumps in the road when they want to cry and protest bedtime, or let them cry to learn to fall back to sleep on their own. Or me coming into the room 3 times a night for feedings or rocking. Looking to the near future not sure what is going to be vest for us/them yet.
Amy says
Hi! I wrote this post not too long ago about our bedtime routine – https://raisingarrows.net/2016/04/creating-a-simple-evening-routine-for-children/ but after scanning it, I realized what I was going to tell you isn’t actually included fully in that post. I say in there that we “patrol the hall” to keep the kids quiet, but we have taken to actually sitting in the room with them until one of the boys is asleep. Once one of them is asleep, the other one isn’t long in getting there. 😉 We basically sit there and make sure they are quiet and calm and actually trying to fall asleep.
Jen Holm says
Great info, thanks. I actually did read that post. But knowing that you keep yourself in the room is helpful. We are trying again tonight and my 2 year old was more responsive to some swats on the rear for yapping on after mama said no noise, quiet time.
And basically that’s what I did – I went from kitchen cleaning to bedroom a few times and stayed by the door for a while until I heard nothing. Potroling. Kids these days ; ) this gives me some hope for their room sharing. Someone once suggested staggering bedtimes, waiting for the first to fall asleep. This was hard to do. They are 20 mo apart and putting them to bed at same time just works best. Ever tried the stagger method?
On top of that my 4 month old is in a groove of constantly waking and needing the full on soothing to be back to sleep so I let him cry it out for a half hour and just as i walked in the room is was settling himself.