Bedroom sharing- are we mad??

[LJAshman]

Hi! I'm after people's experience of initiating room sharing with their children. I have a 3 1/2 year old and an 8 month old. Whilst we do have a 3rd bedroom, it is in the loft for various reasons it's not really suitable for a very young child. So ideally we want them to share a room for a few years.

The issue we have is that my 3 year old wakes quite early, (average of 6am) and to announce she is awake we normally get treated to very loud rendition of old McDonald 🤪 she does generally sleep through the night though. She currently has a gate on her door so that she doesn't come into us at stupid o clock but we've agreed this would have to be removed as I know if she was shut in there with the baby she would get in the cot with him!

Basically I'm just wondering if we are mad to try and get them to share? I know thousands of people do it, and I know it's not going to be plain sailing but if anyone has any tips I'd be really grateful!

Many thanks!!!

I think it could work fine, my sister in law has her two in the same room so that they can keep the spare as an office. That must have been from age three; the eldest is now 5, youngest 2.5. They’re both loud at different times and don’t disturb each other too much. In fact, I’m impressed how much they sleep through on the odd occasion I’ve been there. But... she did buy the older one a gro clock thing when the baby was born and set the boundary that she wasn’t to get out of bed until whatever time she deemed appropriate. So I’d perhaps try that first? If you’re going to do it... do it over the winter before it starts getting light at 4am!

Mine loved sharing at that age, until eldest was about 7.