Ask any parent out there what they fear the most and I bet sleep features in there somewhere. We all get that when we become parents that little sleep is to be expected. Some of us unfortunately experience sleep deprivation on a totally different scale to others, all depending on how our little angels sleep patterns are. I remember in the early months for a brief moment as I chatted to someone whose cherub slept through the night from six weeks old imagining myself wiping that smug look off their face, of course I don’t condone violence in any way shape or form so I settled for a wish that they might in the future have the same black bags under their eyes, like I had. Can you guess what camp we lay in?
Fast forward lots of sleepless nights, months and years and something happens that threatens to disrupt those lovely nights of seven hours in a row. it might be that you have a climber who makes it their mission to scale their cot-bed rail or you might be a really unlucky parent who has heard a thump in the middle of the night, followed by a wail as the thumper opens the door to your bedroom,albeit now featuring a ginormous lump on their previously smooth forehead.
Yup I’m talking Big Bed time.
For some it happens really early on. Desperate measures to prolong the inevitable sees you out with the screwdriver creating new notches on the cot-bed so you can drop it one further level to get your child a few more months in baby jail. You might even have had the ingenious idea to put your child’s grog-bag on back to front, if you haven’t heard this tip before, do it now, it stops the child getting out of the bag in the first place, therefore stops them attempting to climb,full stop! You might find yourself digging back out the foam floor mats you bought in Argos and placing them around the cot-bed so at least if they do scale the top and topple out, it will be a soft landing. Gro- clocks have been bought in desperate attempts to get until at least six am before your bedroom door is opened by little hands.
And then there were our two, who slept in cot-beds from day one, cots which we assumed rails would come down on and would turn into cute little toddler beds somewhere around the age of two. But it never happened, they never tried to climb out. my sitting room furniture was their Mount Everest yet the beds with the rails up never had an attempted escape. In actual fact as they turn four next week it has only been a very short four months since the twins said goodbye to their enclosed sleeping arrangements forever. How did we get to nearly four before they made the swap to big beds? It was actually a combination of things, a well-known furniture store let us down with our order as we had come to realise they could be approaching four and still sleeping as they were and had beds and mattresses ordered, so had to begin our order again with another store, a trip away where they slept in big beds no problem and of course the fact that they couldn’t go on sleepovers until they were used to single beds I will admit was a nice driving factor in making the big move!
Did I also mention that it was at this time, during this big change that they wore us down and agreed to let them back sharing a room together……
Big beds, back sharing a room which they hadn’t done since they were six months of age and separated at that time because they kept waking each other up. We lit candles that first night they went to bed. I am not religious but if there was a God of sleep, I prayed to him/her that night and reminded him/her of the fact that we were still dealing with post traumatic sleep distress from being twin parents. Someone somewhere heard my pleas, because hands down and tip every bit of wood in my sight it had been a roaring success. The beds were personally picked by themselves and are amazingly comfortable and lots of great nights sleep are being had. There has been no middle of the night adventures from them, no sounds of our bedroom door being opened at three am. No little bodies sneaking in on top of us to sleep in. Everyone is getting a good nights sleep, let’s not mention sickness, because that’s a different ballgame. However for anyone debating about putting twins back in with each other at four, be it boy/girl or same , it’s a big yes from us here it has only deepened their bond and it’s so sweet to see them playing with their best friend first thing in the morning, how can you resist that.
It is a little emotional though, it’s the last bit of baby and as I tucked them in the first night in their single beds ,which I expected them to look tiny in , a lump formed in my throat as I saw how they weren’t so tiny anymore. They fit just right. I can’t even call them toddlers any more, my boy and girl are growing up and whilst it’s nice to want to press pause to saviour the moment every now and again I am proud of who they are today and the fact that they respect not creeping into us in the middle of the night…
How we got to this age before the big move ,I still reckon it was someone remembering the tough sleep deprived days of the first eighteen months of their lives. Long may it continue. I realise by writing about sleep I will now face a night of entirely non, such is the case whenever I say the word out loud.
It finally happened, at three and three quarter years old. ( I know ,don’t hate me!)
do piece o ntwins sharing a room and now back together etc
DodeestoDaquiris 