How to self settle baby who shares a room with 3 year old??

[Debbied123]

Hello,

This is my first post on mumsnet! Hoping for some advice.

My DD is 3 years old and when she was a baby always wanted to be rocked to sleep...it took us until she was 1 year old to let her settle herself to sleep and she progressively got better and better at it.

Now we also have DS who is 10 months old and is a great fan of a cuddle for sleeping. We co-slept with both of them, I'm sure some people may criticise me for this but it worked for us at the time and we enjoyed the closeness.

The problem now is that our children now have to share a room. We have a solid bedtime routine in place, upstairs, bath together, stories, milk and bed. A routine that our DD has been settled with for years. However, we need to cuddle our DS to sleep then put in his cot, half the time he wakes up straight away and we have to sit and hold his hand til he falls asleep.

Now our DD who happily went to sleep has gotten used to us staying there and holding her hand. She falls asleep quickly and usually then sleeps right through.

DS will usually keep waking up every 30 mins or so and we keep needing to go in and hold his hand. We would like to employ the same technique we used before where we sit in room but no talking or touching, gradually over the nights sitting farther away however we don't want our baby to wake our little girl - who now as I said is used to having us there and will scream her head off if we leave the room before she falls asleep!!

It would be great to here from anyone who is in a similar position and has any advice

Cheers xx

[FATEdestiny]

I have always kept my children in my bedroom until they are independently settling to sleep (with dummy) and sleeping through.

That is more to do with me valuing my own sleep (not wanting to get up and go to another room in the night) than room sharing with siblings. But same principles apply.

My four children have been between 9 months and 12 months when this happened. Doesn't sound like your DS is there yet so if it was me I'd keep the cot in my room.

Could you get your DS used to going to sleep in his cot in your room first? Then move the cot into the children's room once he is settling independently.