Hmmm.... 2 sleeping in the same room...

[Flamesparrow]

It was all lovely - I fell pregnant, DD had a lovely routine... went to bed with bottle and story, and slept. Then she turned from my little toddler into a little girl overnight.

She worked out how to play by herself . She worked out how to turn the light on.

Now, still nice routine, go up, bottle, story, then get up and play for a bit, turns her own light off again, and goes to bed.

All fine and lovely now, but what do I do when we have a baby we want to sleep in there too???

It doesn't matter how tired she is when she goes to bed, she just seems to like the alone playing time (scream blue murder if I tried to put her up there to play in the day), even if it is just 10 mins or so.

Taking out the lightbulb, or taking all the toys out still probably wouldn't work - she'll happily play in the dark with a pile of clothes (guess I should be pleased with her imagination!! )

I'd be happy to let her go up, have some play time, and then lights out and quiet, but not too sure how to enforce it (not sitting in there til she falls asleep, that will turn into a habit and I'll spend an hour sat there every night for ever more)....

Any suggestions?

Your baby will probably sleep through your DD playing.

That being said, our DS is a bit similar. We sometimes let him play on his own at bedtime, sometime not. When he is allowed to play, we tell him, "lights out" when it's time.

And we have a nightlight on a timer that comes on in the morning, to tell him he's allowed to get up.

lol - we have mummy growling "its still dark, go away" in the morning

I strongly recommend a timer with nightlight. I think DS1 wakes in the night and doesn't know what time it is. He went through a phase of turning on his light and reading some books for a while, which was cute, but didn't result in a well-rested DS1!

lol we have a mummy saying 'it's 5 in the morning, go back to sleep' while lying in bed trying to wake up enough to say it

She's jumpy about the dark as it is, so has a little nightlight next to her bed all night. I guess in some ways it works as a timer... only comes on when its dark, so if I explain that when the fairylight is off, then she can get up...

(Poor child is gonna grow up convinced that fairies are at her every turn - the evil gits swiped her dummies, light her room, and put up and take down christmas decs....)

We have a 2yr and an almost 5yr DDs sharing a room. DD1 loves to play in her bed at night wheras DD2 is a morning bird, keen to get up at 5am and play. Fortunately, they are both very good at playing independently and have just learnt that at night and in the morning you stay in your bed and play quietly, only to get out for a loo break. They also know that if they wake up their sister, mummy turns into a huge angry monster, snarling and snapping, switching lights off etc!
We found we couldn?t force either to lie down and sleep if not tired so set up the staying in bed and playing quietly rule - with plenty of praise if they achieve it. Both have soft night lights so they can see without upsetting their sister. They each have "bed toys" which is a cloth toy bag at bottom of their beds with a handful of non noisy toys to play with - stops them running around looking for things or making noises with louder toys. If they misbehave, removing a toy from the bag works a treat.
DD1 seems to just know when to stop playing and go to sleep naturally (school makes her fairly tired so have an advantage). DD2 knows she can get up when I go in and get them up for breakfast.
Don?t worry too much, they will fall into their own routines. Recommend a night light - and the rule about staying in bed to play, enforcing/encouraging quiet play only of light out rule all helps xx

My two share a room as well. Mostly it works fine and they seem to be quite capable of sleeping through each other's crying when it does happen.
They have quite a bright nightlight because they both hate the dark but it doesn't seem to be a problem at all with regard to sleeping.

Thankyou. I was hoping that there would be some sort of sibling drowning out switch that kicked in . Can't see her waking with baby cries... onces she does fall asleep, she's out cold - had paranoid mummy moments when she's been ill of me poking her because I can't see her breathing, and gentle stroking hasn't woken her

I have had a 2 year old and 3.5 year old share a room with their baby brother and on occasion they have done this as 2, 4 and 5 year old too. Never had any problems with them keeping one another awake especially, and I think this is largely down to the fact that we have staggered bedtimes at various points as necessary and also because I think pretty well most babies sleep through whatever noise their siblings make.

It is some kind of strange phenomena I think!

And remember, they will tire each other out playing and chatting for a while, quicker than if you try and stop them, as parent attention is much more worth staying awake for! You can always send them up to their room nice and early so that there is time for this without it causing them sleep deprivation - you just work the playtime into the routine.

My boys are 6 and 8, and have shared a room since ds2 was 6 weeks old! They love it and choose to share now even though we now have the space they don't have to.

We found for the first year or so (maybe longer I can't remember - hazy memories!) we put ds1 to bed first and ds2 went later after a late evening feed when ds1 was already sound asleep.

Then for a period of several years we put whichever of them needed the most sleep to bed first and then the other later on.