to creep around and not go up to the top floor for fear of waking my children

[Miffyandme]

My two youngsters are quite hit and miss with sleeping. I've given up trying to solve it and just going with the flow for now, but I've developed an unhealthy obsession with not making too much noise whilst they're asleep.
I really need to sort out a little room on our top floor (we have one of those townhouse-style houses, not to be recommended for young families) as it is a dumping ground, but I'm worried about waking the baby.
I need stories of children sleeping through lots of noise or equally validation of my behaviour please!

I have tiptoed round the house over the years! No watching action films or comedies. Can you box up some stuff to bring down and sort in the evening? Or just wait until you actually have sleep and children who don't need your attention every minute?
You have my sympathy! It's exhausting.

The problem is the house is too small for me to store the stuff I bring downstairs anywhere the kids can't get at it....it's one of those things that's bothering me and I wondered if I just need to be less precious about the noise!

How old are they?
My dd was a ridiculously light sleeper so we got into the habit of being super quiet on an evening when they'd going to sleep (turn the TV down to volume no. 3 for example) and other people who came to the house would go on about how we needed to make noise or else she'd never get used to it etc.
We're not noisy anyway so ignored what others had to say. Dd is now knocking on 4 years old and is fine. She slept through the smoke alarms blaring the other night. She slept through fireworks on NYE thank goodness. She wasn't disturbed by the sonic boom a few weeks ago.

How old?

I found that their deepest sleep was usually after an hour after they'd drifted off until about 11pm ish. So noise not an issue

1 and 2. I was at a friends the other evening with small kids and I was surprised just how chilled she was about noise....it was just normal adult conversation, not like a big party or anything, but I wondered if I am just being crazy as I have poor sleepers!

Would you be able to get childcare for a couple of days or a night or two and crack on with sorting it out then?

Ah id be wary as mine were dreadful at that age

I'm a bit wary like you OP. Mine will sleep through surprising levels of noise but if she gets properly woken up she looks like this and screams bloody murder! I also hate being woken up as I can't get back to sleep for ages, so I possibly have a bit of a thing about it.

YABU because we shouldnt be slaves to DCs but I have to do this too (2.4 and 6mo). I have to cross the landing like a weirdo to avoid squeaky floorboards and brush my teeth in the kitchen.

Moving house next week and hoping the new one is less squeaky (can you believe I didn't even check?)

I feel a bit validated then. The boxes shall remain unpacked! I deliberately didn't post on the sleep thread as I assume that is a self-selecting group of posters whose children also don't sleep well.
I'm hoping the house layout will work better once they are older! Too many stairgates as well at the moment....
The baby sleeps through noise in the car but that's different and she's got a loud cry when she does wake that is presently only quietened by the boob which is a whole different story...

I'm contemplating getting a joiner round to see if anything can be done about the noisy staircase....like you Tango I have a unique style of navigating them

My anti-sleeper would and does sleep through regular noise once he's been down about 20mins. I've dropped things on tile bathroom floor, smoke alarms gone off, microwave popcorn. We regularly have friends around for a games night downstairs with doors shut.
Why not try it one night when you feel up to tackling an awakening, see how it goes?

I'm so glad no one could see the mad way I had of navigating the upstairs when kids were sleeping! And youngest is 6 and I don't flush loos at night (unless someone poohs!) Neurotic? Me? Um no. I just need sleep!!!!!

It's really hard. We never tiptoed around with the first, who slept like the proverbial baby, but second is a light sleeper and, although we don't tiptoe around a t all, the layout of our house means that she is nowhere near any of the natural noise we make. So if it were, who knows what we'd do? I truly hope we wouldn't go over to the bad place.

We had good friends who lived on our road who had kids around the same time as us. We got on with life, to a certain extent, whereas their whole life stopped. They had terrible sleepers, but they literally whispered and tiptoed around whenever the babies dropped off. It was almost comedic, were it not so sad. I went to the door once and they opened it before I'd even knocked (I'd have done it gently!), aghast that the world might end lest I did, and they then whispered through the conversation even though we were then outside the door.... They'd clearly gone mad. What those babies needed was a little ambient noise to get them used to it - it wasn't their fault they were used to the deathly, terrified silence of their terrified sleep deprived parents. It was all they knew.

May I suggest this - introduce a little bit of noise over time - an extra notch on the TV, the door between you and them more ajar, talking in ever more normal tones. Of course they will all eventually get there and sleep the sleep of a teenager even when cymbals are crashed over their head at 13 when you're trying to get them up for school, but you'll go completely mental for the next 11 years if you continue to behave like this. And you'll lose friends - no one wants to socialise at someone's house where you are required to communicate in whispers. We no longer see the whispering ones, who still whisper away and don't allow loo flushing even though their kids are 5/6... It's just not fun anymore.

I don't want to turn into "The Whispering ones"!!

Blimey, I have the opposite problem. Mine is impossible to wake. I was one of those ridiculously light sleepers though, nobody could flush the toilet and the tooth fairy really struggled. I'm still a light sleeper, sorry I've been no help whatsoever.

Miffy - you won't! Just take very gradual tiny baby steps to reintroduce natural ambient noise. You may get a few awakenings as they adjust, but long term you will get much more freedom and, therefore, peace. And you can have a nice evening poo too, what's not to like?

For laughs, see if you can find the Catherine Tate sketch of the crazy parents who sit outside a dinner party (and then insist their food is brought out) because their child is asleep in the car - now I've definitely done that (not a dinner party but waited in the car because the peace is SO fucking peaceful) - it's brilliant because it's so real! And it's pant wettingly funny too.

We are living this at the moment OP so don't you fret. We had to buy a video monitor for our DS room as crossing the floor in his room to check on him meant he woke (think full on screaming fit, into our bed and generally 4am before he slept again) for most of his 2nd year. We do creep in and check on him from time to time and I really miss being able to sneak in and watch him sleep. Suggestions that have helped with the general house noise was that we have the same music playing very quietly in DS's room every night for some low ambient noise, the TVs on low before he goes up to bed and then we generally keep the house relatively quiet. As a previous poster said, the first 2-3 hours that he's asleep is when he'd sleep through an air raid siren so I can quietly potter about upstairs if I have to. Whole other story but tonight is night 2 of moving him to his big boys' bed god help me

I saw that Catherine Tate sketch recently - it is great.
I'm not at the no-flushing the loo stage so maybe there is hope yet....

I am gradually increasing the noise I make in the evenings because I didn't want to end up like inlovewithhubbys friends. It seems to be working out well.

I think you have to be noisy from day 1. We've never crept around at night and our two sleep well when they've nodded off. I've hoovered and tidied up and sometimes gone in their rooms and switch he'd the light on without thinking! Makes it so much easier when we go camping and there's noise all night.

You should really not get the children used to a silent house to sleep in. That is not real life, they need to be able to sleep with a little background noise. Do it gradually to allow them to become accustomed to noise otherwise you will still be doing this years down the line.