Thank you! Good news from day 2 of the night routine change. Just one crying session, which ended quickly after a trip to the kitchen for a sip of water. Will try to make this the new normal!

From the first time you talked about your sleep deprivation and sleeping setup, my thoughts were: "all in the same bed?? how can anybody get good sleep that way", but I know different cultures do things differently and I'm a very biased light sleeper.

Shared sleeping is very normal in my parents' culture, and how they raised us. All of us slept in one big bed for my first years, then I shared with my siblings into elementary school, then a room with a grandparent, and finally by myself. Some of that was our economic situation, but it aligned with the norms I grew up around too. In my partner's home country, independent sleeping seems more common, but with a lot of flexibility about when children get there, especially early on. And somewhere as enormous and diverse as the U.S. may be harder to generalize about.

For me, I love reconnecting at the end of the day and reading, telling stories, messing about, snuggling. They differ in how much closeness they want, so I pay attention and turn my affection up or down accordingly.

When we moved into this house, we were still squarely in the childfree camp (oops). It's small with a strange layout (as every agent likes to tell us), so separate rooms aren't an option right now. When they were younger, keeping them near was partly survival, partly what felt natural. Now we basically have a room of wall-to-wall beds, which is great fun to play in!

Eventually I do want them in their own rooms, once we settle somewhere more permanent. For now, I think it will help ease traveling and moving to stay together at night. Neither has ever had much of a "transitional object" attachment to something like a blanket or stuffed animal. Plenty of children don't, but I sometimes think it's partly because, for better or worse, I am theirs. Haha. Oh well.

I never have a good uninterrupted night of sleep even without little beings flailing around in my bed. Plus the cat has been extra meowy too early in the morning, so that's not helping.

You know what, this is kind of comforting. I've never been a "good" sleeper either. Weirdly, I think that made the transition to children easier for me than for friends who really valued and protected their sleep. It also made it easier to do all the nights myself after my partner developed severe PPD.

Example from last weekend: 8yo back to getting into parents' bed and waking up mom at 4am every night because he had to pee and then "got lost".

Ha. What I tell myself is that (most of) us eventually walk, talk, toilet train, sleep (kind of) through the night, etc. I try not to stress about official milestones or comparisons, though there was that one coworker who said, "Our marriage nearly didn't make it until the kid started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks"

Maybe it's an older-parent thing, but I've watched time pass quickly enough, over and over, that I don't just understand it intellectually anymore. I know how fast whole phases disappear. They won't be this young and dependent much longer, and I try to cherish as much of it as I can.

It will be okay. And boy, is it easier to feel philosophical when:
1) I got some rest.
2) The house is EMPTY!!

Statistics: Posted by penumbra — Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:16 pm

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