The Imperfect Community

[honeybee]

I have always wanted the boys to share a room. I've been waiting for Owen to be out of a crib to do it. We sold the crib just before leaving CA, and had Owen in the Pack-n-play for a few days before leaving and then took it on the plane so he'd have something familiar in the new house (which was empty for a week after we arrived, waiting for the moving truck).

So now we are here. And I have both boys in the same room. Once the truck got here the first thing we did was set up the beds in the kids room. Well, Owen freaks out over the idea of sleeping in a bed. The first night we tried putting him in it he just cried and screamed and was hysterical -- totally terrified! So we put the pack-n-play back up at the foot of his bed and he has been sleeping in it ever since.

Well. Bedtime is a NIGHTMARE. Ethan wants to talk to Owen and Owen wants silence. Bedtime used to be sooooooo easy, just completely effortless. Now, it takes HOURS of chasing them back into their room (because Owen gets mad and will run out of the room shrieking), putting them back into bed, etc. It's a mess. And then in the morning they wake each other up TOO FREAKIN' EARLY. Ugh!

Last night, around 11:30 I finally hit the roof with Ethan not leaving Owen alone and I moved Owen into the next room. Where Owen was fast asleep in under two minutes. And then Ethan cried himself to sleep saying over and over, "I want my Owen back. I want my brover".

I got up to potty around 4am and checked on the kids and Ethan's bed was empty. He had taken his pillow and blanket to the room I put Owen in and was all curled up on the floor beside the playpen.

I don't know what to do! Ethan is so very sad about Owen moving to a different room. All morning he kept asking if Owen was going to come back to the blue room tonight. I've talked to him all along about being quiet at bedtime so he and Owen can go to sleep, but it just doesn't sink in. It's not like he's bugging Owen by poking him or anything, he does things like sings a lullaby to him (Owen hates to be sung to), he will cover him back up with a blanket that Owen kicks off, try to give him more hugs and kisses, etc.


I need advice.


and because I'm sure someone will ask how old they are , Ethan turns 4 tomorrow, Owen is 2.

[Sewingsiren]

I think I would try to keep them in the same room, at least for a little longer.
1.If Owen wants silents and falls to sleep fairly quickly, and since he is younger also, I would put him to bed about 1/2 hr earlier than Ethan. Then when he is asleep you can put Ethan to bed in the same room.
2. Regarding the use of the port-a-crib, I would leave it set up in the room, right beside the bed. I bet he will decide on his own to start using the big boy bed and my guess is it won't take that long either.
3. All three of mine share a room. They do wake each other up in the morning, but I *think* they would get up early even if they didn't share a room. So, no advice on that one .

[DietCokeHead]

You need to put Owen in his own room! Ethan will get over it eventually, just tell him that you decided Owen needs his own room until he is older then they can maybe share.

I know that after being with the kids all day, I just want them to go to freaking SLEEP at bedtime and not give me a lot of drama. You probably feel the same. Just wait until they are both a little older and it will probably go fine!

I wouldnt put my kids together in a room because I know that Molly would wake up Jack and that would screw up my plan of getting any kind of break.....

[DietCokeHead]

Oh, I forgot to ask- is there a specific reason you want them to share a room? You have enough bedrooms that they don't need to if it doesnt work out, right?

[honeybee]

Annie, we have three bedrooms, so there is room for them to each have their own. But I wanted them to share because I think it is such a wonderful opportunity for sibling bonding. Maybe Owen is just too young for that though. It just breaks my heard that Ethan wants to be close to Owen. Sharing a room is one of the things that I talked to him a lot about before moving, and he was so excited about it from the very beginning.

I just spent a mint on matching twin Pottery Barn Kids bedding for thier room!

[DietCokeHead]

Sharing a room is one of the things that I talked to him a lot about before moving, and he was so excited about it from the very beginning.

I get it. He was all wound up about it and now mean mommy took away Owen!! I agree about the bonding but I think Owen might be too little to bond right now, from what you say. Get Ethan a nice goldfish to share his room with instead!

[Scout]

My boys share a room, but they always have since Joshua was a baby so there was never really a transition. Maybe you ould talk to Ethan about how he can help owen learn how big boys go to bed. I would tell him that since he really wants to share a room with owen, he needs to understand that for a few days Owen might not be as quiet as he should be at bed time, and that Ethan can help him learn by acting like he just doesn't hear him singing or whatever. If Owen keeps asking him a question or something and Ethan can't stand it anymore, he can just say "Shh, night night Owen" and then pretend to be asleep. I would also have him help you talk to Owen throughout the day about how we go to bed like big boys and stuff like that. It may take a few days, but I think it will work. And then once he gets used to the new house and sharing a room, I bet he will be ready to try out the new bed.

I like having the boys together because I read them a story in bed (they have twin over full bunk beds, Calvin up top), so Somerset and Joshua and I can all fit in the bottom bunk, then I read a couple of books and turn out the light. At that point, Joshua falls asleep in about three seconds, Somerset often gets up to go find Daddy and fall asleep with him (he's always reading in bed), and once Joshua is asleep I can get up and go to my bed if I'm still awake. If not, dh comes and wakes me up.

[honeybee]

he needs to understand that for a few days Owen might not be as quiet as he should be at bed time, and that Ethan can help him learn by acting like he just doesn't hear him singing or whatever. If Owen keeps asking him a question or something and Ethan can't stand it anymore, he can just say "Shh, night night Owen" and then pretend to be asleep.

LOL, Scout, your post had me cracking up. Owen does not sing or ask questions, he's practically mute. It's Ethan who is doing those things, basically he's just "big brothering" Owen to death every night. Once Owen is jammied up and put in his pen, he just wants to curl up and sleep. But Ethan keeps brothering on him and won't leave him alone. Last night, around 10pm I told Ethan that he needed to be very quiet and go to sleep (and he WAS very tired himself!) so that Owen could sleep and he said he understood, but within 10 minutes he's over there hanging in Owen's bed making O's gloworm light up and play music "because Owen was lonely". Ummm...no he wasn't!.

And Annie, that's exactly what Ethan is thinking, that mean mommy took Owen away! He was so sad and upset. Then that led to him crying again about the kitten we didn't keep (spaz of a cat, we had her for only one day, not going to work, I'm allegic, Owen was allergic, total spaz, gave it back to the kindly neighbor who offered her to us...). "Mommy, I want my Owen! I want my Chloe kitty! "

[Scout]

Oops, I guess I need to pay closer attention when I read, lol. Well, since he wants Owen in the room so badly, do you think he will understand that he has to be wuiet and let him go to sleep or he will have to be in the other room?

[Scout]

That's weird, I wanted to edit for the "quiet" typo, but there was no edit button.

[honeybee]

[Princesso]

Even though our kids are girl/boy, we have them sharing a room. We have three bedrooms but there were two things that made it better to do a shared room idea. One is we desperately needed an office. We had our computer stuff and office stuff in our living room which isn't big anyway and we didn't have room for our tree. The second reason is because Jaime was afraid to be by herself. Sometimes they play and don't sleep, but after the first few days, they were tired enough that it got better than the first night. We made sure we started them out together on a Friday so they would have two nights to get tired enough to sleep so we wouldn't be too tired for work.

[Sewingsiren]

Princesso,
My girl shares with the boys also. Due to a similar situtation (house size). It works fine for our family, but I do wish we had a play room or that their room was bigger.

Honeybee, How did it go last night? Did you try putting Owen down before Ethan.? You probably won't read this today, but Happy Birthday to Ethan : ~~and~many~ more~~~

[honeybee]

Thanks for the birthday wishes, SS!

The boys are in seperate rooms now.

I had a talk with Ethan and told him how important it was to sleep when we are tired and that when Owen is tired he needs to sleep and you need to be quiet so he can sleep...and how Owen has been sad and grumpy because he is tired, blah blah blah. I finished this up with asking "so, do you think you and Owen should share the blue room, or do you think Owen should sleep in the green room?". Ethan was quiet for a long time and then he finally said Owen should have the green room. Sigh!

Ethan seemed a bit sad when we were moving the furniture out, but as soon as his room was set up with just his bed and dresser and saw all the open floor space he now had he started running in circles in the open spot, laughing like a loon, and then exclaimed, "this is the best room EVER! Thanks mom! Thanks daddy!".

And for the last two nights the boys when right to sleep with only a couple minutes of kisses and goodnights and then slept straight through until 8am!

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do to decorate Owen's room. Ethan's is going to be the same as it was to be with both boys in there, though I don't know whether to keep the 2nd matching quilt or not. And Owen's room will need to be painted. It's currently a lovely light lime with beautiful flowers painted randomly around. It really is just soft and so pretty! Quite reminiscent of the nursery we have prepared when we had Ethan.

[DietCokeHead]

Happy belated b-day!! Did you do anything fun?

Glad that things are straightened out with the rooms for now. Is the quilt still in the packaging or do you have the receipt? I would probably return it if you could and get something equally cute, but different.