Last week the bunk beds arrived  much to the delight of my boys.  Indeed, I was just as excited, if not more: too often in the past year DS2 has been wandering into our room asking if he can sleep on his mattress on the floor beside our bed!  Unwilling to take on a sleep battle, and concerned he gets a good night’s sleep (especially now as he has started school), we have caved.

So, yay!  DS2 now has no excuse…he and DS1 can share a room.  DH and I no longer have to endure grinding teeth, sleep giggling, and pre-6am wake up calls.

For quite some time DH and I have debated whether to put the boys in the same room.  We have held off for as long as we could mainly because the boys are very different ‘sleepers’.  DS1 does not like to sleep.  He would rather be playing with his toys, running about the room doing goodness knows what, reading, chatting, singing; doing just about everything to ward off the Sandman.  It appears DS1 wins these Sandman Sleep Challenges regularly.  Even he says ‘Mummy, the Sandman forgot to come to me last night’!

On the other hand, DS2 inherited his Mummy’s ‘sleep-loving’ gene.  He loves 12 hours, and although he wouldn’t admit it, he still likes to nap!  If DS2 needs to sleep, he just does!  So many times I have wished him ‘sweet dreams’, walked 5 steps to turn on the hall light, and he is zonked!  Bliss….that is until he wanders into our room having been woken by a bad dream.

Spurred on with trying to reduce these nightly wanderings, we took the plunge and bought the bunk beds!

On the first night we laid down the rules and expectations.  DS2 is the big boy, and should set an example.  ‘Lights out’ means ‘lights out’.  No jumping from the top bunk.  No chatting, singing, playfighting; no farting competitions…..actually the list was longer than I would have liked…..but the beds were now in place and ready to be used.  We installed makeshift safety measures in case of first night ‘rolling over and falling out’, and crossed our fingers as we left the room.

The first night went relatively smoothly…..but since then, DH has been fitting in a lot of cardio running up and down the stairs to ‘shush’ the Terrible Two.  The ‘safety mattress’ became DS2’s landing pad from the top bunk, and DS1’s launching pad into his bottom bunk, the ceiling was DS2’s new ‘wall’ against which he could bounce things, the ladder became a ‘running the gauntlet’ type game…..could DS1 run up the ladder before DS2 could grab his ankles through the rungs?….now officially renamed ‘running the rungs’!  And, let’s not forget the ‘fart foot’ game – how many kicks through the upper slats from the lower bed will it take to make DS2 fart????

I am very glad that my boys are having fun and getting on so well together in one room.  I am even more happy to be getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep!  But in a way it feels a bit like sleep trainig all over again.  This time, I am not so sure leaving them to self soothe is the answer!