Sharing a Room

Tonight Jeremy moved Caleb's crib into Emily's room. I'm 39 weeks pregnant today and the baby will be here any day. We have debated for a long time about how to best arrange our three kids in this three bedroom house. For the longest time, we just stayed in denial that we were pregnant and would have to deal with the issue. Emily and Caleb each had their own space and we saw no reason to disrupt that by making them move in together prematurely. Caleb needed his room for his long afternoon naps and Emily often played and crafted in her room during his nap time. Caleb's room was quieter and darker during the day which allowed for a good napping environment.

For several months, I convinced myself that it would be best to let Emily and Caleb each keep their own room and allow the baby to sleep in our room. However, I couldn't quite figure out where I would nurse the baby and rock the baby. Caleb has a nice sized swivel rocker in his room that is directly adjacent to ours. (You walk through our room to get to his bedroom.) There's no way I could regularly comfort, rock, and nurse a newborn baby in Caleb's room while he also slept. There was also no way I wanted to do every nighttime feeding in our bed, disturb Jeremy's rest, and not have the comfort of our nursing chair just feet away. Moving the swivel rocker into our room was also not a viable option. Besides, Jeremy and I can never sleep with a baby in our room. We've briefly allowed our other two in our room when they were newborns, but they quickly got moved to the nursery because I could hear their every whimper, hiccup, and breath. I prefer the baby to just wake me when he/she's ready to nurse and I don't want to hear everything else while I'm sleeping.

Unfortunately, it has taken us nine months to realize that the best solution is likely going to be for Emily and Caleb to share rooms for awhile--at least for the first year or two. Depending on the baby's gender, we may have brothers rooming together in a couple of years. Emily and Caleb basically have the same sleep schedule other than naps. We all know that the baby will be erratic for months with sleeping. Thankfully, Emily's room is plenty big enough for them both. I just wish we would have planned sooner for this transition. It would be so nice to have a beautiful finished bedroom for my big boy and girl.

Tonight Caleb was a little clingy and hesitant to get into his crib at bedtime. We read to him and kept everything else about his bedtime routine the same, but he knew we were switching things up on him. After cuddling him and holding him, we finally put him in his crib and walked away. He laid down, but was crying and completely breaking our hearts. He never cries for long, if any, when we put him to bed. We decided to give him a chance to settle. After less than a minute, he stopped crying and I was thinking, "wow, that wasn't bad at all!." Then, I noticed that I could hear a little voice and movement behind the door of their room. I waited for awhile and then ever so quietly turned the door handle. I caught a glimpse of Emily climbing out of his crib and heading back to her twin bed. She just simply said, "He needed me for a minute." I didn't chide her for getting out of her bed. I just quietly closed the door. With tears in my eyes, I thought, "it's going to be ok." It was so sweet of her to comfort little brother.