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Toddler and baby sharing bedroom

9 replies

Peppaonabutty · 08/10/2022 07:07

I have a 7 month old baby and an almost 3 year old and a 2 bedroom house.
DS2 sleeping through with occasional cry in the night mostly if teething but a hug and dummy is enough, doesn’t need feeding.
DS1 sleeping through again mostly, had been times when ill that he would get up and be awake messing about for hours but he’s not done that for a few months. He has a gro clock that is set for 6am. Since dropping his nap he’s normally asleep between 6.30-7pm and wakes up 6-7am. Has a stair gate on his room and would sometimes shout for us before 6am but would go back to bed until his light was yellow. Not napped in 9 months, if he does he’s awake until 10-11pm messing around and shouting/ screaming if we leave the room.
He has had the owl with white noise in his room since he was a baby and that comes on with any noise.
It’s been 3 weeks now of baby being in DS1s room. DS2 has a loud cry and at first DS1 was sleeping through it and it was never for long, we would wait 30-60 seconds to see if he went back off with the white noise coming on if not we went in and he settles immediately. This wasn’t every night and when it happened only once or sometimes twice in the night.

For the last week DS1 has woken at every cry/ noise, if it’s before we have gone to bed we catch him before he leaves the room (have been leaving the stair gate open so he doesn’t shout and wake the baby) and he’ll settle quickly once DS2 has settled. If we have gone to bed he has now taken to coming into our bed which he has never done. Sometimes he’ll go to sleep but mostly he’ll mess around getting in and out of bed. We haven’t been putting him back to his own bed because he’d shout and tantrum and we didn’t want him to disturb the baby if he was asleep.
It isn’t clear who is waking up who during the night and the pattern seems to be if DS1 is woken early in his sleep (before 10pm) he’s more likely to get up in the night and come to our bed.

DS1 is exhausted (as are we) but he won’t nap and I’m worried if he does he’ll go back to not going to sleep at night again.
DS1 goes to sleep first, he’s so tired he’ll sometimes fall asleep during a story on my lap and I normally wake him up and he’ll walk to his bed so he knows I’m going and he’ll go straight back to sleep. He is now so exhausted though and I can’t wake him up and I have to put him in his bed. I’ve tried not sitting with him and him in his bed but he just talks, messes around and doesn’t listen and will tantrum if I go out the room.
DS2 is good at going to sleep, he has a dummy but will mostly still go to sleep if that comes out. He talks and rolls about and takes him about 10 minutes to put himself to sleep.

Everything I have read is saying that they will get used to each other and learn to sleep through each other’s noises but it seems to be getting worse not better. Can anyone see where we are going wrong? There isn’t room in our room for DS2 cot and he’s outgrown the next to me.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
DragonMovie · 08/10/2022 07:10

No advice as I’m a few months behind you but following with interest

MolliciousIntent · 08/10/2022 07:16

Kids this age sharing a room very rarely works tbh, because baby sleep isn't linear at all, and DS2 will likely go through phases of waking in the night for the next year or so. Have you tried constant white noise?

GreenIsle · 08/10/2022 07:17

I don't think a 3 year old is going to get used to a 7 month old crying in their room in the middle of the night. I think the 7 month old should remain in your room it's more important that your 3 year old gets a good sleep and their routine is not disturbed more than your own.

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Raidcandle · 08/10/2022 07:20

Our two have always shared a room and they have a two year age gap.

Our youngest was about 9/10 months when we moved him. We made sure both of them had a good run of sleeping through all night before we moved DS2. I don't remember any issues with either of them. DS2 could still quite happily sleep through a tornado though.

We had to move DS1 into a bed to give DS2 the cot bed. We always made a point of DS1 getting something new as a novelty at that age sp he didn't feel like he was losing out or being replaced by DS2. Coming into your bed sounds like he wants attention.

They also went to bed at the same time. Are you sure DS1 isn't being woken by you putting DS2 to bed?

Cotswoldmama · 08/10/2022 07:46

My boys shared once my youngest was a year and sleeping through (most of the time) and my eldest was 4. They both always slept through each others noise. It was really surprising one could be screaming and we could have the light on and the other would be fast asleep!

Peppaonabutty · 08/10/2022 08:10

We have a white noise machine which we had in our room for DS2 which has a red light, I tried that for the first 2 nights and DS2 said he didn’t like the light so went back to his owl. I’ll see if it works without the light, I’m sure it will.

We would need to buy a space saver cot to keep DS2 in our room which I can’t afford until I return to work in Dec. I had thought the cot bed would fit but when we tried it wouldn’t. We have fitted wardrobes all along one wall and the cot won’t fit in the space between the bed and the wall.

DS2 is going to bed 20-30 mins after DS1 goes to sleep, I normally feed him in the room and DS1 doesn’t move. The first waking is 3-4 hours after he goes to sleep.
He has always slept through anything including the smoke alarm which is right outside his room.

OP posts:
Peppaonabutty · 08/10/2022 08:16

DS1 will only have me put him to bed and we have had constant feeding issues with DS2 since birth and he won’t let anyone else feed him.
I might try feeding DS2 in our room then putting them down together.

OP posts:
caringcarer · 08/10/2022 09:16

I'd look on FB marketplace or eBay for smaller cot and buy new mattress. I'd keep baby in my room for first 12-18 months. Then try moving him to oldest child's room again.

WeAllLikeVindaloo · 09/10/2022 22:20

We kept our baby in with us till she was 12months and reliably sleeping through.

We then moved her in with the 2 year old, took about a week for them both to fully settle and get into the routine but they both sleep better than ever now.

I think it very much depends on the baby, I’d definitely say bring baby back in with you for a while longer.

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