Toddler and baby sharing a room - yay or nay?

[ViolaCrayola]

I am currently pregnant with DC2 - DS will be 2.10 when she is born. The baby will be in our room until at least 6 months.

We have three bedrooms (one currently a spare room/study) so I could set up a proper nursery for DC2 in that room (although not sure where the desk etc would go!) OR just assume they will be sharing a room and keep her stuff in our room for now. DS's room is of a good size although not huge.

What would you/did you do? Did sharing a room work for your DCs? Any potential problems I should be aware of?

Sharing worked for mine but we didn't put the younger one in there till he was a toddler himself and in a toddler bed.

I wouldn't put a baby in with an older sibling myself for fear of the toddler waking up early and trying to take the baby out of the cot (to be helpful!). Or playing around with pillows and soft toys and accidentally covering the baby's face so they couldn't breathe, and not realising what they'd done. Or encouraging them to climb out of the cot! I think once the youngest one's big enough to be out of a cot and into a toddler bed themselves, that's less of a risk.

Now I've put that, I bet loads of people are going to say that's ridiculous, but that was the sort of thing I thought about. It just seemed really risky to me to have the toddler unsupervised in a room with the baby every morning when we were still asleep.

Thanks lost - that's really helpful - so did you have a nursery for your younger child or were they just in with you until they could go in a toddler bed?

I have friends who have this arrangement but the downside is the younger one, who is still waking frequently, can wake the older one. Younger child is still in cot though and there are no problems on that score.

There is no inherent reason it can't work - people have been doing it for centuries. I had baby DD and toddler DS sharing for a time and it was fine (though they are in their own rooms now at 7 and 5).

The one thing I would advise is to make sure DC2 and DS are sleeping through the night independently before you put them together. That way one won't necessarily wake the other up if they wake themselves up, iykwim. If DS has any sleep issues, solve them now before DC2 comes. Reward independence with lots of attention in the morning.

Once they are in the same room you might also consider putting DC2 to bed first, letting him/her get to sleep, then putting DS to bed.

I have a 3 bed house. DS is in his own room while DD1 (4YO) and DD2 (7MO) share. They have been sharing since DD2 was about 6MO and sleeping through (I must admit we were V.V.V. lucky with DD2 and her sleeping at night). I wouldn't have put them together if either one woke constantly throughout the night.

We didn't have enough rooms for a nursery so the younger one stayed in with us. We then put the toddler bed up in a corner of our room at first so got him used to it in there and then moved him through. He was old enough to find it exciting to be moving in with his big brother!

If we'd had another room we could have made just his for a while, I think we might have done that sooner though (probably still not before 12-18 months or so), but we only had two usable rooms at that stage.

I think on the question of the toddler being "helpful", you just need to teach him, while awake, that actions like that are unacceptable, and there will be consequences if he does them.

I was in a room with two brothers at once when we were toddlers and babies. Yes, we got up to mischief (my mother still tells the story of waking up to hear my 2 yo twin brother climbing over the gate to bring cookies to me and my younger brother in his cot - it was our giggling that woke her and she thought it was so cute she "had to go see what we were doing" and was horrified to see what it was!) but she and my dad dealt with it firmly.

You can't supervise every moment of interaction between babies and toddlers, even when you're all awake. All you can do is try to reasonably anticipate pitfalls and deal with them in advance. You tell the toddler that no cushions or soft toys are allowed in the cot, EVER. Grownups are the ONLY ones allowed to take baby out of the cot. If toddler breaks these rules there is a swift and memorable consequence.

Hi we have a 3 bed house and like you wanted to keep the spare room, DSs are 2 years apart. DS2 was a bad sleeper though so we put his cot up in the spare room for a while until he was sleeping more reliably, think we put them together when Ds2 was around 12mo.

It was a good choice and they never disturb each other if they do wake in the night, however I'm not sure it would have been fair on DS1 if we'd put them in together whilst DS2 was still waking frequently.

Could you move any furniture around temporarily? DS2s cot was literally in the corner of the spare room it was hardly a nursery but he didn't care! And they have a proper boys bedroom now to share.

On a safety note I think you just have to assess it as you would any other situation where your toddler might be unsupervised. We had a beanbag in the bedroom but took it away whilst DS2 was in the cot for the reasons others have said.

Also if your toddler is like mine there isn't that much time that they are in there alone as they are too bleeding noisy that you could sleep through it!!!

"All you can do is try to reasonably anticipate pitfalls and deal with them in advance."

Yup, and one way of doing that can be to arrange things so that the time when they're together unsupervised is reduced to a minimum.

I have 2 DS's who are 11 months apart and have a 3 bedroom house but have my elderly MIL living with us so unfortunately couldnt put them in seperate rooms. DS2 was a terrible sleeper and although we were worried about it we put them together (both in cots) when DS2 was just under a year and found out DS1 can sleep through just about anything!

Now they love being in the same room and chat away in the mornings and we've had very few problems :-)

Thanks for the really useful replies. Looks like we will see how it goes. Keep DC2 in with us for a while, and then probably move her to the spare room until she can sleep well. Then try her with DS. He is a brilliant sleeper ATM but doesn't sleep well with anyone else in the room which doesn't bode well!

I should probably write 'DD' instead of DC2 (as we know she's a girl) but I'm just not used to it yet

Congratulations!

I have three on one room. I didn't move babies in until they were about a year old.

We frequently have youngest in bed with us do as not to disturb the other two.

I have a 2 bed property.

DS2 was evicted from our room at 6 months and into DS1's room.

They were both in cot beds to start with. DS1 has always been a fab sleeper and managed to sleep through DS2's crying.

Then one of the cots needed replacing (it was a hand-me-down) so rather than buy another cotbed, we bought bunk beds.

DS1 was about 3 and 3 months when he moved into the bunk beds. He has always been really good with going to bed, so we had no problems. Also by then DS2 mattress was so low down, there was no way his brother could intefere with him.

Then ds2 started climbing out of his cot, AND sussed how to climb up the bunk bed ladder. I found him sat on top of a 6foot bookcase, which was next to the bunk beds. The only way I could move the bookcase away from the beds was to get rid of the cotbed and re-arrange the whole layout. DS2 must have been about nearly/just two yrs

So they are now both sleeping in the bunk beds. I have one of those gro-clocks and if they wake-up before the clock says its time to get up, they just argue and destroy play together in their room.

I have a 21 month gap - DS1 is 4 1/2, DS2 is nearly 3

DD2 started sharing a room with her big sister at 6 months. DD1 was 21 months at the time so both in cots for a while. Never had any problems despite DD1 being a terrible sleeper, she somehow very rarely woke the baby who was an excellent sleeper! We have a spare room which we use as a playroom (no toys live in bedroom, only books) as all I was concerned about them being thrown in the cot and accidentally hurting DD2. They're 3 & 4 now they love sharing a room and always have a little chat about their day before sleepytime, I love listening from the landing hehe :)

We're thinking about this too, I think DS will stay in with us until he's 2 - luckily we have a big bedroom - then go in with DD in shorty bunks, not ideal as it's a box room but not keen to put either in the attic bedrooms until they're older.

losttrackagain - that's my thinking too!

I have no problem with them sharing and if they are both in cots - great. But I would worry too much if the older one was in a bed and able to 'help' the baby...

In your situation could you put the baby and the 'office' in one room and the older one in the smaller room?

Oh and IMO it's all well and good saying to teach them not to put things in the cot or not to lift the baby out of the cot - but with small children 'knowing' and 'doing' are not always the same thing and the risk is too great.

my two shared and i never had any problems. they sleep through each other crying (when ill/unsettled etc)
now im planning to make them share with their younger brother too!
we could have 4 bedroom but we need an office and we are converting a bedroom into a larger open space living area which they can all use duing the day.