separate rooms

If you've been following this blog for a long time, you know that Logan has suffered from sleep issues since the beginning of time.  He did not sleep thru the night (at all) for the first 2 1/2 years of his life. I wrote so many times about it, as we tried to figure out why he never slept thru the night.   When he was 2 1/2, three years ago, we literally dragged his bed down the hallway into Dylan's room, and suddenly, he started sleeping.  It seemed he just didn't want to be alone in his bedroom at night.  Problem solved, at least for the time being.

Although he didn't get up at night screaming anymore, there were still other sleep issues going on but we didn't know at the time.  We've been treating him for severe anemia since August (via supplements and diet), which contributes to his Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, and prevents him from getting a good nights' rest.  His next 19 in August, and by the end of November, it had only gone up three points to 24.  It needs to be at least 80-100 in order for us to believe he has enough iron in his system to be getting a good nights sleep.  I can tell just by looking at his bed every morning (the sheets are so twisted its like a tornado came thru it). If his iron level continues to stay about the same, we will have to explore other possibilites as to why his body doesn't seem to absorb much iron.  And on top of that, we're probably looking at another sleep study in May to be sure his apnea has improved after his tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. Another blog post for another day.  But before I drop the subject completely, let me just rant about the fact that I've had to spend hours on the phone with the insurance company getting his referrals documented for the care he's getting from the sleep specialist.  These are the times that try you as a parent, heck, even just as a person.  But you do what you have to do to make progress, and get your children the help they need.

Okay.  Time to move on.

After a very trying winter break (behaviorally), we decided for many reasons, it was time to try to move Logan back into his own bedroom.  Every night, bedtime was getting to be a challenge with them sharing a room. Logan still acts very impulsively and just couldn't seem to keep himself from climbing into Dylan's bed after we tucked them in, thus ultimately ensuing in fights and keeping them both up way too late.


It had been three years, and surely he had grown out of his not wanting to be alone at night right?  Plus, Dylan is 8 1/2 and although he never said it, I'm pretty sure he was getting sick of sharing his room.  I mean, we have a four bedroom house and for three years we've only used two bedrooms.  If we moved Logan out from under Dylan's loft bed, we could then set up a nice comfy quiet homework desk area for Dylan.  Sometimes after school behavior is very challenging for Logan as well, and its very disruptive to Dylan being able to focus on homework.  With a nice cozy homework area in his bedroom, he would then have another choice for some peace and quiet, when doing homework at the kitchen table isn't an option.  Logan could get some more responsibility having his own big boy room, and we'd let him choose stuff for the walls.  He would have his own quiet place to go to when he needs a break.  We filled it with his books, his beloved stuff animals and made it his own. 
 
This transition would also finally allow us to give Dylan more responsibility by having his own alarm clock and getting himself up in the morning.  We've always had to quietly wake him in the morning when they shared a room, so as not to wake Logan (if we could help it, since he needs all the sleep he can get).  We also let Dylan stay up a bit later, especially on the weekends.  This caused a problem of 'unfairness' in Logan's eyes when they shared a room.  But Logan needs to go to bed at a consistent time 7 days a week because he never sleeps in.  If we let him stay up until 9:30 or 10 on the weekends, we're basically setting ourselves up for hell the next day as we'll be up bright and early at 7 am no matter what. Dylan, however, taps into his future teenager, and will sleep until 8:30 or 9 or so. 

We made trips last week to Ikea, Michael's, Target and Homegoods last week and made it happen.  And both boys are really over the moon about their 'new rooms'.  Best of all, bedtime is now a breeze, and they both seem to be getting more hours of sleep.  Logan hasn't gotten up during the night at all.  His bedsheets are still twisted in the morning, and hopefully we're on the path to fixing that issue.  But behaviorally, he isn't having issues with sleeping in his own room all night.

We hung new curtains for both rooms, got Logan a new dresser, and let the boys choose what to put on their walls.   We created a homework 'office' for Dylan and I even found him a desklamp on clearance at Target that has a plug in for his iTouch.   We didn't have to spend a ton of money, either.  We didn't even have to paint, thanks to these awesome wall decals.

First, Dylan's room:

And Logan's, which  needed a little more work since no one has lived in this room for three years:

so cute hooks from Ikea