Bedroom Sharing and Bad Habits…

This is just me, but if they can’t keep the room cleaned up, they have too much stuff in it.  When we start reaching capacity on toys and “stuff” , it ends up everywhere and messy, so we do a big clean-up and pick out things to donate.  I would personally remove everything from the bedrooms, other than one small box of toys for each child, and that’s all they get.

Plus I would be careful not to project your past experiences onto your kids.  Pick out some habits that you want your children to display, and work on them.  Discipline is teaching, not punishment, so work on it and be consistent.  It’s exhausting, but if you want your children to go a certain way, lay the rails.

My kids do much better when they aren’t cleaning together. send dd9 in to pick up, xyz. When she is done send in the 5 year old to pick up xyz. Then you know each are doing their part. There is no arguing.

A few possibilities to consider (I read your post, not other comments):

1. They have too many things or too free access to crafting materials.  Remove those items from their room, get rid of things, or require them to come to you to get craft materials (and return those craft materials to you before checking out another bin of a different craft material).

2. I have kids who need specific jobs and your 5 year old sounds like she could benefit.  So when it is time to clean the bedroom assign one child to pick up all stuffed animals (or toys or a specific kind of toy) and the other child to pick up all clothing (or paper or books.. you get the idea).  Once they finish that task they get a new assignment (great job! now go pick up all ______).  This will make it so that the oldest isn’t left to do all the work.  Just know beforehand what jobs there are and give the oldest just part of them, saving the rest for the 5 year old no matter how long she takes.  A HUGE part of this being successful will be my first suggestion – getting rid of stuff and having a limit on how many craft things they get out at once.

Do I think sharing a room can be good?  Yes.  It can also be bad if you let the younger (or any one child) get out of all the work.  Yes, we want to teach our kids to serve others, but it sounds like your 5 year old is making the 9 year old her slave and won’t learn to do basic chores, much less serve others, because she’s not being required to.

Mine share rooms, they simply have to.  currently we have 5 kids in one bedroom and 3 kids in another, with a baby due in a few months.    For the bedtime issues – it is always a work in progress, isn’t it?  We have strict rules about bedtime for sanity.  When bedtime arrives everyone gets in their bed and stays in it.  They may have a book light (limits the brightness in the room for those who may be ready to sleep right away).  They may have a book or coloring materials.  We turn on an audio book for 30-60 minutes depending on the day.  When the audio book is turned off their book lights go off as well.  They may now lay in their bed.

3. This will be my most controversial suggestion, bear with me to the end.  I’ll be honest, ‘night owl’ is a habit, as is going to bed at an earlier time.  Yes, each person has a natural time they tend to wake or sleep WHEN THEY ARE BORN.  You are not stuck with it, what you choose to do day to day affects it – media/screen time, lights on, and other things will impact this.  Yes, if you stay up with lights on until 11pm watching tv, playing with favorite toys, or reading a great book night after night your body will adjust and naturally begin to stay awake until 11pm each night (and sleep later in the morning in an effort to get enough sleep).  The opposite is true.  If you begin waking at 7am (or 6 or 5) every morning and getting lights on, moving around, and beginning your day your body will naturally begin to wake at that time.  The conflict comes when you try to live both at once – keep the late night lights and activities while switching to the early mornings.  You force your body to choose and generally it’s going to keep waking later in the morning trying to get enough sleep from being kept up the night before.  Which is a vicious cycle that means you won’t be tired come an earlier bedtime (say 8:30pm) and so you stay up again with lights and activities and it repeats.

All of that to say that you need to get both kids sharing a room on the same schedule.  Either both become night owls or both learn to be early birds (and go to be earlier at the same time).  (Ok, there is a 3rd option, get the night owl to stay out of the bedroom until they are ready to sleep, so that the earlier sleeper can get to sleep when their body is ready. I know some people choose this but it eliminates having all the kids in bed so parents have some alone time.  Up to you!).  Am I going to tell you that the ‘right’ answer is to get your oldest switched to an earlier bedtime?  Nope.  Each family is different.  At my house we have ended up with a middle ground bedtime (or what I think of as middle ground).  Lights go dim to booklights at 8:30pm and out by 9:30pm.  So 9:30 to me is middle of the early or late to bed time frame.  Everyone is up by 7am at the latest (most wake naturally between 6am-7am).  We have a wide range of ages (14-2) and this works for us. My sister lives in another state, homeschools her 4 kids, and they go with night owl for everyone.  They don’t dim lights or head near bedrooms until 11pm, and nobody gets up before 9 or 10am.  It works for them.  Find what works for your family, but obviously having two kids sharing a room on totally different sleep schedules is causing problems, so consider which sleep schedule to shift everyone towards.

I don’t mind books in the bedroom. I usually have then each pick 2-3 books for nap/rest time and try to pick them up each evening before bed.  My kids love to read and look at books before falling asleep and I think it is a wonderful habit.

We have books in each bedroom – and yes, it can be a battle.  So we’ve had times when they lose their bookshelves and books get boxed or incorporated into the main bookshelves because they won’t keep them picked up.  We’ve also done times with books in bins, so it is super easy – not really needing to shelve, just put in a bin.

My boys share a room (7 & 4) but prefer to be in their sisters room.

To keep it tidy, I try to set up for success, but simply not allowing what they can’t take care of. No crafting in bedrooms. They have crayons and spiral notebooks to draw in but no loose leaf paper. They don’t have a lot of toys, just what fits in the designated areas. Also only books that they are reading at bedtime. They like books a lot but ever since a very young age my rule was “one at a time, put it back before you take out a new book”

I also often help them clean. By helping, I will sit on their bed and chat with them while they pick up. My DD is a collector so I will remind her to think about the item and does it need to be kept. By being present it makes the clean up much faster and focused. I like company when I clean, so thought they would too.

I also had to let go of my expectations a bit. I am very tidy (a bit OCD ever since I was little) but I have had to realize that the kids have different ideas of tidy. So we had to find the middle ground that keeps their rooms tidy, with out making either of us crazy.

Oh and we took off closet doors, so no hiding messes in there. Also do shoving under beds. DD has drawers built into her bed, but the boys have clothes to grow into organized under theirs, so it is not a place to shove things.