Rainbow Light to the Rescue
I sleep in my 5 year old daughter’s room in the floor. I don’t mind the arrangement since I have my book set up and my 4 year old son sleeps in the bed next to her. It’s 3 peas in a pod and I’m trying my best to keep them out of my wife’s room.
Recently, my son has been waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to go into my wife’s room to cuddle with her. When that happens, my wife gets even less sleep because there are now two boys that have a chance to kick, scream, and cry in the middle of the night to jolt her awake. It’s a cycle that I wanted to break and it was going in the wrong direction. Everything came to a head when my son woke up numerous times in the same night and it culminated in a huge struggle of power where I was telling him to lay back down and he was crying at the top of his lungs that he wanted Mommy. My poor daughter was caught in the middle of this and was just trying to get some sleep. Understandably, she was also very upset. It was fun times indeed.
I finally get everything settled back down for the millionth time that night and everyone got terrible sleep. The next morning, we needed a big debrief over what happened. I also tried to figure out a new schedule and made the Hatch light turn a rainbow color if it was time for him to get up while I kept the rain sounds for my daughter so she can continue to sleep. It was the best of both worlds for the Hatch light and sounds, so I was hoping it would work
I explained to my son that he needed to stay in the room until a certain time so everyone can get enough sleep. Sleep is very important and helps keep us healthy and living longer lives, so we need to prioritize it and let sleeping people sleep. If he wakes up early, he needs to roll over and try to sleep. If he saw the rainbow light, he needed to sneak out quietly so he didn’t wake anyone up. I also explained to my daughter that unless she wanted to sleep alone, waking up at night was part of the territory when sleeping with others. She needed to have a better attitude about it and roll over to go back to sleep if something wakes her up. Surprisingly, the very next night, everything went according to plan and my won actually waited until the rainbow light came on to leave the room. He woke his sister up in the process, but she had a great attitude about it and went back to sleep. She also asked nicely for her brother to close the door behind him.
Times like this make me feel like my kids actually listen to me and that my plans aren’t crazy. It feels good when they learn why they need to do something and to follow the rules laid out. It’s not that I want to be mean to my kids - there is always a valid reason (usually safety or health related with me) on why we need to do certain things. I love that my kids are in a stage where they can mentally process the “why” as well because without understanding the reason, there isn’t a full circle moment that happens to solidify the right behaviors. We are making progress in this department. Finally!
