Kids transition to bunk bed after 5 long years..

By now, we have tried lot of different sleep combinations with kids.

When Kavya was born, she would sleep in her crib which was in our bedroom. But half of the nights, when she would wake up at night, she would come sleep with me/us in our bed. Initially, while I was on maternity leave, Gaurav would sleep in a different room so that at least one of us could sleep well at night and then I would catch up on my sleep during day time. But once I started going to work, we used to take turns - The first half of the night was my duty and the second half was Gaurav's duty. This went on for few months. We had heard stories from other parents where their kids would co-sleep with them till they are 6 or even 8 years old. In order to avoid that situation, we put Kavya in her own room on a queen futon mattress when she was 9 months old. Even in that situation, either Gaurav or I, whoever put her to bed would most likely end up sleeping with her. But at least Kavya got into a habit of sleeping in her own room. This arrangement went on for quite some time.

The winter during late 2008/early 2009 was really bad for Kavya since it was her first winter in school and thereby being exposed to lot of different viruses. So, she would get cold, cough and fever too often. And when she was sick, she would want to sleep with us. Since I was pregnant with Ishaan, she would end up sleeping with Gaurav in a different room. And once Ishaan was here, I would sleep in our bedroom with Ishaan while Gaurav would sleep in the guest bedroom with Kavya. We tried to put Ishaan to sleep in his crib in our bed room, but on most nights, he would end up sleeping in the bed with me after the night feeding (partly because it was a king size bed and I was too lazy to get up and put him in his crib :).

To encourage Kavya to sleep in her room, we bought a bunk bed during early Feb 2009. Kavya loved the bunk bed and was excited to sleep on the top or sometimes at the bottom. However, it was not consistent. Depending on her mood/health, she would either sleep in the bunk bed or with Gaurav in the guest bedroom. Even when she would sleep on the bunk bed, she would want one of us to either sleep with her or be in the room with her while she felt asleep.

This sleep combination went on for few months and then we got little ambitious (and also tired of sleeping in different rooms). We connected the crib to the king size bed and decided that all 4 of us could sleep together with either Kavya or Ishaan sleeping in the crib and the other kid in the bed with us. That went on for few days but with Ishaan still waking up and rotating 360 degrees, it didn't last very long. Also, we had the bed bug problem around that time - so we disposed the crib and the bed frame.

Around the same time, Kavya was starting to prefer to sleep in her bunk bed. So, either Gaurav or I would put her to bed there, while the other person would put Ishaan to bed in our bedroom and we would take turns at sleeping with Ishaan (while the other person slept in guest bedroom) so that both of us would not be disturbed by Ishaan's waking up in the middle of night. Then there was also a phase where I would put both the kids to bed in our bedroom so that both of us didn't have to spend over 30 mins in putting kids to bed. After lot of different trial/error, I thought it was about time to try putting Ishaan in bunk bed with Kavya. Kavya preferred to sleep at the bottom. So, Ishaan would have to be on the top. I started doing that since Jan 13th 2011. I would climb up and sleep with Ishaan till he slept off while Gaurav will sleep with Kavya till she slept. We also got a special turtle that would project moon and starts on the ceiling to make the sleep routine more exciting. And so far its been working our pretty well. Ishaan loves to sleep in the bunk bed. Infact, if we try to put him to bed somewhere else, he cries saying he wants to go to didi's room. The only 2 problems with this setup are that Ishaan still wakes up in the middle of some nights and it becomes difficult to pacify him since he is on the top. Also, he makes lot of noise and takes a long time to go to bed - so Kavya gets bothered by that. But the hope is that these small issues will resolve soon.

Its good to finally be sleeping in our bedroom together and without being kicked by kids after almost 5 years :)