It’s been months and months and months now since we started the process of having both girls sleep in the same room. For a while, we had success putting Vivi down in her crib and Julia down in the guest room, then moving the elder over after the younger asleep. Around the time the evening light started stretching toward nine, though, Julia decided that she could (or would) no longer fall asleep in the guest room, so I’d end up moving her, 30 or 45 or 60 sleepless minutes after putting her “to bed,” into her own room.
After weeks and weeks of this shuffling, I finally reached my limit on Monday night. When it was time for Julia to go sleep, I put her in her own bed, even though Vivi was still yammering away – and even though she pepped up when “Booah” appeared. But it worked well: after no more than 15 minutes of talking (all by Vivi; Julia either resisted the urge to reply or fell asleep amid the chatter), all was silent at the earliest moment they’ve both been asleep in a long time. Tonight it worked again. Perhaps we’ve finally shifted to the girls’ last sleeping arrangement in our house, the one we hope will last until Julia heads off to college (or, you know, abandons us for a missionary trip to Lesotho). It hasn’t come a moment too soon.
Congratulations!! Isn’t it amazing how something so seemingly small as a child’s sleep patterns can have such a grandiose effect on a family? I tell you, we were meant to live in tribes.