At the end of this past summer, I did something that I’m still regretting: I let my daughters convince me to give them their own rooms and put the boys together. The girls had been sharing a room (and a bed, though they had bunk beds) their entire lives, but the older they were getting, the more they’d argue about who should pick up what and who was messier, etc. Between that and the fact that Rachel is a natural introvert and all the together time with her twin was getting to be too much for her, I decided to give in.
I had the rooms almost completely moved around when Andie looked at me with panic in her eyes and said, “Maybe I don’t want my own room.” Too late, I told her. I wasn’t going to move everything back again. Andie is the opposite of Rachel — she can’t stand to be alone. The thought of having her own room was very appealing, but the reality was not.
Even though they have their own bedrooms, the girls kept sleeping together in the queen bed in Andie’s room, which frustrated me no-end. Why had I bothered to switch this all around if the girls were just going to essentially keep sharing a room?
The switch created a new problem for me as well: The boys. They keep each other awake until far past their actual bedtime talking, reading books and playing, so when I get them up in the morning to get ready for school, they are exhausted and miserable. I once read in a very conservative parenting column that it’s fine to let your kids goof off in their room at bedtime because they’ll quit when they’re tired. While that was true for the girls, I don’t think it applies to the boys, judging by the degree of crabbiness they’ve exhibited.
Recently, I found out that Rachel hasn’t been sleeping with Andie by choice; Andie has been making “deals” with her because she hates to sleep by herself (a whole ‘nother topic in itself). Rachel’s nights of forced companionship are, for the most part, complete, so she’s usually in her own bed now. Unfortunately, that puts the kibosh on my idea of having one of the boys sleep in Rachel’s empty bed for the night, a plan that Rachel loudly protested anyway.
There have been a couple times lately when Logan didn’t get his afternoon nap and as a result was so tired that he actually asked to go to bed early. This worked out perfectly because by the time Cody got up there, Logan was fast asleep. Maybe I can capitalize on this somehow, though I expect I’ll run into different problems if Logan has to go to bed before Cody.
Or I could do what I did with the girls when they were very young: Sit in the hallway outside for awhile with a book to make sure that they’re not being noisy and playing. Somehow I doubt it’ll be as easy as it was with Andie and Rachel though.
Parenting can be very hard work sometimes.
Do you have bedtime battles at your house? If so, what are they and how do you handle them?
