Moving a baby into a room with 3 year old... how?!

[usingapseudonym]

I have a 3 month old and am thinking that in the next few months I am wanting to move her into the room with the (just turned) 3 year old. 3 year old is happy about this and the toddler-bed/cot has always been there since she moved out of it as she knows it is for baby.

However, how on earth do you get 2 to bed in the same room? 3 month old currently often feeds down stairs with me later to get drowsy then I put in the side-car crib next to our bed and with a bit of wriggling falls asleep usually. Or with a dummy (another thing I think I shouldn't have for too long). How do I practically do this with 2?! Husband is away a lot so I need some sort of way of doing it on my own. I could put little one to bed later but will I disturb big one? Or if I put baby down first then won't my stories with big one wake her.

Any one willing to share what they do?

Also I am hoping she will sleep a bit better when she is not right next to me - but if not I assume big one will get used to being disturbed in the middle of the night..... ?

We have just moved 18 month old in with nearly 3 year old and it's one sooo much better than I thought.

Daddy is here at the moment but when he's working, he is away Monday to Friday.

I'll tell you what I do/will do in both situations.

With daddy here:

6/6.15pm Both upstairs, bath/wash, pj's on. Read a story to both. Then ds1 goes downstairs with daddy and I brush ds2's teeth and BF him to sleep.
He's usually asleep by 7pm.
Then I get 45 mins with ds1 to read stories, do puzzles or watch a bit of tv.
7.45pm ds1 upstairs, brush teeth, cuddles and in be at 8pm.

When daddy is not here, the only thing I'll change is instead of ds1 going downstairs, I'll set him up on my bed with a warm drink and peppa pig or some such then take him down when ds2 is asleep.

Putting ds1 to bed later hasn't been a problem. Ds2's snoring and night waking only woke ds1 up for 3 nights before he started sleeping through it.

I really was expecting the worst so I would try make up a routine that you think might work and try it. You might be pleasantly surprised or you might need to tweak the routine a bit to get it to work better but either way, good luck.

Where do you do stories? We currently do them in her bed which I'm thinking will disturb little one? Or is that not disturbing smaller one? Or do you do stories elsewhere?

As anal as it sunds I'm trying to think it through now so that I get big one used to doing stories elsewhere/a new routine if need be.

At the moment we do stories and a song in her bed and I quite like that but I imagine it would wake a sleeping baby if I'd already put babe down.

We had the same set up as you, story in dd1's bed.

When dd2 moved in, we changed the stories to our bed. DD1 was 3 and understood, think she felt a little grown up as she was allowed to stay a bit longer than her sister!

DD2 is now 16 months and stories are done in their bedroom. DD2 is sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. She is the lightest sleeper in this house, but even putting the lamp on doesn't wake her.

Dh does bedtime in the evenings as I work till 7.

He takes them both up, teeth, pj's. Then dd2 has her bottle while dh reads a story. Then, if tired they both go to bed. If not tired, dd1 will come back down, wait for me and I'll take her up and read her a story as soon as I get in.

Thanks for the replies!

Can I ask too -at what age did you move them out of your room/into theirs?

I moved first child out at about 9 months but she slept so much better after I moved her.... I'm wondering about moving this one (much) earlier!

dd1 was 6 months, dd2 was a year.

I was nervous of moving dd2 into dd1's room for the same reason as you.

However, in hindsight, I could have moved her at 6 months, and I agree with you that they both seemed to sleep better once in their own room.

I personally wouldn't move before 6 months though.

I now do stories cuddled up on the sofa downstairs with ds1. It's his little bit of one on one time with me before bed. I still keep the lounge dimly lit and quiet so it works well.

Ds2 moved out of our room at 14 months but as only just gone in with his brother at 18 months.