room sharing - baby and toddler, advice please?

[bonniej]

We have a three bedroom house with two fairly decent size rooms and one box room (i mean box room, very small) We have one ds who's 16 a dd who's just turned 2 and I'm pg with dd2 who's due in October. The problem is we can only keep the baby in our room for as long as it sleeps in a moses basket as we have no room for a cot. We have decided to move our disgruntled 16 year old out of his big bedroom into the box room, so our 2 year old and baby can have the larger room (can't see another way round it) This means my 2 year old and probably 3 month old baby will be sharing a room. All I can imagine is the baby waking up my toddler and me and dh never getting any sleep. Has anyone any experience of children of these ages sharing? Is it the worst idea ever? If so has anyone got any ideas other than to extend (which we can't afford to do at the moment). Thanks,

Hi there, I have a 19 mth gap between my two, and put them in the same room after the baby could no longer be squeezed into the moses basket. I was very apprehensive about this - imagining 1 waking the other up, etc. but it was less problematic than I thought it would be. They are now 4.5 and 2.5, and they both love sharing. It is lovely to hear them having a giggle in the mornings. Yes, sometimes I do have to go in there to sort things out, but they almost always wake up around the same time, which is when I would be getting up anyway. I think that we waited until the bulk of the night wakings was over with before we moved them in together. I was surprised though how one could sleep through the other crying, coughing, etc. Neither are really heavy sleepers either, but it still doesn't generally seem to bother them.
I think it has also helped my older girl, who does feel a bit scared in the room sometimes - I have told her that she just needs to look at her sister and she will know she is not dreaming anymore.
HTH.

Can you get a slightly bigger than a moses basket cot - one of those swinging ones? That's what I'll have next time - means they don't move out of the moses basket-type cot as soon.

Wow, jennifersofia just described my situation!! I found no problem either with mine who are 19 months apart and now 4.5 and 2.5!!

They were no problem whatsoever when ds2 was in his cot and couldn't talk (ds2 never woke ds1) - it's worse now he can talk and is in his bed cos they chat and muck about when they go to bed!! They still go off OK in the end though. No big deal - they love sharing.

thanks so much, you've made me feel a lot better. I will be keeping the baby in with me for as long as poss and hopefully until she can sleep through. It's nice to hear that others have done it and it's worked fine and I also like the idea of them sharing. I always shared with my sister and wouldn't have wanted it any other way!