Our boys have always shared a bedroom. Well, technically Julesy slept with us until he was 2 months old, but once he started sleeping in his own bed, his crib was in his brother’s room. I didn’t prefer for the boys to bunk together, we just didn’t have the space for them to each have their own room. Our little house is technically a 3 bedroom, but our “master” bedroom and bathroom were additions on the house, and the original owners used one of the bedrooms as the entrance to new “master suite” (trust me, that sounds fancier than it really is.) This means you have to walk through one of the bedrooms to get to our bedroom, so we never considered that middle room a real bedroom. It was really more like a glorified hallway to us. For the last three years we used it as an office, which was great for me, but it meant the two boys had to shack up together.
Last fall we realized that Julesy was ready to have a big boy bed, so we bought Jonas a full-size bed and gave Julesy the toddler bed. Almost immediately, Julesy decided that Jonas’s full-sized bed was the place to be, and he abandoned his little toddler bed. After a few weeks of the toddler bed going unused, we took it out of the room and let the boys both sleep in the full size bed. It seemed to make everyone happy – for a little while. They would snuggle up together and fall asleep, which was off-the-charts adorable.
Prior to this time, the boys had great sleep habits. I’m a big fan of getting the kids to sleep at the same time every night, and establishing a solid bedtime routine. At one time, they were rockstars with the bedtime routine. However, once Julesy was no longer contained by the crib, he started treating bedtime like a free-for-all. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow, gradual decay in their sleep habits. Once upon a time, we were able to get both the boys asleep between 7:30-8:00 pm. John and I could then spend about four hours a night (8:00 pm to midnight) on homework, or being together, or whatever else needed to be done.
However, the last few months the children’s bedtime routine started spinning totally out of control. Being in the same bed – the same room – made both of them turn kooky. Jules would pick on Jonas and Jonas would scream. Then when we got Jonas calmed down, he’d turn around and steal a stuffed animal from Jules and then Jules would scream. All of this kept escalating until we saw ourselves spending an average of two hours each night breaking up fights and soothing everyone down until they finally fell asleep at closer to 9:30-10:00 pm. Then, because there was still four hours each night of homework or housecleaning that needed to be done, John and I began needing to stay up until 2:00 am every night in order to catch up on our own work.
Something had to give. So – I gave up my office. It took me about a month, but I finally managed to convince the Hyphenated Husband to move the piano and desk to different areas in the house, and give Julesy his very own bedroom. Neither of us was excited about losing our office, or making a huge change like this, but we began to feel that breaking up the boys was our only option to restore some peace to our evenings.
We took a whole Saturday and transformed the glorified hallway into a room fit for a toddler. We set back up his toddler bed, decorated his walls in his favorite thing (decals pictures of sports balls) and filled his shelves with his favorite board books. I felt terrible taking him away from his brother, but Jonas was absolutely thrilled to have his own room back. Once Julesy saw the basketballs and footballs on his wall, he was happy with his new space too.
The very first night, it was clear that our plan worked. Jonas went immediately to bed without a single objection – due (I’m certain) in large part by him not having to fight off his rambunctious little brother. Julesy protested a little, but we sat with him until he got used to his room, and now he’s sleeping better than ever. (notice him bed-sharing with his basketball – the kid is fanatically obsessed with his balls.)
So now, Julesy sleeps in his own room for the first time in two years. The boys are both asleep by 8:00 pm again, and the adults no longer have to stay up until 2:00 am doing homework anymore. The whole house is more peaceful… more harmonious. Yeah, it sucks to have to walk through Julesy’s room to access the rest of the house, but it’s really not as bad as we thought it would be. I feel foolish not to have separated them before, but the transition is bittersweet. *sniff, sniff*
My babies are getting so big.
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Do your kids share a room, and at what age? How does it work in your house?
Is there any chance you can do some construction work, so that the glorified hallway/office/bedroom can be turned into an actual room? My grandparents had a master bed/bath, and being a general contractor, my grandfather knocked out the rear wall, put on a larger bedroom, and left the original bed/bath as the "entry" into the bedroom. He uses the ante-room as an office.
Even a decent set of french doors might make your room a little more private at least. This way, as kids are playing between rooms, your room is closed off & they can't bring the mess into your room, too. :)
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