Parenting

Sharing a room - tips?

Our girls (ages 8 months and 3 years) are in separate rooms right now, but we're getting ready to move in a month and will no longer have the luxury of being able to put them in separate bedrooms, so I would like to put them together before we move so they can kind of get used to it before we throw them into a completely new environment.  The baby is *mostly* sleep trained (she goes down for naps and bedtime after 1-5 minutes of crying, and has one night waking at the most - often none) and the 3-year-old sleeps fine at night but only takes a nap about 65% of the time.  Their daytime schedules are really not conducive to them sharing a room, but I think even after we move we may be able to get around that by having the baby nap in a PNP in our room (not ideal, but I don't see how she'll nap at all with her sister singing songs and jumping around the room during naptime) - but they do need to share at night.  The baby goes to bed about 2 hours ahead of the 3-yr-old, so I'm hoping it won't be that big of a problem to put them in the same room (hopefully the baby will be sawing logs and not wake up when the toddler comes in to go to bed), but I'm still dreading it.  Anyone have any tips on how to combine them without losing our minds?

Re: Sharing a room - tips?

  • My two share a room currently.  They didn't till DS was about 8 months old and we moved him out of our room.  DD slept right through his crying at night.  Naptime is another story. I generally wait till DD falls asleep, and hten put him in his bed, and he's usually already asleep as well.  If we put them down together, they play.  Maybe putting one down and making sure she's asleep before putting the other in there would help?  I do think moving them together before going to a new environment is a great idea!
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  • Honestly, we got to the point where we decided the girls just had to work it out between them.  We moved DD#2 out of our room and into theirs around 4 months when she was only waking up once.  DD#1 learned to sleep through her waking up fairly quickly (in a day or two).  I usually put DD#2 down first while DD#1 reads books, plays board games, etc. at night, though not always.  I also quickly got them on the same afternoon nap schedule.  DD#1 doesn't always sleep (like less then 50% of them time).  DD#2 sometimes plays with DD#1 and sometimes sleeps.  I learned not to worry about it.  They really do make it work pretty quickly.  Kids adapt easily.  I am pretty strict about if DD#2 is sleeping, DD#1 isn't allowed to go in the room and things like that.  It took some work, but they're fine with it now and actually happy.  They hate being apart or sleeping apart not. They are also so close partially because of this, I think.  DD#2's first word (after Mama and Dada) was "Lana" (DD#1's name).  You'll hear her over the monitor early in the morning going "Laaaaaaanaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  Lana.  Laaaanaaaaaaa"  It's too funny.  They both wake up giggling.
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