A coworker of mine and his wife are expecting a baby boy too. Their due date is only 2 days different than ours. He also has just one other child - a girl. Very similar! We were chatting about sleeping arrangements for kids the other day. They have decided to have their baby boy in their room for 5-6 months. Then they will be putting him in their 6 year old daughter's room indefinitely. He said that his 6 year old isn't ready to sleep in the basement yet, so they decided to have them share rooms for awhile.
The conversation got me to thinking about kids and their different levels of independence. How young is too young to have a child sleeping "far away" from you in the house? Do kids develop a fear of such things at a certain age? Is it a personality thing where some kids are scared but others never develop that fear? I'm curious about it! My guess is that it depends on the kid and it depends on the parents. What do you think?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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I do think it depends on the kid, and also on the house itself. If you have an older house, and put the kids above you so you can hear them moving around (as we do) then it can be all right. But I can see how your co-worker wouldn't want a six-year-old by themselves in the basement...it's like another layer of remove, somehow. It might be hard to hear them if they begin sleepwalking, or get up to go to the bathroom but head into a closet, etc. I don't know. But I am also a huge proponent of kids sharing rooms...it teaches them lots of important skills about living with others. There are some pretty appalling statistics about freshman roommates at college and how most of them have never in their entire lives shared a space and belongings with others. While they're small, opposite-gender kids can do it and learn a bit of these skills for future life. My brother and I shared until I was 10 (out of necessity, but it was a good thing in the end.)
ReplyDeleteAs for the fear factor, I think it just depends on the kid. Max is fine, though lonely, sleeping alone. Ollie gets kinda freaked out at times when Max is away. Seth still sleeps in his own space at this point, but will be joining the big boys in their room after we train him to sleep in a regular bed. :)
I wouldn't want the baby sharing with his big sister until he's a pretty solid sleeper, but I guess I'd never thought about the benefits. Hmmmm...
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