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Are you an open or a closed door family?
Filed under: Activities: Babies, Feeding & Sleeping
I grew up in a house where we slept with the doors open at night. The only time I ever wondered if this was a good idea was when we had Fire Safety Day at school and the firefighters told us it was best to sleep with the door closed to protect against a raging fire. On those nights I would lie in my bed as I stared at the open doorway. Sometimes I would think about closing the door but I felt comforted by the small corner of warm, yellow light that I could see on my ceiling. As long I could see that light, I knew that my parents were in the house, likely conversing about their days, and that I was safe.My children are quite the opposite; they insist on sleeping with their bedroom doors closed. I have no memory of when this became a policy. It likely has its roots in my efforts to get them out of the family bed and into their own beds in a separate room. Whatever the case, they absolutely cannot sleep until that door is 100% closed. Now this would not be an issue except for the fact that the children and I now live with my mother while she heals from my father's death earlier this summer. Not only is she used to open doors at night, her dogs and cats are not used to encountering a piece of wood blocking their paths from wherever it was they were going.
As a compromise we shut the doors as the children are falling asleep and then open them enough so that the animals can travel to and fro during the night hours. This is not an issue until the early morning hours when my mother rises and begins her daily routine. Although the children can slumber through her puttering, I have recently discovered that I am no longer an open door sleeper. I, too, cannot sleep unless that door is closed. But then the dogs need to get up and potty, the cat wants breakfast....
What about your family? Do you have these door issues? Are you losing sleep over it?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
9-19-2006 @ 5:23PM
Keri said...Normally, I am an open-door sleeper but my 14-month-old sleeps with us so I shut the door for his safety. When he gets older, I hope we all will keep our doors open and the family love flowing.
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9-19-2006 @ 6:33PM
Nicola said...This has been a problem in our household, especially since moving our toddler out of the family bed and into his own room. My husband is an adamant door closed sleeper. He insists that every bit of noise and even the glow of the bathroom nightlight down the hall disrupt his sleep. However, I prefer an open door house and feel more secure in being able to hear our son in the night if the doors are open (though his room attaches to ours by one wall, the door is across the hall, and we always hear his every movement in the night). The other problem is obviously that we put him to bed well before ourselves and often watch a movie or talk in the other room, things which would disrupt his relatively new ability to "put himself to sleep" in the quiet of his bedroom. Yet, I don't like to open the door when we go to bed because that often wakes him as well and we start our night with one parent getting the toddler back to sleep. Oh, the trials and tribulations of getting a good night's rest!
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9-19-2006 @ 9:09PM
Uly said...I'm not fully comfortable in rooms with open doors - certainly not when sleeping.
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9-19-2006 @ 10:38PM
Michelle said...I grew up in an open-door family. However, we currently are a mixed-door group. My toddler, who is still in a crib, sleeps with his door closed. My daughter, a preschooler, falls asleep with an open door, which is part of the deal we make every night. "Mommy, will you please leave my door open just a little bit?" "If you stay in your bed, I'll keep your door open a little bit" Before I go to bed, or later in the night, whichever comes first, I close her door for a couple reasons. Daddy comes home from work at midnight, or later, and the wee one likes to wake up several times screaming for Mommy. So, I close my daughter's door because she is a light sleeper like her Mommy.
Our bedroom door stays open, so I can hear her in the night or morning, and so she feels welcome into our room if something disturbs her in the night. I use a monitor and my own light sleeping to hear my son in his crib. The only time we close our door is when we are in the middle of something we don't want our young daughter to walk in on. ;)
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9-19-2006 @ 10:51PM
Anita said...As a child, I always slept with my door open and the hallway light on. I felt closer to my parents and a night light was too spooky for me. Now I cannot sleep with any light in the room so our door is always shut. The kids know they can come to my room if there is a problem but I hate to be woken at any small sound.
Since they were babies, I've always closed my kids doors so noises don't wake them but now my 4 year old insists on his door open a crack. When I go to bed I shut it all the way and he never seems to mind. Both kids also sleep with fans on all night long for the white noise. I want them to sleep at much as they can with no accidental wakenings!
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9-19-2006 @ 11:04PM
Jess said...My Dauter sleeps with the door closed and every single light off even if the computer light is on it annoys her.
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9-20-2006 @ 12:47AM
Jonathon said...That's funny. We discovered just tonight that we may have the opposite problem. My two year old *finally* when to sleep when we left the door open!
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9-21-2006 @ 5:57AM
Nikisha said...until I was 11 or 12 I always had my door open and so have my parents. I couldn't sleep with the door closed but when I hit puberty I started to shut my door. And I've kept it that way now I can't sleep with the door open. Pretty weird. But I guess for most kids its more comforting to have the door open cause it makes the room less dark. Because I was definately afraid of the dark.
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9-20-2006 @ 11:19AM
Stacy B said...Both. My daughter sleeps with her door closed & this is a rule because our three lovely cats love to tear up her $400 rug at night. Our door, however, remains cracked so these same three cats can come & go (or else we'll hear them whining & scratching at the door)...
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9-20-2006 @ 4:50PM
Maureen said...Our kids sleep with the doors closed. They are both light sleepers and my husband's snores or late-night bathroom trips would wake them. Since I am a very heavy sleeper and need to be able to hear small voices if I'm needed, hubby and I keep our door open -- except at certain times;)
This drives my mom nuts! I grew up in an open door house and she goes crazy to think that I close the doors tight on my kids rooms.
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9-22-2006 @ 12:27AM
terre said...We sleep with doors OPEN here. But following a recent operation, I opted to keep mine shut so my cats would not bother me in bed. UPSET by the IMMOVABLE object in their way, they tore up the carpet and cried all night making me feel worse than the pain from surgery. BUT by night two or three they FINALLY got the message and left things alone, so I could recover.The doors are back to being open. As a child my doors were always shut, so I keep them open now.
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