16 month age gap - to room share or not when one is an amazing sleeper and the other one a horror?!

[pipkin35]

Any advice desperately welcomed.

Nearly 3 year old (3 in Dec) is a good sleeper. 18 month old DD not so great - also goes to bed about an hour after DS.(sleeps less at night, can wake up disturbed and early riser, still BF). In with us at the moment. Getting a bit weary of not having a bedroom, and some friends are suggesting she might be disturbed by us. OH snoring etc...

Should I move 18 month old in with the older one?

What is the best way to do this, do you think? My worry is the older ones sleep becoming disrupted? I have horrible visions of them both being awake and screaming!

How long would I give it if it doesn't 'work'? Etc...

Both are still in cots.

Any thoughts on LO's sharing a room - I'd really like to hear some stories please.
Many thanks

Sorry but you did ask

My two had 21 m between them. dd1 is v good sleeper and dd2 didnt need it. I eventually extended my house to get another bedroom as they were awful sharing. Both were in beds and dd2 was constantly in with dd1 trying to wake her up.

They now share again but they are now 9&10 so a bit more respectful of each other!

a more successful sharing story here.

dd2 was in our room until 13mo and was an appalling sleeper - howled for hours at a time if she was woken up by dh me snoring!

Took the plunge and moved her in with dd1 who at the time was just under 3yo.

First night was a complete and utter disaster. Dd2 screamed for about an hour - my mistake was trying to put them to bed at the same time - fractious baby and uber-excited toddler - aaagh!

From then on dd2 went to bed first - after about a couple of weeks she would happily play in her cot until her big sister came to bed half an hour later. Then there would be about half an hour of shrieking and giggling then sleep.

It had got progressively better. Dd2 now sleeps through dd1 shouting for us in the middle of the night and has only woken up herself a handful of times. Total opposite to how she was in our room.

we weren't bfeeding so i don't know if that will make a difference?

But for us - room sharing has been so good that I now wonder why I didn't do it earlier!

Good luck

Thanks to those who replied. I know it prob seems a stupid question, cos lots of people are like "Oh, just do it, kids are so adaptable!" - but I just can't risk it unless I've got some experiences to reference, you know! (Besides the fact that I'm bipolar and so making a move which potentially could mean that I'd be operating on even less sleep really isn't the best thing for me!)

So, if toddler wakes up for whatever reason - us coming in and putting her to bed, or her waking/screaming out in the middle of the night, and/or the early morning - any ways of handling toddler?...OK, so I'd know what to say to him in the middle of the night - (although maybe not since he hasn't woken in the night for over a year and that was only for one night when we moved...)- but like in the mornings....he no longer has a sleep in the day so really needs his 12-13 hours...he's not ready to go in the mornings till 8am or later. She's crack up anytime from 5.30am onwards - no rhyme or reason to it.
What's the best way to handle it if he wants to 'get up too' and won't go back to sleep...?!

I'm SO relunctant to move her just in the hopes that she may become a bit of a better sleeper at the expense of an excellent sleeper - do you know what I mean?! Saying that, the idea that we might get a bedroom again...and that I could go to bed early and read is just so blissful....

We don't have the option of moving to a bigger place - 2 beds for us all the way.

My dcs share no problem. Ds is 3 and a half and once he is out that is pretty much it until morning. Dd is 1 and a half and doesn't do sleep. I think she slept all the way through once.....

The first few nights we put them together they chatted a lot until they went to sleep but now they chat a little and drop off pretty quickly. Often ds falls asleep and dd carries on singing/throwing her toys out of the cot. When dd wakes at night it doesn't wake ds at all, I just go in and sort her out and get her back to sleep. If ds wakes because of a nightmare or growing pains or something it doesn't tend to bother dd though since he usually wakes because he needs something I tend to scoop him up and get him out of the room before he has the chance to wake her!

They don't usually wake each other int he morning either, often dd will be up first then half an hour later ds will plod downstairs or today ds was up earlier than dd without her waking.

A friend of mine got her younger child to sleep through the night first, by sending hubby to couch downstairs, sharing her bed with her older child, and putting the younger kid in the room on her own. That part took about 1 or 2 nights I think! Then she just moved the older kid back into the room with the younger kid and hubby got his place back in bed!