Right tell me how to do this AP parents...want ds and dd in own room and me and dp in SAME room

[FillyjonkIsMilitantAboutFruit]

right i am sharing rather a lot here in an attempt to get some help. anyone mocks me for my hardcore lentilly nightime parenting, i shall get a pitchfork out

ok

since dd was born 21 months ago, dp has been sharing a room with ds (3.5 ) , dd with me. Because, tbh, that was the ONLY sodding way to get some sleep. Both of my kids are utterly, utterly, crappola sleepers, which is probably in part due to me needing only about 6 hours sleep a night.

But now, bascially, I want dp and me in the same room, and the kids in a room of their own (only 2 bedrooms).

So how do we achieve this?

Here are the problems.

1. Ds will not let ANYONE except dp put him to bed. He has a complex ritual involving stories.

1. dd will not let ANYONE except me put her to bed and furthermore is usually still fed to sleep. This could possibly change, there is scope for her to have her feed earlier and then go to bed without a feed.

1. The stories are important but the kdis squabble over which story and dd has little concept as yet of turn taking, your story next etc. Of course we are working on that but in the interim, it means bedtime stress.

oh and i'd like one parent to be able to do the whole bedtime ritual so that the other could bugger off the the gym or something.

hmm. I need to work out my own thoughts here really, yours also greatly appreciated,

DD will have to have a nap so she goes to bed at the same time as ds

definitely

OR start one of them off in your room and move them when fast asleep to the children's room? If she really cannot do it any other way

I agree soemtimes things are resisted less than you think they might be.

We recently had to move DS from one bedroom to anotehr.

I was thinking cabin beds, wall stickers & allsorts would be required, plus big problems at bedtime.

But in the end we just swapped him (told him beforehand it was going to happen, gave him a reason - we had relatives coming to stay, inluding his cousin, and they needed his previously bigger bedroom) and hey presto, that was it, he completely accepted his new room and it was no trouble.

Am going to catch the last 10 mins of Life on Mars - please let us know what you decide and how it goes - best of luck

filly - i think i love you. youre being very cute.

orville - you are also very amusing, but im pretty sure you dont qualify as an AP, nor a lentil weaver. its all about the lentils on this thread you know

lolol

filly - this is TOTALLY do-able. if i did it, so can you. beleive me, i am inept at parenting, and more so when over tired. cods right a bit tho... you do need a life too.

agree with sunny
let your kid learn that life is full of things hcanging and her havign to put up wiht things

Of COURSE you aren't allowed to post on certain threads

did you not get the memo about it?

DS is that age as well when they have such specific ideas about

"how things should be done"

I'm an Ap parent and at the moment ds2 sleeps in bed with me and dh in the spare room as he snores and distrbs him. This is fine and so is our relationship. We're very close and it doesn't make an iota of difference to us. We still have a very healthy relationship

We co-slept with all of ours until they were ready to leave, dd was about 20 months, ds1 a bit earlier as he was walking at 9 months and got out of bed all the time so we tried his own cotbed and he was happy in it. I'd just start with you both doing the bedtime routine and then swapping it round so they get used to either of you doing it and then either feeding dd to sleep and then putting her up or staying until they're both asleep. What I'd try at first but up to you

oh here's the OTHER thing

I can do the routine alone, actually, its just a huuuuuge faff. Takes about 2-3 hours cos ds is so incredibly pissed off, wants his daddy, and etc. We do actually go away a fair bit w/o dp and he is away for work occasionally (we normally go away though, I don't remember when I last had them both at home alone)

The thing is, thats my evening gone. I don't want that either. I'd rather see dp in the evening and then sleep seperately than take 3 hours to put the kids to bed and not see him.

thanks for all comments btw. i know i am sounding confused here, i really can't straighten it all out in my head.

Agree with some of the others, would push back their bedtime till they are both more tired and hopefully more compliant (and would try and put them to bed at roughly the same time, DD first and DS after with stories etc).
My DS age 2 was not good at bedtime, but now he goes to bed around 8-8.30 and is much easier. He is now ok to be left to go to sleep on his own (wasnt the case for a long time) and mainly sleeps through until 6.30/7.
He was not good for a long time but I think letting him stay up later has helped. Also agree with day naps in their room as think this can help with general idea that its ok to go to sleep in own room IYSWIM.

oh feck me,

HI AVIATRIX

am going to email you soon, promise, am sooo crap

No it makes perfect sense and I can totally see how things ended up like this

good on you for having a look at it and deciding to make changes - it is often much easier to just leave things as they are, but in the long term you can make some good changes here and make life easier for yourselves, hopefully

Filly on the nights when you are doing the routine can you start earlier so that you still get the evening? Try and condense it bit by bit and also it will get better as he gets older

Why does it take so long - explain! Is it staying with them till they're asleep?

Ooh yes sorry Hello aviatrix the thread was going too fast

Dp says your MN name is his current favourite

"the children's room"

oh i like that

i want one of those

here's the problem, if i do it like this i have to sort out their bedroom first, which will take a good couple of weeks or two.

oh i love y'all you are making me think this might be possible.

oo-er i cant cope when threads move this fast... making me dizzy...

Oh good lord HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVIATRIX

doh

sorry

how has it been?

erm, ds went into his own room age just 3. We had to buy a big Ikea two storey bed with a star canopy on it, but it worked

We used to spend a LOT of time in the evening going up and down to him at first, but because we always went up as soon as he called, he never got in a tizz about it and was always co-operative about going to bed. (we taught him how to go to sleep by himself before putting him in his own room) After a while we had a rule "only call down 3 times" and he usually stuck to it. If he called more frequently we did go up but would again ask "please don't call any more as we are tired too". It worked over a longish period of time. He is fab at going to sleep now and seldom wakes up in the night

Filly of course it is possible

sort out their room and make it really sprauncey

it has to be a lovely exciting den for them, you can applique all the walls with a mural or something

you can do it, but I would really make a big deal of it being THEIR room and then all stay in there for as long as it takes to get them to sleep each night - it will lessen, over time

could you introduce story tapes on quiet volume? Nice to fall asleep to and might mean you get downstairs a bit earlier if huge amounts of stories are compulsory?