We all remember bringing home that first baby and making sure the entire house and anyone in it was perfectly silent as the baby slept. We put notes on the front door telling people not to knock, we turned phone ringers off and then spoke in hushed tones, if we even spoke at all.

When the second baby comes along, there is a whole new issue, usually in the shape of a noisy toddler who doesn’t show a lot of respect for mama’s desperate desire to keep the new baby sleeping. Yeah, frustrating times.

For those of you whose baby numbers have increased beyond two, you may have noticed a really strange phenomenon. Babies will sleep when it’s noisy. My last few babies shared bedrooms with other babies, toddlers, random preschoolers and still managed to sleep at night. During nap time, there was no shushing of other people in the house – it just wasn’t necessary.

My newborns weren’t tucked away in a bedroom for nap time. Their “nursery” was simply a bassinet on the dining room table. They slept through the screams of laughter, tantrums, vacuum cleaners, phones ringing and any other sounds our busy household had to offer.

They simply slept among the action.

I particularly noticed with kid #6 that he actually prefers to sleep with chaos going on around him. While most kids like a nice, quiet room with dimmed lights, my little fellow finds it much easier to fall asleep while in the centre of the action. Recently we had a week at our cottage. When my little guy was ready for bed, he didn’t toddle off to the bunk room because the big siblings were all still up and having fun. Instead, he found himself a little wooden blanket box to sleep in. He created a space to sleep while not missing out on the hustle and bustle of a fun evening at the cottage.

Here is the wooden blanket box (bottom left):

Here is what we found when we opened it:

I did move the little guy out of the “coffin” and put him to bed when the rest of us were heading off.

Have you noticed different sleeping preferences between your children? Has their placement in the birth order had an impact?