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Tuesday 20 February 2018

Family | My Kids Don't Sleep in Their Own Room

You know before you have kids and you have all these preconceptions on how you're going to raise them and all of the things you totally, absolutely, 100% will not do when you become a parent, then the kids arrive and all of those things go out of the window? Well my kids don't sleep in their own room. They don't even sleep in my room. In fact, they sleep downstairs with Pete. Yes, me and my fella don't sleep in the same bed, we don't even sleep in the same room! 

When George was younger we co-slept with him which isn't something a lot of people do or agree on and it was another one of those things we said we wouldn't do but it worked for us. When he was about nine months old it got to the point where I needed him to go in his own room so we started sleep training and my god it was excruciating! Our once good sleeper would scream and cry because he was in his own bed, Pete and I would have to sit in his room until he fell asleep but once he was asleep he'd be in there all night. It was only by chance one day that I left his room to get something and he wasn't bothered that we had finally cracked it! Result! From that day on he was always really good at going to bed and even when we switched from cot to bed we had no problems with him. People would tell us we were lucky that he was a good sleeper, which he was  to be fair and had been from a young age, but for us to get him to sleep without us being there was hard graft.

Henry was a different kettle of fish completely! He hated being asleep in his cot from day one and the lack of sleep really affected my mental health so Pete would sleep downstairs on the couch with Henry. A year later, this is still ongoing, but now we have a three year old who has stopped sleeping in his room as well. It started a few months ago when George started saying he was scared of ghosts and being really upset when we put him to bed. He was hysterical so I brought him downstairs and let him fall asleep there but it seems to have become the norm.

If somebody told me this was their current situation I would probably judge them so hard, albeit secretly of course. Our friends and family keep telling us how ridiculous it is, which it is, I completely agree with them but at the moment it works for us. The boys go down to sleep really well after a bottle and a story and they sleep all night. I actually enjoy the fact I get the king sized bed to myself sssshhh. The situation isn't the most ideal but we all get some sleep and I think all sleep deprived parents can relate they will do anything to get a decent kip.

We are going to start sleep training soon but at the moment both bedrooms are being used for storage so as part of my 2018 goals, I am going to smash the bedrooms this week and get them both tidied, ready to be decorated and then we can get a move on!

Any tips for gentle sleep training would be much appreciated! 

Rachael xo