Am I insane? Bedrooms and sleeping arrangements

dulcinea03

Back story: I have 18 month twin girls, and I have not STTN since I was in my 2nd trimester. Yes, seriously. We've dealt with sleep issues since Day 1, and last month had it down to 1 night waking per girl, which was heaven for us.  Jules was a hard core bedsharing baby, and we transitioned her to a crib in the nursery 2 months ago. She's gone from 3-5 wakings per night down to 1 at most. Kit sleeps in a crib in our room, and in the last 2 weeks has started to wake up 4-5 times a night to check and see if we're in the room with her, and if we are, starts to cry. If we're not there, she rolls over and goes back to sleep. *headdesk*

Our floorplan upstairs is open- living,dining, kitchen. Then a short hallway and the master bedroom and nursery. Our basement has a family room, and 2 more bedrooms that are currently used as a office and guest room. It is clear to us that Kit being able to see us at night is detrimental to all of our sleep. More often than not, I've been on the living room couch and DH has been in the guest room by morning just to get her to sleep more than 2 hours. We leave the room, and she sleeps for 6+ hours straight.

I'll freely admit it, I'm scared to put them in the same room. I've got one baby sleeping well, and I'm terrified to mess that up by putting her sister in the room with her.

I'm seriously considering proposing to DH that we completely flip our house. Move the girls into the bedrooms in the basement, that way they get their own rooms. Move our bedroom into the family room. It means no door/lock, but we've had babies in our room since day 1, so just having both of them in another room would be a novelty.  Put the desks in the family room with our bed. Turn the nursery into a playroom with the toys from the family room, and turn the master bedroom into a TV room.

I don't know if I'm genius or insane. Has anyone tried anything like this? Opinions? Experiences?

Dr.Loretta

Is the nursery separate from the MBR? Can you put them both in there and see how it goes? I'd want to try that before putting them each in separate rooms. Just a thought.

epphd

Can you just move the babies downstairs to the bedrooms and keep your room? We are in a three level house, and Sam is on the ground floor while we are on the top.  It's no big whoop so long as the monitor works.  Or, start by moving Kit downstairs and leave Jules where she is so as not to disrupt.  Maybe when they are older you can introduce the concept of sharing a room or moving rooms.

You are not alone - if Sam sees us in his room (like if we are traveling and he is in a PNP) he totally fixates on us.  Sleeping in his own room he is amazing - 12 solid hours nearly every night w/o a peep.  Different things work for different kids

LakeGenevaBride

My feeling is that you do whatever works for your family even if it sounds insane.  I had every intention of my boys sharing a room, but it became apparent that if we wanted sleep then we needed to separate them.   Since I don't have an extra bedroom we put a pnp in the guest bathroom.  So yes, my son has slept in the bathroom for at least 6 months now.  But guess what?  We are all sleeping at night so I don't really care what people think.   So do what you need to do to get some sleep.  And if it doesn't work, try something else until you find something that works for your family. 

dana316

epphd:

Can you just move the babies downstairs to the bedrooms and keep your room?

This.  Why flip the whole house when all you need is one more bedroom?

 

JillRock96

I don't think it is crazy at all.  Try whatever you think will work, and if it DOES, stick with it!  For awhile we had our bedroom in the basement and the girls on the main floor, and while I disliked it, it worked. 

dulcinea03

Thanks ladies. DH and I talked about it, and we're first going to try the girls in the same room this weekend. If that doesn't work, we'll look at flipping everything around.

I'll freely admit that I'm neurotic about having the girls sleep on the same floor that I do. Due to a childhood incident, I'm terrified that a fire would break out in the middle of the night and I wouldn't be able to get to a child on another floor of the house to get them out. Since they're still in cribs, they'd be sitting ducks and helpless to escape the smoke. Probably silly, but it's a serious fear for me.