Getting Gautam to move to his own room

Sid, my elder son moved to his own room when he was just about 4 years old. Looking back, it took us merely a month or so to help him in the move. He did it silently and happily without any resentment and he now enjoys his own freedom. Then Gautam came and for the entire first year of his life, almost, he slept in our bed. Then as he learned moving around in the bed, we got his crib joined to our bed so that he sleeps in his own bed and yet has the comfort of us sleeping beside him. The hidden benefit was the nursing convenience I had. This worked fine for a few days but then Gautam got into the habit of getting up at night and plonking himself between the both of us and literally going horizontal and kicking both of us, really disturbing our sleep. So finally, we had the idea of putting his mattress on the floor which is his own bed. This worked really well for us because we had our privacy and he had the independence of sleeping on his own. Of course, this was only possible after he had stopped needing night diaper changes and he was almost potty trained by now. He is over 3 years old now and it has been working fine this far for us. He sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and starts muttering things very loudly. He almost always dreams of me in his sleep and by his shouting they are not very pleasant :).

Siddharth wants him to shift to his room but despite all possible cajoling and bribing, Gautam always refers to our bedroom as his own room and Siddharth’s room as bhaiya’s. I am waiting for that day very patiently when Gautam will move out of our bedroom and we will finally have some element of tranquil in our night routine. After all these years, we will be back to having our own bedroom – what an amazing thought!