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Two Under 2
jf198400
member
Vacationing with 2kids and 2adults in 1 bedroom
jf198400
member
in Two Under 2
We leave for the beach on Saturday and will all be sleeping in 1 bedroom for an entire week. It was hard enough getting DD to sleep at all last year when it was just the 3 of us. Does anyone have any advice on how to help the kids nap and sleep at night? Getting a suite isn't an option, we're staying in a house with DH's entire family, and there is no walk-in closet. I'm trying to just prepare myself for the worst.
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Re: Vacationing with 2kids and 2adults in 1 bedroom
First of all, you are brave. I could never sleep with 2 kids in my room.
We leave for the beach in 2 weeks, there is always a kids room. My sister has 3 kids. Is there a room that the kids are sleeping in with bunk beds or something?
If DD is as bad this year as she was last year I'll be moving myself to the kid room!
We do this all the time when we visit family - so far we've done it 4 or 5 weekends already this summer. We put the baby to bed first, because she has a harder time getting to sleep. Once she's asleep, we put my 2 year old to bed, and she understands enough to be very quiet when we go in. She goes right to sleep, no problem. We do the same for naps. DD2 sleeps in the PNP, DD1 sleeps on an air mattress or sleeping bag on the floor. They do tend to wake a little earlier when we all share a room, but get right back on schedule when we get home.
ETA: We also try to keep their sleeping environment as familiar as possible. Same stuffed animals, blankets, any white noise or music they are used to, and as dark as possible. Whenever I can I put their beds on opposite sides of the room, so that if they do wake they can't see each other
DD1 Feb 2010
DD2 Sept 2011
Unfortunately there is no extra bedroom for the kids. DH is one of 4 siblings, so his parents get a 5 bedroom house. His brother and one of his sisters also have 2yr olds. When the kids are older they can all sleep in the living room together, but for now us parents are stuck sleeping with them. If I was paying for a vacation I'd stay in a hotel suite, but since we get to go on the family trip for free I just have to suck it up.
We did it in June. There was a "kids room" that we were hoping my DD and my nephew would sleep in (in twin beds). But inevitably, my DD ended up sleeping between DH and I every night in the king bed. The good news was that our room did have a large walk in closet for our son to sleep in (in a PnP).
I agree with the idea of having your older child sleep with a family member. When we visit my mom, my DD usually sleeps with her and DS sleeps with DH and me.
That all being said, the few times we have put our kids to bed in teh same room (on road trips at hotels) it has gone fine. We just get them extra tired (which at the beach will be easy) and keep them up about 30 minutes later than usual. They usually just zonk out.
Married 6/28/03
Kate ~ 7/3/09 *** Connor ~ 11/11/10
4 miscarriages: 2007, 2009, 2013, 2014
*~*~*~*~*
No more TTC for us. We are done, and at peace, as a family of 4.
"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” — Charles Dickens
This exactly! When our LO was 6 months old we vacationed at Disney World and my husband and I both agreed that would be the last time we share a room with our kiddos. I know it's probably a delicate situation if you're sharing the house with other family members but I would encourage you to speak up or find accommodations that fit your family's needs. NO ONE is going to thank you when your kiddos are cranky and acting out because they didn't get any sleep. We got trapped in a similar situation a month ago when our friends rented a cabin to celebrate a "milestone" birthday. They don't have kids and assumed sharing a room was fine. My husband snores, I toss & turn all night and my son also snores...we all suffered through the weekend but none of us got the sleep we needed...especially since I was pregnant at the time! Maybe you can look into a larger house and offer to pay the difference? Or find a hotel nearby that would better fit your needs and use the spare room at the communal family house for naps during the day? Good luck!
There are 9 adults and 4 kids going, there are no bigger houses than this (5 bedrooms). Yes we could find a hotel, and may choose to do that in the future but have made the decision to suck it up again this year since we like spending time with the family, and its free, so the pros outweigh the cons. DH and I have discussed that someday we will probably start renting a house of our own close by to the rest of the family. I'm sure some of DH's siblings also may start to feel that way as well once they have more than one child each. For now we will make the best of it. If it does not go well, then we'll reevaluate our plans for next summer.
I don't know what kind of sleeper your older one is... but when we had to do this a few months back we put my then 6 month old to sleep first and when she was completely out we put my almost 2 year old in her pack and play. Surprisingly she didn't realize the baby was in there for awhile. She's really good with just laying there for awhile. At one point we heard her say her name, but she didn't stand up or anything. They both sleep through the night so that helps. In the morning as soon as one got up we were all up... but we were fine with that. Good luck. We'll be doing it again in a few weeks but we do have a master bathroom just in case it gets bad
You can do it! We travel a lot, and we prefer to stay in hotels where we can get in suites but sometimes we end up somewhere with a single room and we've made it work many times ... some trips have def been better than others. My kids are 3 and 20 months now so it's a little different than the stage you're in, but we took our first trip in one room when DH's company paid for us to go to Disney World and only gave us one hotel room ... DS was 18 months and DD was 2 months at the time.
Since you'll have a house and you guys don't have to go to bed at the same time as the kids, you'll actually have more options than we have at a hotel when we all go down together. For bedtime, I recommend you stick as closely to your regular routine as possible ... if one goes down earlier than the other, put them down first. Hopefully you guys can tiptoe in later in the night once they're both asleep without disturbing them. Assuming your baby is still up in the night, I used to just race to get the baby and nurse her in bed w/me but you might have a kitchen/living room to escape to until you can settle her down.
For naps, you might even be able to split them up if your hubby's siblings aren't using their rooms during the day. In hotels, we always have a harder time getting the kids to settle for nap than for bedtime. Usually, one of us leaves and does something by ourselves during nap (the only break we ever get!) and the other one naps (or pretends) in the hotel room while the babies nap. We just do our typical nap routine, put them in their cribs and lay down and turn out the lights.
If you're relatively liberal, I do find that Tylenol and Benadryl are effective if they get too overtired when we travel and need a little help settling down. There have been many nap times where they absolutely won't settle and, within 15 minutes of having meds, they're out. I think it's important to keep in mind that their normal routines, schedules and comforts of home (e.g. their crib, room, etc.) are all disrupted when you travel. No matter how much space you have when you travel, you can't re-create all of that ... the result of being overtired is a headache, body aches, etc. in addition to outward irritability. I think medicine to help treat those physical symptoms is perfectly warranted on a limited basis while traveling and it certainly does help!
We travel to disney world several times a year and we always at least sleep all in 1 room. Sometimes we have a 2 bedroom with my parents so at least we have a place to escape to until we are ready for bed but sometimes not. We went in april while I was pg with ds3 and all stayed in one hotel room. We've done in it hilton head too. To me it's not that big of a deal especially since you can leave the room. Just stick one on one side of the room and the other on the other side of the room. If naps become a problem then ask if one of them can sleep in someone else's room for those few hours. At night just put the one down that has a hard time going to sleep first then do the other one.
My boys are usually so exhausted from going non stop all day that they crash once we put them to bed.
We had something similar when DS was 6 months old and DD was about 22 months old.
I kept the environment as similar as I could. I packed seahorse, fav blankets, crib sheets, stars nightlight and kept the routine the same. I put DS to sleep first and had DD out of the room until he was asleep. Then when he fell asleep I rolled his PnP out into the hall (dark hallway) and put DD into the room to fall asleep in a bed. Once she was asleep I rolled his PnP back into the room and luckily they both STTN and didn't wake the other up.
Good Luck! I expected a disaster but it actually went really well.
We have done this many times at my ILs vacation house. Only recently has it become more of a challenge! When DD was smaller, it was a lot easier, so you may be pleasantly surprised
We had 2 PNPs, one for each of them. We put one on each side of the bed so they couldn't see each other (here is the problem now - DS is no longer in a pnp, but in a mattress on the floor, so he gets up and walks over to talk to DD, and they would spend hours playing together, not sleeping). When DD was your DS's age, she would go to bed between 6 and 6:30pm, and DS would go down about 7-7:15. So we put her down, she would go to sleep, then we would bring DS in. He rarely woke her up, even when he was NOT quiet!
For naps, we always just moved one pnp out of the room and put them in someone else's room for that short time. They never would have napped together.
We always bring our sound machine, DS's special pillow case, their special blankets and stuffed animals, and they do pretty well. We also use blankets, towels with push pins, etc to cover up the windows - DS's room at home is super dark, so when we travel he always has trouble sleeping when the sun is still up as he is going to bed.
The last time we all shared was a bit of a disaster - but mostly because as soon as we would leave the room, DD would start throwing her animals out of her pnp so DS would go get them, then they would start playing catch, singing, talking, etc. Finally DH went in and laid on our bed so they would have to be quiet and stay in their beds...and that worked. Once everyone is asleep, they usually all do pretty well - except for the few times that we have had 4 people in our bed by morning
Enjoy your trip, though! It is only for a short time, and the kids will have so much fun with their cousins. All can get back to normal when you get home. We just did a family vacation where we had Dd in our room and DS in the other room, and still DS didn't nap at all and was up earlier going to bed later. But we survived and for the week after we got home, he was sleeping an hour later every day!
Married 6/28/03
Kate ~ 7/3/09 *** Connor ~ 11/11/10
4 miscarriages: 2007, 2009, 2013, 2014
*~*~*~*~*
No more TTC for us. We are done, and at peace, as a family of 4.
"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” — Charles Dickens
My kids have been sharing a room, so they are use to each other. We recently went on vacation and the two of them shared a room in our vacation house. Granted, it wasn't all four of us in one room. Recreating a familiar environment really helped- their stuffed animals, blankets, fan, mobile, sound machine, etc.
You may want to consider bringing a garment rack and a dark blanket to hang over it. We used this as a room divider when we transitioned our kids to room sharing. It really helped.
We've done it a ton, and most of what pp's said I agree with. Also tin foil works great to block light from windows too, fyi.
Its a short time. We did the same last year when dd was 1 and ds was 2.5. My parents got a beach house. my sister has 3 kids and other one has 1. we gota large room and put ds on the floor on a mattress and dd in the pnp. It was hard as they wake up when they are indifferent places, but I would nurse the baby fast so ds didnt wake up.
Now they share a room so rarely wake each other, so that wouldnt be an issue. Try 2 sound machines, one near each child. Also bring a night light so you can see if you need to. The hardest thing was DS wakes early and he was wakin us all up by 5 am, so we had to sneak downstairs and be quiet while everyone in the house slept until 8ish...it was a long 3 hours. Also my nieces are all on a different schedule. They go to bed at 9 or 10 and wake at 8, and my kids are in bed ny 730 or 8 and wake by 6 or earlier some days. It was harder bc of that.
Day time naps were easy for the baby, but hard for DS. He was excited and heard his cousins up. Keeping him up was fine as he passed out easily at night.
I can say now with 3 kids we need 2 rooms, and would spring for a sep condo or house, or just pay for the extra room if there was a bigger house.
Have fun.
You can totally do this! We have done it twice this summer for both of our family vacations. If it makes you feel any better when we vacation with DH's family there are 11 kids (ages 6 and under) and 17 adults in a 4 bedroom house (granted one of the rooms has bunk beds for some of the bigger kids but its still nuts!) We do similar to pp and put DD down first since she is harder to get down and needs a more controlled, quiet environment. We have found draping a sheet or blanket over-top the PNP really helps block out any extra sound or light (like the tiny bit of hallway light that might happen when you open the door later in the evening). DS goes down pretty easy, our biggest obstacle is that DS has a feeding tube and is connected to a feeding pump at night so it can be tricky to get him connected in the dark without making a lot of noise to wake up DD.
For naps we try to stagger them or we take advantage of other rooms that aren't being used during the day and move one of the kids there. We make sure to have all of DD's night time stuff set up and ready (a bottle of water and formula measured out sitting on the nightstand for quick mixing, clean diaper and wipes right next to it). DS is a pretty sound sleeper once he is down and thankfully he never was woken up by DD waking to eat in the middle of the night. I was dreading both vacations b/c of the sleeping arrangements and was pleasantly surprised at how well the kids did- hopefully you will have the same results.
My kids share a room at home so nothing is new for that. On vacation have a 2 bedroom condo BUT 2nd room has 2 other adults. So we all share a room. I set 2 pack and plays up and both kids go down together. We join once they are sound asleep. My kids are 15 months apart.