Sharing room vs separating...

Well, I think it's time to split the kids into separate bedrooms (does what you read make you think split??)... BUT we're not sure we have an extra room... we might be moving where we'd have a bedroom for each child, but we haven't heard whether it's a go from the foreclosure bank who owns the "new" house.

anyway, we only have 2 kid bedrooms at this house, and up until now the twins have shared a room. I'm due in less than a month and figured the new baby would get the other room... BUT now am thinking I need to split the twins and figure out where the baby will sleep later. Ideas??

how else can we get the morning and evening routines to be better if the twins are actually sharing a room??

for now it is chaos. I hear "he's bothering me" and "she's looking at me" etc!! (for some reason I thought that was 7 year old behavior, not 4 yr old!!)

I really thought that the "magic" age of 4 would kick in, but it's almost worse right now. They turned 4 a month ago.

thanks!! shelley

 

My dd didn't get out of the terrible three's stage until she was closer to 4.5 yrs. Drove me crazy!!

I guess if you have the room, and don't mind, separating them would help solve the problem. But, if you don't have the room, one option to try is, along with your other post....on each kid's "day", that kid gets to stay up a little bit later. The other one has to go to bed early. In the hopes that the early to bed kid will go to sleep, and then the later to bed kid has no one to chatter with. No idea if that would actually work but in theory it sounds good

 

We just separated this week at 4 1/2 yo. We had the exact same issues at the end of last year and into Jan. There were times I thought they would NEVER learn to sleep in the same room together again. But they did and it was actually ok sleepwise for the past four months or so (aside from some giggling and talking before falling asleep a few nights a week).

The reasons we separated are unrelated to going to sleep. They need more privacy and that is suddenly evident. They seem mostly happy with the change, but a bit confused sometimes since they've always shared. I am sad about it at times, but happy for DD to have her own space finally.

 

If you want the twins to have separate bedrooms, could the baby move in with you, at least for the first year? Or do you have an alcove, a dressing room, walk-in closet etc. in or next to the master bedroom which you could convert for the baby? Friends of mine made a mini-nightnursery in their walk-in closet off the master bedroom because they did not have another bedroom for hte baby.

If you decide to keep the twins together could you create separate areas for each child and screen them a bit? If the room is large enough maybe use bookselves to divide the room and have their beds in the private area created by the shelves or even a curtain?

 

I'd agree with letting the baby stay in your room for a while, at least if you're planning on moving in the next year or so anyway (I know how it is though... we waited for 6 months to hear back about a short sale, and ended up buying something else).

My kids still share and will probably share for a while still, but they really don't fight much at all (I know, I'm lucky!) and love sharing a room.

 

Ours do best when split up and so do we the parents. The bedtime routine is just so much easier on all of us.