I apparently uttered the death toll to what felt like a night’s worth of active labor this morning by saying to my husband, “I am certain we are having a baby today.” No luck (so far). Since my readers are probably weary of pregnancy talk anyway, I thought I’d focus on asking for some help for a bed time issue we’re having with the kiddos right now.
Before Christmas, we had a toddler who went to bed very well by himself, slept in a crib, and didn’t yet crawl out. Our 4 year-old went through the constant getting out of bed for lame reasons for awhile, but we could eventually get her down. With a third coming, we decided to transition the kids to a shared bedroom with bunkbeds. Part of their Christmas gift included discovering a room that we’d painted and decorated Christmas Eve, including a new bunk bed. This meant transitioning Ezra to a big boy bed. Tim and I figured this would give us a good amount of time to transition them to a shared space before baby arrived.
Well, most nights they love sharing a room. The issue? Maybe they love it too much. For the last little while, Ezra has been so hyper at night. We like to do a clean-up before bed time each night and they can undue our the nice, clean space in what feels like a matter of seconds when they team up with the bed time crazies. We find ourselves in and out of the room, threatening to take things away, turning out the lights, being firm, begging. One will have a “good” night, but then the other’s antics prove irresistible to them. And, frankly, we’re sick of it.
Tim started googling some new solutions for this last night. I suspect that the same approach might not work for them both due to their age differences. We’re leaning toward positive reinforcement (duh!), but I wondered if any of my readers had some concrete suggestions and recommendations about what they have used to help their kids settle down. For reference, this is what our bedtime routine looks like now:
1. Family Clean up.
2. Get pjs on, brush teeth, go potty.
3. Read 5 verses of scripture, then family prayer.
4. Mom and dad alternate nights reading books.
5. Into bed (with night light).
Thanks! Cross your fingers that you won’t hear from me for a few days and my next post will have those classic new baby photos.
I hope to see new baby pictures next time you pop up too!
My brother and I shared a room for a long time and we would stay up late talking. I didn’t really think about it when I was little of course but now that I’m older it’s a fond memory.
We havn’t transitioned the baby yet but we had similar problems with my son.
We used the minute bank idea. They have so many minutes (say 30) that they can “save” to use for a special late night movie or something on the weekend. But everytime they get up or out of their bed/room they “lose” that many minutes.
I look forward to reading other people ideas too…I have to transition a little one soon.
I like Melanie’s minute bank idea! Wish I had some advice, but as the mom of an only, who is now a teenager and a great sleeper… 🙂
Hope to see a baby pic soon!
Ally