Who’s on top?

Before the bunk beds arrived, both girls talked a big game about who was going to take the top bunk. But, I knew it would not be so easy. Caden gets up in the middle of the night fairly frequently and crawls into bed with me. She is never to rarely actually awake when she does this. Do I want a half asleep girl trying to navigate a top bunk and ladder? No, no I don’t. And so Delaney was awarded the top bunk.

Once the bunks were set up Delaney very excitedly crawled up there. Wouldn’t you know it, a spider was crawling along the ceiling, right above their beds and she spotted it. She freaked out. I couldn’t believe it! First time up there and she spots a spider!

The first night she talked her sister into the top bunk to keep her company. Before when they would sleep together I would separate them when I went to bed. Can’t do that anymore! They woke up at 2am crying and came into bed with me.

Night #2 was perfection. Delaney slept on top, Caden slept on the bottom. All night. They even took two hour naps in their bed on Saturday. I thought we were over the hump!

And then came Saturday night (#3). Delaney tried to talk Caden into taking the top bunk. Caden agreed for a brief moment, and then freaked out. But, Delaney still wanted to sleep on the bottom bunk, so they snuggled up there and fell asleep. When I went to bed I did everything I could to scoot both of them closer to the wall to no avail. At 2am Delaney fell out, bonked her head, and everyone came into bed with me. Oops.

I knew this ‘Who’s going to sleep on top?’ thing was not going to work so I took Delaney aside and told her I really needed her to claim the top bunk as her own. If she did this, we’d work something out for every time she stayed in her bed all night. ‘Like Starbucks?’ Sure. Sunday night was perfection again, with both of them sleeping all night in their own beds. I’m hoping this is all worked out now, and we can all get back to sleeping peacefully.

Possibly Delusional

Our bedtime routine is in a fairly good groove right now. The girls go to bed at 8:00pm, and they chat until somewhere between 8:30 – 9:30pm when they fall asleep. Bedtime is always a hot topic on the multiples board. Some parents sit in their kids rooms until they fall asleep to ensure no nighttime shenanigans. My stance has always been that they need to figure out on their own when and how to fall asleep. At age five, I cannot be monitoring that. Also, I want them to enjoy the joys of sharing a room with their sister. The chatting, the playing, the giggles. It’s all part of the fun. So as long as they stay in their room, I stay out of it.

Vacation threw us off our groove for a few weeks, but we are back on track now. Except now I’m going to throw bunk beds into the mix. I’m really not sure how this will go. If I had to guess, I would say bedtime will be awesome for the first few weeks and then slowly disintegrate until we find our new normal. I bought them clip on lamps so they can read in bed, and I’m guessing the beds will be so novel that they won’t get out at first.

But then what? We have had many talks about how once you’re in the top bunk, you don’t get down. Especially in the dark. (Side note: The twinkle lights are gone. Just after we got back from vacation Delaney dared her sister to bite one. She did, it broke, the twinkle lights came down for good.) At least in the beginning Delaney will get the top bunk because she generally sleeps all night. Caden very frequently gets up in the middle of the night and wanders sleepily into bed with me. In the morning she rarely remembers doing this, which means girlfriend bought herself the bottom bunk. I do not need that kid negotiating a ladder half asleep.

So will they love their big new beds so much they won’t come out of their room anymore? Because that would be awesome. They don’t come out often anymore, but I would love it if they really stayed in their room from now on. I’m even fine if they stay up reading books in bed. Be a bookworm! I just don’t want to end up in the ER because someone missed their sister and needed to climb up/down the ladder to get to her.

More light!

You can tell by the questions the girls are asking that their world is big right now. Big is daunting, especially for Caden.

Most nights Delaney seems to fall asleep before she does. This is when she gets really anxious, she doesn’t like being the only one awake in their room. She used to try to come down to watch tv with me, but I decided that was a bad habit and we stopped doing it. Then she started turning on the lamp in their room. I would say at least three nights a week I come upstairs and the lamp is on.

The lamp works for her, but it isn’t ideal. We needed something that threw off more light than a nightlight, but less light than a lamp. Twinkle lights! Unfortunately, I didn’t have a string of plain twinkle lights, I only had icicle lights. We strung them around their shelves, but Delaney already has ideas of hanging them at the ceiling. We are still in the trial phase, so ceiling lights will have to wait until I decide if this is a permanent solution. (The lights get unplugged when I go to bed, so they’re only on for a few hours.)

Putting it all together

I was treating Delaney’s sleep deficit and Caden’s scary dreams as two separate things, when really they were very much tied together. I realized this very clearly the other night.

It was 10:00pm and the girls had been quiet, so I assumed they were asleep. Except, when I got upstairs I could hear them talking. I went into their room to find out what was going on and Delaney immediately started sobbing on her bed “But Caden wanted me to snuggle with her! I just want to sleep!” The next night I checked on them even earlier. I knew Laney was exhausted and I wanted her to get some sleep. Once again she started crying “Caden keeps talking and I just want to make her happy!”

Without a nap during the day, Delaney was falling asleep within 15 to 30 minutes of going to bed. Except now, Caden is afraid to go to sleep because she thinks she’ll have bad dreams, so she chats up her sister and keeps her awake. I refuse to sit in their room or intervene too much, so we talk a lot about letting our sister sleep, and having good bedtimes. I’m also keeping an eye on the clock and checking in on them if I think the shenanigans aren’t shutting down.

Caden has had two nightmare free nights, so I’m hoping that will give her some sleep confidence. She’s also slept in her own bed both of those nights, so I took her to Starbucks as a reward. Of course I have early morning meetings coming up, as well as a babysitter one night, so I’m sure our upward trend will get tripped up soon.

Scary Dreams

My girls have had nightmares for ages. They come and go. I’m sure if I really tracked them I would notice if more activity or food or something possibly triggered them, but these days that seems a futile task since they are seemingly happening every night.

Nightmares trigger two things for my kids. First, they end up in bed with me because they’re scared. Second, they don’t want to go to sleep the next night. So often I hear “I’m scared to go to sleep! I have bad dreams as soon as I close my eyes!” I’ll be honest, very often I write this off as a procrastination attempt.

The past two nights when I checked on the girls, I found them both snuggled up in Caden’s bed. This has never happened before (they’ve snuggled together in my bed, but never crawled together into one of their beds) and I thought it was so cute! When I asked Caden about it in the morning she said she was scared, so Laney crawled into her bed to keep her company.

So here’s my question. Is there anything I can do? Because a) I’m tired of sharing my bed with both of them every night and b) if there is a way I can make them feel safer in their room I obviously want to do that. Caden claims her nightmares are of Monsters. Delaney is vague. They don’t think there are monsters in their room, but they are scared to close their eyes because they will instantly fall into a bad dream.

It always comes back to sleep

This time of year is always rough for us. There are long stretches of time where the girls are home with me, combined with missing naps and late bedtimes due to holiday and family functions. It makes for kiddos that are attached to my hip, and clearly in need of sleep.

They show their overtired sides differently. Caden melts down over and over throughout the evening, everything pushing her over the edge to tears. Then she crawls into bed and it is lights out for her. Delaney holds it together, but then protests bedtime like I’m forcing her into child labor. “But I’m not tired!” I’ve heard that more than a few times!

A few weeks ago someone on the local multiples board mentioned that kids who aren’t getting enough sleep tend to be more clumsy. That really hit home with me, so I’ve been doing what I can to ensure they get their 10-12 hours each day. Last night they went to bed at 7:00pm and I didn’t hear a peep out of their room, letting me know it’s definitely the right thing. It’s hard because I want to spend time with them in the evenings, rather than send them to bed early, but hopefully this will be a short season for us.

Growing out of naps

Around age two, most kids start boycotting naps. If you ask for advice about this at least a few people will say “Are you sure they aren’t ready to drop the nap?”

At some point, your kids will fight bedtime. If you ask for advice about this most people will say “Are you sure they aren’t ready to drop their nap?”

I have hung onto naps. When they fought them at two I parked myself in their room until they fell asleep. When they fought bedtime I super nannied their behinds back to bed. And if they skipped a nap that day? Bedtime still sucked. When I realized it didn’t make a difference, I followed my gut.

My kids need their sleep. Like really need their sleep. But slowly, we have dropped naps. On the weekends I try to judge their activity during the morning to see if a nap is going to be necessary. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I’d say we’ve been 50/50 on weekends, and they nap more than they don’t at daycare.

The last two weeks Delaney has been skipping naps at daycare. She’s fairly good at regulating her sleep. I trust her to sleep when she needs to, and she does. The first few nights were rough bedtimes, but then things turned a corner. Bedtimes became easy! She chatted with her sister a bit and then fell asleep. I started thinking maybe this no nap thing wasn’t so bad. I had heard it could be like this, but my kids always snuck in a nap and we just never made it.

I’m not going to lie, it’s also taken me a while to get to a place where I’m ready to give up naps. I need that downtime. But we’ve eased into this and here I am! Okay with just some downtime, or maybe just an early bedtime.

I post this because when my girls were fighting bedtime, I felt like everyone else’s kids were giving up naps at age 3 and we were the outliers for sticking with naps. But I’m here to tell you, some kids grow out of them at an older age. Caden still naps every day. And melts down supremely if she doesn’t, or sometimes even when she does. Delaney frequently falls asleep in the car. Some kids give up naps early, but others really need that midday sleep for a much longer time. If your kids need the sleep? Stick with it and treasure that quiet time. It all ends eventually anyway.

Bunkbed Dilemma Again

Last Thursday I went into the girls room to tuck them in before I headed to bed. Once again, Laney’s legs were hanging off the side of her bed, as were Caden’s. It suddenly hit me – they had outgrown their toddler beds! That’s why their legs were always hanging off the edge! I immediately googled twin bed size and started measuring out their room. Could two twin beds fit? What would need to move? What if I bunk them? Which wall could they go on?

On the drive home from the lake my mom pulled out her iPad and we did a little bunkbed research. Every bunkbed we looked at came apart into twin beds so that was nice. I hesitate to bunk them immediately for two reasons. First, the girls are too young. They still talk and giggle before bed, and I worry they will make poor decisions regarding the ladder. Second, the room needs to completely change to accommodate bunkbeds, which means redecorating. I’m just not ready to do that again.

Plan A was to buy the bunk beds but separate them. Keep the beds in the same spot they are now, take down the shelves and move the dresser to the opposite wall. In a year, redo the room with some input from the girls, bunk the beds and hype it up as a Kindergarten thing.

Plan A is definitely doable. The room would be cramped and the bunkbeds would likely go on my credit card, but it’s doable.

But honestly? Not ideal. Mostly, I just don’t want to spend that kind of money right now. I realize that bunkbeds aren’t that crazy expensive and yes mother, I would get some money from selling their toddler beds and bedding, but it’s still something I would have to pay off and I don’t want that. August is already a very expensive month with new shoes and dance shoes and quarterly utility bills and teacher thank you gifts. The holidays are right around the corner, and then our Florida trip plus their birthday and then it’s April. Should I wait until next spring to do this?

Plan B is waiting until next summer. Save the money, find all of the room decor, and do it all at once. Honestly, the girls sleep fine. So while they may have somewhat outgrown their toddler beds, it isn’t affecting their sleep. Laney even slept with one leg off the bed at the hotel, and that was in a queen size bed. Maybe that’s just how she sleeps!

Right now, Plan B is winning. Even without factoring in the cost, I feel like we should get as much use out of their toddler beds as we can. Do people keep their kids in toddler beds until they’re 5? A triplet mom friend on Facebook said her girls are still in toddler beds and they’re going into first grade!

Evening Routine

I’m an analyzer and a tweaker. I kept a full schedule of the whole eat/nap/diaper situation until they were a year old for data purposes. I’m always looking at what we’re doing and how we can change the things that aren’t working. (Similarly, I’m always amazed at people who clearly have a situation that isn’t working, and yet the thought of changing something never occurs to them.)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about our evening routine. A lot of nights we’re all exhausted by the time we get home. Everyone collapses on the couch, and the girls watch a movie. I would say this happens more often when the weather is too hot/cold to play outside, but I’m sure we’ve stayed inside on nice evenings too.

Other nights the girls play outside nonstop until it’s time to put on their pajamas.

Should I be pushing them to play more? Do they need downtime after a long day at preschool? I agree with both questions depending on the night. I read this article on preschoolers and bedtime yesterday which made me think maybe down time is the way to go. It makes sense that they need to wind down right?

Except last night they played nonstop. Singing, dancing, playing in their new hopscotch water thing. When bedtime came, they climbed into bed, gave kisses and hugs, and have remained quietly in their room. Delaney has not come out once declaring she isn’t tired or has something to tell me, which makes me wonder if she’s like me and uses exercise to get rid of her stress?

Anyone else notice any correlation between evening activity and bedtime shenanigans?

Night lights and other dilemmas

My kids aren’t the best at falling asleep without 1432 procrastination attempts, so I’m not sure what to make of this, but Caden is proclaiming she is “scared of the dark”. Were she to control things, they would sleep with the small lamp on. They have a nightlight between their beds, but she proclaims this to be not enough light. They have these elf snowglobeish lights from Christmas that add some light to the room which seem to be working. But, the more light, the more trouble they get into. On top of that, Delaney would like the room pitch black. At this point I’m in the do nothing phase. Because this is a phase right? I thought about trying to get some sort of glowy thing that she could keep in her bed, but that’s just inviting more shenanigans isn’t it?

Speaking of bedtime shenanigans, for those of you that went to bunk beds, at what age? At what bedtime shenanigan level? I’m feeling twitchy about their toddler beds and wanting to get rid of them and get more space in their room, but price and safety is holding me back. And who would I give the top bunk to? Caden who is the better sleeper but more accident prone? Or Delaney who would wear out the ladder, but is only slightly less clutzy?