Three 3 and Under--Sleeping Arrangements

We have tried just about everything when it comes to sleeping arrangements for our brood. Ali started off in a little bassinet next to our bed, and sometimes slept between us, and then spent most of her first year in a Pack n' Play in our room because we only had one-room apartments, and we didn't have a real crib. Jer spent much of the first year of his life in a Pack n' Play in our bedroom even though we did have a crib at that point because we were scared to put our tiny boy in the same room with Ali at night.

When it came time to teach Jer to sleep through the night, we tried moving the Pack n' Play to the living room and letting him "cry it out" which didn't work at all and probably made the neighbors super mad. Finally, we moved Ali's toddler bed to our room and put him in his own crib in his own room and that worked wonders. He was a year old at the time. When he was used to sleeping in there, we moved Ali's bed back in there and ever since they have shared a room. However, they cannot share a room at naptimes because they talk and giggle and don't get any sleeping done.

So, I have tried various things for naptimes. For the last year Ali has been napping on my bed. However this poses some challenges as I have to CONSTANTLY be checking up on her and disciplining her for getting off the bed and into my things and jumping on my bed, etc. And no, she doesn't learn, no matter how consistent I am, and does the same irritating things over and over and over endlessly! In order to protect my bed, I have tried having her lay on the living room couch. However, this is even more stressful as I can't do laundry or chores or even be on the computer without her asking me a million questions and refusing to go to sleep.

My most recent experiment is to put Jer on my bed and Ali in her own bed in her room, alone. Justus' bassinet is now in the living room so I can conveniently watch over him as he naps throughout the day and he sleeps between us in our bed at night. Because Jer is a much more obedient and compliant kid, he can go to sleep on my bed without getting into a million things and even if Ali isn't sleepy, at least she is alone and in her own space for an hour or two, which is something I would go crazy without considering how much she exhausts me with her intensity and energy.

Of course it would be ideal to have a huge home where every child could have their own bedroom and have a place to rest and have "quiet time." It's hard not to be envious sometimes when I visit the huge elaborate homes of people I know and think about how nice it would be to have so many rooms, a huge fenced-in yard for the kids to romp in, and a dishwasher, a garage, more storage space, etc. It seems like life would be so much easier if I had these things at my disposable for raising 3 little ones. However, I have to remind myself how blessed I truly am. I make myself remember my rancher friend who is living with her two tiny kids and husband in a one-room trailer an hour away from town in the middle-of-nowhere with no internet, no TV, and no people, other than her folks and brothers and sisters. She only gets to come to town once a week for church and a quick grocery-shopping trip. She thinks I'm spoiled for having dial-up internet and the chance to rent/borrow movies to watch on weekends! I also know that most of the people in this world have far less space to live in than I do. My parents jokingly state that 45 Guatamalans could live in our apartment kitchen! (They visited Guatamala this spring).

So, even if other people have more wealth or more conveniences, we are making it work with what we have and we are learning lessons along the way. When you have a tight place you are forced to declutter and re-arrange constantly and the kids have to learn to share and get along. They have so much fun singing together in their beds after we put them to bed each night. They have had to learn to clean up their things well since our space gets used so much. Our apartment is fairly easy to straighten up and clean since it is such a small space! Because we have lived in such tight quarters, just about any house we buy someday will seem like a mansion!

Oddly enough, a couple of my friends with the biggest houses have said that they too started in very humble circumstances, like living in someone's basement or in a teensy apartment with lots of little kids. One gal even said she envied ME a little bit since she missed those "cozy" days of living in a tiny apartment! Wow!

Sorry for the major rabbit trail but I guess sleeping arrangements always leads me to the topic of housing/envy of other's housing, etc.

For those of you with 3 kids, I'd be interested in hearing how you make sleeping arrangements work at your house!