Moving Taya Into Amelia’s Room

It’s been almost two weeks since Taya moved into her big cot to join her sister in their shared bedroom.

I was so unsure about making the move, originally I had always said I wanted to wait until 6 months or until she was sleeping through the night. I didn’t want a situation of her waking up in the middle of the night for milk and waking Amelia up.

When she started to sleep through my husband kept asking when she was going to move in with Amelia and I found myself looking for excuses for her to stay with us; saying, what if it’s a phase and she starts waking up again in the night, or saying she’s not 6 months yet so she needs to stay with us.

I think truthfully I just loved having her in with us, seeing her beautiful little smiles first thing in the morning but none of us were loving her 5am wake ups so maybe it was time…

Her first night in her own room was completely unplanned, we hadn’t discussed it or agreed upon it. I was out of the house and Kev was doing bed time with both girls. Taya was super unsettled so she had a quick bath, whilst she was waiting in the cot for Amelia to finish her bath she fell asleep.

When I woke her for her dream feed at 10pm I decided to let her stay in Amelia’s room but I brought in her Sleepyhead so I didn’t have to worry about her rolling over.

We all had great sleep, Taya and Amelia both slept til about 8am which is unheard of for both of them and that was it, Taya hasn’t slept in our room since.

Amelia loves having her sister in with her, so much so that she now refuses to go to bed without her, saying she doesn’t want to sleep on her own.

Normally this is fine because Taya goes to bed before Amelia anyway but with the heat we’ve been having this week she’s really struggled to settle which has kept Amelia awake too. For a couple of evenings I ended up bringing Taya back downstairs to chill on the sofa with me because she just wouldn’t settle and stop crying. Cue Amelia crying because she wants to come downstairs too, she doesn’t want to be in her rom on her own without Taya.

Taya doesn’t like being on her own either, even when she’s in her own cot she will cry and fuss if she can’t get to sleep. As soon as she’s near Amelia she settles down and stops crying.

Sometimes Amelia will just stand by her cot and hold her hand but last night I decided to let them have a little cuddle and play time in Amelia’s bed. Well, it was 28degrees in their room and no one was sleeping so what the hell.

Taya stopped crying immediately, she was smiling and kicking her arms and legs around. Amelia was dancing and clapping and talking to her. I even caught Taya pulling Amelia’s hair but she wasn’t at all bothered.

They were so happy being in the bed together that I popped downstairs, with the video monitor and watched them whilst I ate my dinner. My whole meal, with no one crying. It was a treat!

So, heatwave aside which I’m sure has thrown everyone’s bedtime routine out of whack here’s what we try to do (it doesn’t always work):

Just before 6pm, I take Taya up to the room and get her dressed for bed, curtains closed and white noise machine on. We sit together in the glide chair and she has her milk. A lot of the time, she will fall asleep and I can just pop her into bed and go back downstairs to Amelia finishing her dinner.

At 7pm Amelia goes up, brushes her teeth and gets ready for bed. There’s a lot of shhhing on my part, trying to make sure Amelia isn’t too noisy and doesn’t wake Taya up but more often than not she will wake her.

Sometimes, Taya will go back to sleep but during the hot weather she’s been unable to get settled back to sleep. I’m really hoping it’s just the weather and that the cooler evenings next week will mean she can settle again and we can go back to everyone being in bed by 7pm.

Either that, or I’m buying a double bed and putting them in together, at least then no ones screaming.

I’m actually really surprised by how easy it has been to move them in together, once they are asleep they don’t wake each other up which is something I was really worried about. Naps seem to be going well at the moment, Taya naps around 10am so I just make sure we don’t need to go in the room whilst she is sleeping and then they go to nap together at 2pm and by the time Taya wakes up from that nap, Amelia is usually sound asleep and doesn’t notice me going in to collect Taya.

I’m so glad we made the move to put them together and stuck with it, it’s been great for everyone, we’re all sleeping better and longer and I think it’s going to make Amelia and Taya even closer.

I will add here though, that even though the weather is cooler tonight Taya did not go to sleep. I tried everything, feeding to sleep, cuddling, rocking, dancing, white noise, light show on the ceiling, bringing her back downstairs, sitting with them both in the bedroom talking about the day. As a last resort, I’ve removed the Sleepyhead and she’s now just in the cot…we will see if she goes to sleep.

It sort of feels like we’ve completely lost a really good bedtime routine and no matter what I try she just doesn’t want to go to sleep, any one got any advice?

Rachel xx