Thursday, November 9, 2017

Thomashlynshome #6 - How is it like for the girls to sleep together?

"I don't know how are the girls going to sleep together!", that's one of my worries I shared with many mothers before Avalyn popped out until a few weeks ago. To my surprise, almost all of them said it will be fine but I find it hard to believe it until I experienced it myself.

Hubby suggested to let Avalyn sleep in our room so that she won't disturb Emma but I don't think it is a good idea. We don't co-sleep and it will be tight to have another cot in our master bedroom. Besides, I didn't want Emma to be upset about or feel inequity in any way. So, I was clear that I want the girls to sleep together in their own room but I just didn't know how to and how it would be like.


I'm thankful that Emma has no issue with sharing the room - she sees the room as their (hers and Avalyn's) room right from the start. So, we didn't have the difficulty to persuade her to share the room with Avalyn. In fact, she would be more upset if Avalyn don't sleep with her.

However, it was still quite a transition for Emma. She went from sleeping alone at our old place till she was 3+ years old to sleeping with us at the grandparents' place to sleeping with Avalyn now. It turned out that she wasn't used to sleeping without either one of us after 8 months. She was also new to sharing a room with a baby. When we were at the grandparents' place, Emma slept in our room while Avalyn slept in a different room. I would sleep with Emma till midnight and go over to the other room after midnight for night duties. Hence, Emma didn't have to bear with all the newborn cries.

For the first few weeks at our new home, she woke up in the middle of the night, crying for "mama", get disturbed by Avalyn and got up almost an hour earlier. But most of the time, she didn't wake up because of Avalyn, she just got up by herself. It could be due to some sort of insecurity when she realised that she was all alone by herself on the bed. There is also a change of her bedtime routine. We used to do our prayers, storytelling and chats in bed until she drifted off to sleep. But now, we do it all in the living as Avalyn would be asleep by then. So, Emma got to straight to try to sleep once she gets in the room and we can only whisper.


I was up almost every other hour to settle either one of them. You can imagine how tired I was coping with the girls while juggling house packing and increased workload at office. I was on the verge of breaking down. We prayed with her every night and assured her that we are just next door.
  
Thankfully! After close to 4 weeks, she managed to adapt and no longer wake up in the middle of the night. She doesn't get disturbed by Avalyn's usual middle of the night cries anymore. She has also learnt to be quiet and go into "trying to sleep" mode once she entered the room. She still sometimes wake up around 30 mins earlier. As for Avalyn, she's not much affected by the new arrangement. At 5 months old, she is sleeping much more better. Thus, I'm feeling a little alive these days.

More about Avalyn's sleep next time!


The girls sleep without air conditioning throughout the night. Like our master bedroom, we also installed a ceiling fan from Acorn Ceiling Fan for the girls' room. However, we chose a different model - Futuristic AC-308.

I love its unique design and we actually wanted this to be in our master bedroom. Alas, our platform bed got a bit too high and left us lesser height to fit in this ceiling fan. This is a bit more chunkier while the other one is more sleek and takes lesser ceiling wall-to-fan height.

Nevertheless, I think it fits the girls' room perfectly! Their room is the only space in the house that has still the original 3.85m height and this ceiling fan fills up the space well. Similarly, it has a lightkit where we can choose the light colours and a remote control.

 On the left are the remote controls for the air con and ceiling fan. I was surprised that even ceiling fan has a remote control these days!

Between Futuristic AC-308 and Fantasia DC-356 ceiling fans, I prefer the latter as I find the wind flow smoother, strong and extremely quiet. However, I still prefer the look of Futuristic. Fantasia has 6 levels of wind speed and we always hit level 1. On the other hand, Futuristic only has 3 levels of wind speed.

The difference lies in the type of motors used - AC (alternating current) and DC (direct current). While AC fan is energy efficient, DC fan is even more energy saving. It's quieter and creates great flow of wind as I shared above. DC motor fans are newer in the market than AC and there are lesser variety around. All in all, we are happy with our choices and enjoying the ceiling fans! Hopefully, the girls continue to sleep even better soon!

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For more details, please refer to Acorn Ceiling Fan website or check out their authorised retailers.
 

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