Not sure where to put this but advice on two DC sharing a room

[latherrinserepeat]

Hi there

Wonder if someone can offer any advice or their experience on this for me please.

Currently have one DC who now is a good sleeper save for teething and illness although was RUBBISH for the first seven months. Starting to think about TTC DC2 (hurrah) but we don't have a massive house and as my DH works from home we kind of want/need to keep our small bedroom as his office.

So I am wondering about how to get two DC to sleep happily in the same room without disturbing each other too much esp when one is small and may or may not settle well. Of course I would hope any DC2 would be in with us until feeds established but what ages did you put two DC in together and how did it work?

Thanks in advance!

my 11 year old DS and 3 year old DD have to share a room, and have done for about a year now (DD will be 4 end of September) if DD gets up in the night, which she does occasionally, it does disturb my DS I suppose thats inevitable but for the most part it works out ok. We only have a 2 bedroom so don't really have a choice about them sharing but because of the big age gap between them I think it will become an issue very soon, don't think its so much of a problem when theres not much of an age gap like in your situation so I think it should be fine, hth

Our 2 older DC share (DS aged 5 and DD1 just turned 3)- and have done for just over a year. We moved them in together when we moved house, when they were aged 4 and 2. We also have a baby who we hope eventually to settle in their room also! The first few weeks (ok, month) were quite tough as at the time DD1 was still waking quite often, never having been a great sleeper, and this used to disturb and annoy DS. However he amazingly got used to her disturbing him and would often sleep through it, and she also sleeps better now, I think she gets comfort from knowing he's in the same room with her. Perserverance and reasssurance is key! Now they hate sleeping apart bless them
However our baby is still waking quite often at night (in spite of being 8 months) and ends up cosleeping half the night or so, so not sure she'll be moved in with the other 2 for a while but they're already excited about it... I do love the way when they wake up in the morn I hear lots of giggling and discussing when and how to wake us- note we have a special clock which shows a sun rising at a time we the parents determine- the rule we have is that it's not morning until the sun rises on their clock (unfortunately that doesn't stop all night wanderings)

It only really matters if you live in Social Housing. If you own your own home you can put as many kids in a room as you like

In social housing, a child aged 10years is classed as an adult and would require their own room, unless they are sharing with another child of the same gender and there is not a gap of more than 7 years.

It's a pretty good guide for what is acceptable really.

The baby sleeps in our bed until they're fairly old in our family - 2 or 3. We have a 5yo and a 3yo sharing. The 3yo still has cuddles to get to sleep so that works out fine - the 5yo reads on the top bunk while the 3yo goes to sleep. The baby (22m) falls asleep downstairs with us and gets transferred to her bed in the room she 'shares' with DD1 (7) who is usually still reading at that point. When we go to bed, we bring the baby in with us as her bed is quite high and I wouldn't want her falling out of it when she stirs. However, if we didn't do that, then she'd come in with us as soon as she woke anyway, and the older 3 DDs sleep so deeply, I don't think they'd be disturbed.

We have a poor sleeper (with SN) who has shared a room with her sister for about a year now. Oddly, they can wake at different times, but rarely disturb the other when they wake. Children have a remarkable ability to screen out the noise.

My DS1 and 2 (aged 8 and 5) share a room. It started when they were quite young as we needed DS2's room for student lodgers as we needed the money. It's carried on because DS now doesn't want to sleep on his own! And DS3 is in a room on his own. When DS1 starts secondary school we'll probably change things around so that DS2 and 3 share. Eventually they'll all have a room of their own but there's no rush.