Hellobee

A few months ago, we moved Panda out of our room and into what is now Lion and Panda’s shared room. I had been putting it off because Lion is not the best sleeper and I was worried that he would keep Panda up at night, and then we would have two unpredictable sleepers. Mr. Dolphin really wanted our bedroom back, though, and because of several events we had coming up (visitors, travel, etc.), we knew we either had to go for it then or wait two more months.

Another consideration that I had was when we were going to move Lion to a toddler or twin bed. We decided not to purchase a crib for Panda and our options were either to move Lion to a toddler bed and give Panda the crib, or purchase a mattress for the pack-n-play that we already had and let Lion continue to use the crib. I was somewhat hoping that Lion would force our hand by trying to climb out of his crib, but that thought has clearly never crossed his mind. Because it can take Lion a long time to fall asleep, we were concerned that he would be getting out of bed every five minutes, so we waited on the bed transition. Had we moved Lion into a toddler bed, we would have delayed room sharing further because we didn’t want to have too many simultaneous adjustments.

Ultimately, Mr. Dolphin convinced me that we should go ahead and attempt the room sharing, so we moved the two kids in together just before Lion turned 24 months and Panda turned 6 months old. Below, I share our current bedtime schedule, followed by our timeline of what we started doing a week before we moved Panda and Lion in together to where we are now. Although we have had a few hiccups along the way, including sleep regressions and illnesses, it has gone relatively smoothly.

Current Bedtime Schedule:

6:30 p.m.—After dinner, I change Panda’s diaper and put him into pajamas (if it’s not bath night*). Then, I give Panda his last bottle for the evening. On rare occasions he falls asleep while eating, I put him straight to bed.

6:45 p.m.—We take Panda into the kids’ room and I put him into his sleep sack. Meanwhile, Lion picks out three board books then I read to them both.

6:55 p.m.—Lion and I sing Panda his good night song, give him kisses and tell him we love him. I place Panda in his crib awake and hand him his lovey. We leave the room and close the door. Most nights, we hear Panda babbling. Occasionally, we hear him cry out, but never more than two minutes.

7:00 p.m.—We change Lion into his pajamas (if it’s not bath night*) and get his teeth brushed.

7:05 p.m.—Lion picks out three books then runs and finds me, announces he wants a slice of cheese for bed (don’t ask about how this became part of the routine) and a glass of water. He gives me a good night hug and kiss before climbing onto the couch next to Mr. Dolphin for bedtime stories.

7:20 p.m.— Mr. Dolphin takes Lion to bed and leaves his room door open. It’s anyone’s guess as to how long it will take Lion to fall asleep or how many times we have to go into his room to give him one more hug, a board book, or reassure him that we will keep his door open. But at some point, Lion will actually fall asleep.

*On bath nights, the schedule is shifted a bit and the kids take a bath together before we get them into their pajamas and start the bedtime routine. 

I think room sharing has brought the kids even closer together!

One Week Before

For the entire week before we moved Panda in, we talked about how fun it would be for his brother to join him. Prior to that, we had asked Lion, “Do you want Panda to sleep in your room?” Lion was always excited about this prospect, but I still wanted him to fully understand that it was happening and not just a hypothetical. We talked to him about the fact that Panda might cry, but that was okay because babies cry sometimes. We also tried to talk to Lion about his need to be quieter at bedtime so he wouldn’t wake his brother.

Prior to room sharing, we had always done Lion’s bedtime routine in his room, but because we decided we would put Panda down about 15-30 minutes before Lion, we started reading books in Mr. Dolphin and my room. Again, we wanted to give him enough time to adjust to this new routine so that he wouldn’t feel like Panda had pushed him out or was the cause of any of these changes.

Morning Of the Room Sharing

The morning of the move we asked Lion if he wanted Panda to move into his room and he shouted, “Yes!” so we showed him where we were going to put Panda’s crib. We settled on putting the two sleeping spaces right next to each other making an L-shape. Lion was thrilled with the prospect of having his brother sleep next to him and for the rest of the day, Lion would excitedly tell us, “Panda sleep in Lion’s room now!”

You can see the L set up of the crib and pack-n-play in the background.

First Night

We put Panda down in his pack-n-play and he fell asleep by the time we had finished getting Lion ready, so we had to encourage Lion keep his voice down when we put him down.

We did hurry into the kids’ room several times either to pop a pacifier into Panda’s mouth or calm Lion down quickly after he woke up. Panda doesn’t always need a pacifier, but we didn’t want him waking Lion up the first night because 1) Lion is not a great sleeper and it can be difficult to get him to fall back asleep; and 2) we didn’t want Lion to resent Panda if he realized it was his brother waking him up. Because Panda has always been a better sleeper, we also didn’t want Lion’s erratic sleeping to disturb his own sleep habits. Lion was often waking up during the night crying and screaming, and we were concerned that the sheer volume of the crying would wake Panda. This was a tough decision for us because we didn’t want to create unnecessary sleep crutches for Panda and also wanted Lion to learn to sleep better on his own, but it is the route we decided on for the first few nights and have mostly kept with.

First Morning After Room Sharing

The first morning, we woke up to the sound of happy babbling, talking and laughing. Lion was thrilled to wake up and find Panda in his room. He scrambled up to his feet so he could better peer over his own crib and into Panda’s. From the video monitor, we saw him jumping up and down while singing, “No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” When we went into their room, Lion announced, “Look! Panda wake up! He’s happy!”

First Week

The first week basically went the same as the first evening and morning. Lion was super thrilled each night to have Panda in his room, we would go in two or three times each night to tend to one or more of the kids, and they would wake each other up in the morning with laughter and babbling.

Each morning when we went into their room, Lion would ask to get into Panda’s crib, or ask us to put Panda in Lion’s crib so they could play together.

First Month

The first month went pretty well overall. On one or two nights, Panda did not fall asleep before we put Lion down. On these nights, we would hear the kids shrieking and laughing together. Panda would push himself up to his hands and knees or try to sit up and then we would hear Lion, who is generally a big rule follower, shout, “Lay down, Panda! Lay down! Mama, Panda’s sitting up!” Because their cribs are right next to each other, they would also start touching hands and reaching for each other when they were awake. It took both boys awhile to settle down and fall asleep. Still, it was pretty fun watching them interact.

Lion had a weekend where he was really fussy and seemed to have a slight rash when an outbreak of hand, foot, mouth disease had been circulating the daycare. We took him to the doctor who couldn’t definitively say if he had HFM, but he said we should separate the kids because it can be a little more serious for an infant. Lion, however, would refuse to sleep unless Panda was in the room with him. We gambled that Lion didn’t have HFM and let them fall asleep together. Then, after Lion fell asleep, I would get Panda and let him co-sleep with us for the night.

During the first month of room sharing, we also went to Seattle which upset their sleep a little bit. The three-hour time difference and red-eye flight home did cause some sleep disruption upon our return home, but things resumed to what is our normal after a week.

Two Months

During the second month Panda had a serious sleep regression. He would wake up at four a.m. babbling like crazy and would not fall back asleep. At this time, he also started rejecting his pacifier and of course, right around this time, Lion started wanting to sleep in a bit later. Because Lion often woke up at four a.m. for the first year of his life, and at five a.m. for most of his second year, I didn’t want to disrupt this gift of extra sleep. If it was obvious that Panda wasn’t going back to sleep, I would pull him out of his crib and let him co-sleep in our room. Somehow, for the first week or two, Panda would happily fall back asleep in our bed until after six when it was time to wake up anyway.

We had a couple more hiccups with Lion waking up one evening happy, but talking. When I went to see what was going on, he informed me that he needed a new diaper and when I picked him up, I instantly realized he had a high fever. He stayed home for the next three days and his pediatrician told us she thought he might have hand, foot, and mouth disease. She advised we separate the kids. Two days later, I ended up with a high fever myself, then a day after that, Mr. Dolphin caught it. Somehow, Panda was the only one to escape the week fever-free. It disrupted the sleeping arrangement slightly because Panda spent an extra couple of nights in our bed, but Panda doesn’t seem to be too affected by changes.

Three Months

Around this time Panda learned to crawl, pull himself up to a standing position and clap, all in a one-week span. Then he started to cruise the following week. Believe me when I say he wanted to practice each and every one of these skills every time he woke up in the middle of the night (and was waking earlier and more often). He did this all while shrieking loudly in his crib, and he wanted to practice these skills when I brought him into our bed at 2 a.m. One night, I gave up and told Mr. Dolphin I was going to bring Panda upstairs to the futon in the loft so that at least one of us could get some sleep. As soon as we went upstairs, miracle of miracles, he was totally calm and five minutes later, he had fallen asleep. This swoop-in-and-pull-Panda-out-of-his-crib-then-attempt-to-make-him-co-sleep-in-our-room-then-go-upstairs-and-actually-fall-back-asleep routine continued for the next two weeks.

Finally, about halfway through the third month of room sharing, Panda started to get over his sleep regression. There have been a couple of nights over the past month where he has actually gone to sleep and stayed asleep until at least 5 a.m. (in which case he is definitely up for the day).

Lion also went through some sort of sleep regression during this month. Mr. Dolphin has found himself in Lion’s room at two a.m. on many nights, holding Lion’s hand until Lion falls back asleep. What we did learn through this sleep regression, however, is that Panda can sleep through just about anything. On several nights, Lion would wake up screaming and would not fall back asleep. He would start crying and babbling incoherently, or would start shouting, “I need you, Papa! I need a hug! I need you!” Panda slept through almost all of Lion’s crying, even when it was difficult to calm Lion down and the crying went on for ten minutes or more. While we no longer worry as much about Lion waking Panda up, at some point I would love to actually get a full night’s sleep from both kids. If you have any tips for dealing with a toddler who has always been a bad sleeper and is going through a sleep regression, I am all ears!

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So, that is where we are currently. Panda falls asleep first, then Lion goes to bed and takes anywhere from ten minutes to one hour to fall asleep. Currently, Panda might wake up once or twice during the night and then fall back asleep with a pacifier, or will sleep until 5 a.m. Lion is still a fairly erratic sleeper and requires attention from Mr. Dolphin almost every single night. To be honest, I think we do get up one or two more times each night than we did prior to room sharing because I was more inclined to let Panda fuss or cry for a few minutes and he was pretty good about putting himself back to sleep. Lion’s difficulty in getting him back to sleep has made us more apt to jump up and tend to Panda right away. I do worry a little bit about creating sleep crutches for Panda and if we had a third bedroom, I think I would have been happy to put them in separate rooms until Lion starts sleeping more consistently. While the middle of the night can be tiring at times, at least the two kids are always happy to be in adjacent cribs. I also think it has helped with sibling bonding; Lion is always looking for his little brother and Panda adores him! It is so much fun to see them entertain each other.

Fingers crossed that Panda is over his sleep regression and that Lion learns to sleep a bit better, himself!