I just discovered this board so figured it'd be a good place to RP the Q I OP on my local board:
did you move #1 to a "big girl/boy" bed in another room when #2 came along?
how old was #1 when (s)he went to a big boy/girl bed?
why did you decide to move #1 to another room?
Our nursery/DD's bedroom has 2 blue walls and 2 white ones (we never painted) so gender is not an issue. I am debating whether we should just keep DD in that room and make the guest room #2's room, or should we keep DD's room a nursery and move DD to the guest room?
what was your reasoning for moving #1? That seems like what everyone does but I don't really get it. If DD is too young for a big girl bed, it doesn't really make sense to move her. We can just move the changing table (or get a 2nd one) and the glider to #2's room and keep everything as it is in DD's room. Her crib is convertible and will become a toddler bed, and then a double bed. I will discuss moving her to a big girl bed with the pedi. She will be 20mo old when #2 arrives.
Was cost a factor? As in, it was cheaper to buy a toddler bed than keeping #1 in a crib and buying another crib?
Thanks, sorry this is a sort of rambling.
Re: moving #1 to another room?
we had another boy, so I put the baby in the nursery since it was already set up with the glider, changing table, diaper genie, etc. I moved #1 to another room. Initially I tried to put him in a twin bed (it was cheaper, and we are going to have to buy it anyway), but that didn't work out, so we got another crib. His room is a little more "grown up" than the nursery was.
I really like having them in two seperate rooms. That way I don't have to be afraid of DS#2 waking up DS#1 when he wakes up at night, or, more likely, #1 waking up #2 when he starts jumping around in the morning.
If you are going to put them both in the same room, I would probably do two cribs until your older daughter is old enough to know not to hurt the baby and/or the baby is old enough to defend himself.
We made the smaller room the nursery and kept it gender neutral. Tan walls, winnie the pooh theme. We moved ds into the bigger room before the baby was born, and he's 2 (will be 3 in Jan). We talked it up a lot, got him a new bed, etc. Though dh thinks we should have kept him in his old room b/c he wakes up and comes to our bed. But he probably would have been doing that anyway, and he says he likes his room. I would just do it a couple months before the baby is born, so your DD has a chance to get used to it. Plus, this way I didn't have to redo 2 rooms. I just put pink in the nursery to add some girly touches to it!