Recently moved 4 and 5 year old to the same room and it’s going terribly. Help!
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Anonymous
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They requested to share a room because they were scared and alone at night. Switching them back to different rooms isn’t an option. Please don’t suggest it.
This is also a question about behavior, not sleep. They wake up early, yes, but I want to focus on behavior and not sleep info. We have charts up: sit quietly, wait for the green light, then play quietly until we come in. We rehearse and talk about it. There are NO toys in the room, just books. We have a “stop sign” on our door so they stop waking us up. It’s not a crazy amount of time for them to sit and wait. 15 minutes. They love to sit and read so this isn’t absurd for them. The PROBLEM... One child wakes up early and wakes up the other. It varies which boy wakes up day by day. We aren’t sure, and can’t get a clear answer. This results in someone barging upstairs “Bob woke me up!” “Bob was talking! Tom was talking!” They blame each other. This escalates to SCREAMING...if they don’t come get us, they just sit in the room and scream “go back to sleep!” And eventually start physically fighting. We’ve tried threats: “if you wake up before the light is green and make noise then you lose a toy/time out, etc”. We have visual reminders. We talk to them: please don’t wake up your brother. Sit and wait quietly. No silly talk. We beg. We plead. They don’t listen to each other. If Tom asks Bob to stop talking and go back to sleep, he won’t. It just escalates. We are absolutely at our wits end. How do you manage this?! We are so tired of the screaming, and having terrible mornings is a terrible way to start the day. |
Anonymous
| I think if you want them to share a room you just have to all get up when the first person does for the time being. |
Anonymous
| What time are they waking up? |
Anonymous
| Alternatively, is there a safe place the awake person can go to play with toys until the official wake up time? |
Anonymous
OP here and I do like this simple solution. It’s brutal when one brother starts the silly talk at 5:30am though. |
Anonymous
One can wake up as early as 5:15. We are working on adjusting this. I would rather focus on behavior and help with the room sharing issues. |
Anonymous
Brother 2 would hear him and go play also, in that case we’d be better off keeping toys in the room. They play nicely but are LOUD and we don’t want to wake up that early to police them. |
Anonymous
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Do they care about screens? I would say “if I hear any screaming or loud noises before 6:30 am then there’s no screens today, period. No tv, no iPad, no phone, etc. Then stick to it. The entire day, don’t fold.
Alternatively—you can give them a reward if they are quiet till 6:30. At that age I would make it pretty immediate for a few days (like a brand new matchbox car for each of them), and then make it more like a sticker chart reward for a few weeks. Screens are always a good motivator in my house. |
Anonymous
| My girls (7 and 5) have been sleeping in the same room since they were 4.5 and 2.5. The have the ok to wake up clock and the older wakes up earlier and iften wakes up the younger, but it’s usually 15 minutes earlier or less. We don’t care because they play mostly quietly and don’t bother the rest of the house. I think your issue is that they should play quietly instead of fighting and screaming. Perhaps you could makes sure they play a game and they are not loud about it. Instead of focusing on whose fault it is (who woke up who), you should punish/reward both if loud/quiet. I try not to put one child against the other (it happens anyway), but I try to punish both when they do “bad” together or reward both when they do “good” together. |
Anonymous
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You are expecting them to wake up and be quiet and have taken away all their toys to make sure they stay in their room quietly? Hello?!
Put some toys in there and say if you wake up early play quietly and try to not wake your brother up. |
Anonymous
+1. |
Anonymous
Also do you have a split floorplan? Our master is on other side of house as the kids room and this has been our sanity saver. I was initially scared of this because they're young at 2.5 and 5.5 but honestly I can't see it any other way right now. |
Anonymous
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I would put some toys-a few special favorites-in there and explain that they can play with these if they wake up. I don't think expecting them to quietly read, is realistic.
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Anonymous
| Can the 5am wake-up child come to your room and snuggle in bed with you until brother wakes up? |
Anonymous
So we took out the toys because of the screaming. They would fight over the toys. Removing the toys takes away THAT screaming issue. They are super chill boys who happily sit and look at books for long periods of time, so expecting them to wake up and look at books together isn’t unrealistic. |