2 children in same room - how does it work for you?

[lola88]

planning for number 2 shortly and my main concern is how do you work out bedtime / night wakings when both are in the same room?

DS was a terrible sleeper and still gets up during the night, we fed him to sleep and are now starting to work toward getting him to go to sleep on his own, I'm wondering how people with 2 in one room go about bedtime and do they wake each other?

Obviously baby would be in with us to start but would be moving to own room around 3 months (we done this with DS know all about the guideline but it works better for us) I' worried baby will wake DS or DS will wake the baby. Also wondering how young people have put baby to bed awake and how you do it without them screaming the house down!! I don't think feeding to sleep will be an option this time it was far to time consuming. We have my neice for 2 nights a week where DS gets put to bed then she goes an hour or so later but there is a 5 year age gap so much easier since DN goes to bed a fair bit later and is old enough to sit with a movie while I sort DS. There will be a 3yr gap at the least this time.

So how does it work in your house? After having a terrible sleeper this is the only thing that worries me about 1 - 2 especially on nights I have DN she will be 8 by then so hopefully ok to sit through 2 bedtimes.

[juneau]

Our two have been in the same room since DS2 was 15 months old. I kept him in with us until then as I was worried he'd wake DS1 until he had developed good sleep habits of his own. I wouldn't have put him with with DS1 at three months - his crying would've upset DS1 and been too disruptive - but I probably could've done it at 12 months without a problem.

[Eletheomel]

I'm also interested in this as DS2 is 8 months (and sleepwise nowhere near ready to go into brothers room!) and we're thinking about how does it work for story time?

With DS1 we used to read him stories than sit with him until he fell asleep until he was happy doing this himself (at about 3), not sure how we do that with DS2 (think our presence woudl be more of a distraction for DS1)

And what about stories? Stories for DS1 at 15 months were hairy maclairy and julia donaldson, but DS1 (aged 4) now likes more complex/longer stories - do you do the same stories for each child or different ones? How does it work?

We only have a 2 bed house so they will have to share but right now I just can't see how it could work (although i know it does as millions of folk do it!)

[juneau]

Stories was a bit of a juggle in the early days. To start with DS2 didn't get 'his own' story - I just read to DS1 while DS2 was having his final feed and then put them both to bed.

Once DS2 moved into DS1's room I started to read at least one book that was age-appropriate for each DC (more if we have time, plus nursery rhymes and songs). So, for instance, DS1 would have 'Room on the Broom' and DS2 would have 'Goodnight Moon'. They're now six and almost-three and we still do that. It works very well and I find they both tend to listen to both stories.

[lola88]

thank you my mum likes to tell me how my sister used to wake me every night asking to be taken to mummy so we would both be out of bed! It's a scary thought. We do have a travel cot with a decent mattress for it.

[Oblomov]

Found it really easy. Put ds2 to bed first. Then ds1 came up a bit later. It worked really well.

[TheGreatHunt]

I feed my youngest to sleep in the room with my eldest. Lights were off so both settled fine. I would keep a 3 month old in with you though until 6 months simply because they're more likely to be settled by then as opposed to loads is wakings.

[poocatcherchampion]

I'm interested to hear more too.

dd1 is nearly 2 and an excellent sleeper.
dd2 is nearly 6 months and hopefully improving.

we put dd1 to bed first then I feed dd2 in our room and take her through. sometimes dd1 waits up for her and I say goodnight again.

at first waki g dd2 comes back into her cot in our room. can be between 10pm and last night the best ever 5am!!!

dd1 just has one story out the children's bible dd2 will start to listen in at some point

[Mumof3xx]

Eldest two are only 16 months apart so since ds2 was 6 months they have been in together

Same bedtime routine. Same bedtime.

Dc3 is 4 years younger than dc2 and she has her own room but shares in the bedtime routine with the others and has same bedtime