I’ve been reaching a point of frustration with the fact that Solly is still in our room. I love the little guy, but he wakes up unreasonably early in the morning, and while we’ve been sleep training him forever, he consistently wakes up around 4:30am. And FOR SURE for sure if Brady is getting up for work. Its a guarantee, and I’m super duper not a fan. I’ve been starting to feel desperate to get him out of our room, but we just do NOT have a room for him! We’ve been waiting to bunk him in with Laela, but 4:30 is just too too early for her. We thought his mornings would get a bit longer as he got used to not getting up in the night, but they aren’t. As the days are getting longer (which we LOVE) the mornings are getting brighter earlier, successfully (you guessed it!) waking the baby earlier. We are SO over it.
This weekend, in discussion with Brady’s parents, I joked that we should just put the three older kids in one room together and then Solly could have his own room. And Brady and I just stared at each other. How have we not considered this before??
So yesterday evening, we rearranged the rooms! These are the before pictures. Please forgive the messy beds. I have yet to enforce bed-making, haha! Don’t judge!
The boys room is the top picture. Dekker’s bed and Rowan’s crib were actually end to end, but we had already moved the crib before I remembered to take pictures. No biggie, though. And then the bottom picture is the second, smaller bedroom. That’s Laela’s bed and a crib for Solly. But it just wasn’t happening.
So we switched to this!
Yup. We just lined them up, haha! All three kids fit across the room, with some space to get out between Laela and Dekker’s beds. At the end of Rowan’s crib is their dresser. Now, we haven’t committed to this change fully, so Laela’s clothes are still in her room, but if she’s going to stay in with the boys, we’ll move the clothes around and add her stuff in there somewhere too. Meanwhile, the second bedroom is just a crib and a big dresser, plus Laela’s end table and some bigger toys. Its kind of an awesome set up!
I likely don’t even have to say it, but the big kids agree that its an awesome set up 🙂
It took longer than usual for them to fall asleep, but no one expected anything different. It was funny to watch them and listen to them.
Solly is still not too concerned about his surroundings.
Is he the biggest burrito you’ve ever seen? Don’t hate on us for swaddling him still. He gets out of it instantly. Its more of an indicator for him that its bedtime than anything. We watched him on the monitor, too, and he crawled around his crib and chatted a little bit before succumbing to sleep. No crying or even fussing.
I only had one mild heart attack in the night, when Dekker came up to our room and told us Laela’s blanket had fallen off her bed. He was pretty distressed. He had tried to lift it back onto her bed for her but hadn’t been able to. Brady went down to help them and as it turns out, Laela had actually fallen out of bed, wrapped up in her blanket, and was still fast asleep! Brady lifted her back into bed and the night went on smoothly. WAY better than anticipated!
I woke up just before 7:00. I don’t remember my last uninterrupted sleep through until 7:00! I woke up with the sun and that was it. My first thought was to check the monitor. And it wasn’t on! I had a brief moment of “Oh no! Have they been awake for a super long time already??” But then I realized that the monitor was actually in sleep mode. As were ALL of our kids!!!
I lay back and rested and lay around and wasted some time on my phone. Then I got up, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, and put on clothing straight out of my closet! As in NONE of it was worn yesterday and/or the day before! It was all fresh! This sounds small, but its a pretty big deal when someone lives in your closet. Or wakes up every time you open the door to your bathroom. I swear, guys, it was a whole new world! Finally around 8:30, the kids were awake and talking. Well, the big kids were. Solly had a brief moment where he stood and talked a bit, and then plunked back down and went back to sleep. Again, no fussing or crying at all. It was amazing!
I went down and got the big kids up and they got on breakfast. Solly woke up with the general hubbub, and our day began. I do not expect every night to go quite this smoothly, but I am THRILLED with how the first night went. I am encouraged and hopeful that this setup will be good for the kids, and in turn, for Brady and I. I see a new, earlier schedule in our future with this new arrangement, but I can roll with that 🙂
Today feels refreshing. I hope you all got some good rest last night as well!