My whole life I’ve needed A LOT of sleep… when I was a baby, the doctor told my mom to wake me up more often to eat because I loved sleep so much. As a teenager, my mom jokingly called me Sleeping Beauty because I would sleep in so late on the weekends (we’re talking like 3pm late). And I was so cranky in the mornings on school days that we didn’t even speak to each other—the teenager equivalent of “don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee“. I’ve always needed a lot of sleep and I’ve always been cognizant of prioritizing sleep. Even in college, I could only “go out” one night of the weekend or I’d feel miserable for days. Not worth it!

How Sleep Changed After a Baby

When we were expecting our first baby, I was naturally worried about how I’d handle the sleepless nights and while it was certainly exhausting in the early weeks, the universe must have known what I needed and gave me a baby that loved to sleep too! After the newborn days of constant feeding/sleeping on a rotation and once she started sleeping through the night, baby would go to bed at 6pm, wake up to nurse around 7am and then go back to sleep with me until sometimes close to 10am!

Not only was she amazing at sleeping through the night, she would take two good naps a day. One in the morning that was usually around an hour and then one big one in the afternoon that was at least 2 hours and sometimes closer to three. All of my friends were amazed by how much she was sleeping and I definitely wasn’t complaining!

What Sleep Looks Like After Baby Number Two

When her brother was born, our daughter was only 19 months old and very much a baby herself so she continued with naps and we started to learn baby’s sleep habits. He never clocked quite as many hours of sleep as she had but he was SO easy to put down to sleep. You would just lay him in his bed, say “I love you” and “sleep well” and you wouldn’t hear a peep from him as he easily put himself to sleep. He has always woken up much earlier than she does but he doesn’t wake up screaming and usually will play in bed for a good while before deciding it’s time to wake up mom and dad.

What Sleep Looks Like When Sharing a Room

If you’re still reading at this point and don’t completely hate me yet, you might feel relieved to hear that this amazing sleep didn’t last forever. And things got even more complicated when we decided to have them share a room. Bedtime is complete mania—they literally bounce off the walls and never seem to get tired!! We started with floor beds and recently upgraded to new, firmer mattresses and platform beds hoping that it would seem more like a real bed and less like a trampoline on the floor.

They tend to do well on the weekends when they are exhausted and haven’t had a nap but on school nights (when they need the sleep the most!) they have a hard time falling asleep and we keep telling ourselves that they have to exhaust themselves enough eventually and we are still waiting for eventually to come. The major saving grace is that once they ARE asleep, they STAY asleep! So while it sounds like a herd of elephants in their room most evenings, it’s completely quiet all night long while they are snug in their beds.

What’s your room/bed situation like? Any tips for shared room sleep?

This post is shared in partnership with Brentwood Home, who also
provided the mattresses. Thank you so much for reading!