Help to get kids to share room - 2yr & 5mn

[Smiley01]

My DD 2yr and DS 5 months will need to share a room when DS grows too big for his cradle - It's going to be soon and we can't fit a cot in our room.

The cot is already in the kids room and DD has moved into a Toddler Bed quite successfully. However she's never slept well and often wakes in the night calling for mummy or with nightterrors. DS has just started waking again at 2am and 4am, which has also put a stick in the works.

Has anyone got any advice as to how and when we can get them in the same room. Will I just have to accept they'll wake each other up for a while??

Can't see it happening - think you might need to be more creative with the sleeping arrangements in your house till they're sleeping through. Can you remove a wardrobe so a cot will fit?

I used to find that one child never woke the other up. They soon realise that it's not their job to do anything about it, that mum or dad will sort out the problem so they don;t bother much.

Might be different for different children I suppose.

I did this realtively recently. Moved a bad sleeping 10mo into excellent sleeping 2 yo room. Best thing we ever did Suddenly ds2 started sleeping through. And if one does wake screaming in the middle of the night, it never wakes the other !! But seriously our ds2 was waking for 5 bf a night until I moved them in to share!

My two don't generally tend to wake each other. I'd second that they slept better with the other in the room.

Mine have almost never woken each other either.. and love the company to get off to sleep.

Even if I had the choice now, I would still put them in together.

You don't need to wait for them to be sleeping through. Our two boys share a room and never wake each other up, and they are both dreadful sleepers . Their sleep improved when they moved in together (6mths ago). They are 2 & 1 btw, and love sharing .

My two boys (2 years apart) have shared a room ever since DS2 was 3 months. It's worked out well - can have DS2 screaming and won't wake up his brother - it's quite amazing actually. For them it's completely normal and DS1 accepted it right from the start.

I will caveat that now they are 1 and 3, I do need to get DS2 asleep before bringing DS1 into the room: if they are both awake then they giggle and play and it takes ages for them to settle down. But we normally put DS2 to bed half an hour before DS1 who gets a story/ ITNG so normally not a problem.

I did tread on eggshells at first and whisked the baby out of the room as soon as he stirred, I think this may have contributed to the fact DS2 still now at 1.6 waking at night whereas with DS1 he learnt to self-settle much earlier on.

And it's so cute in the morning if they're both awake to hear them laughing together (until DS1 decides to leave the room leaving DS2 howling in his crib). It's not a lie-in but it can give an extra ten minutes in bed which is nothing to sniff at!

Thanks everyone for your advice. We're going to try and move DS2 in with DD1 in a few weeks time. Hopefully DS2 will be sleeping better at that point!!

I'm a bit worried about the logistics as DD1 will be going to be after DS2, so I'll have to move storytime outside the room...

Oh well. I'll let you know how it goes