Putting 7 month old in same room as 2 year old. Tips please!

[Happyface82]

My youngest had very bad colic the first few months so I kept him in our bedroom for the nights. I'm thinking of moving him to his bedroom now but he shares with his sister who is turning 2 in a few weeks. He still wakes up twice a night for a bottle. His sister sleeps well. My worry is that she will also wake up when he does from the noise and she will want to cuddle when I'm.trying to feed him and put him to sleep again. We usually sit with her until she falls asleep. Will it be a disaster? Any tips? Maybe we should wait until they are a little older?

It depends on how much of a light/heavy sleeper your DD is? Our DD1 is quite a heavy sleeper, DD2 is 9m and we haven’t put them together yet as I wouldn’t want DD1’s sleep disrupted regularly. DD2 sleeps through about 50% of the time. We do have the benefit of a 3rd bedroom though so aren’t in a rush. Can your DS stay in with you until he sleeps through?

That being said, we have all shared on a couple of holidays and no real problems. Although I co slept with baby after her first wake as knew she would just drift off with me and not cry/disturb our eldest.

I would relax. Is she in a cot still? I would be inclined to go for it, do the whole quiet feeding, low interaction thing even if your toddler ends up snuggling with you at the same time. Then pop them both back into bed at the end of the bottle.

I put my two in the same room at this age even though I had a second spare room.
DH was rarely home for weeknight bedtime so having them together made things so much easier. However DS1 was a good sleeper and once he was off the off hungry shriek from DS2 wouldn't wake him.

I think they learn to sleep through too. Years ago now, but our eldest had a couple of friends over for a sleepover. In the morning, they were commenting on how much they’d been woken up by the baby (in the room next door) and it was one of the first things they told their parents at pick up. My two older kids were astonished… they hadn’t heard a thing.

2.5 year age gap between mine and they shared until they were 8/11 - both always slept through any noise the other was making.

That's my hope. That it might be a rocky few first days but they will get used to it. I will give it a go!

My 7 month old shares with my almost three year old. DD1 is almost never disturbed by DD2 crying (still wakes 1-3 times a night to feed). The only disruption that sometimes occurs is when DD1 goes to bed after DD2, as she likes to chat and sing in her bed… but generally I leave DD2 to fuss it out and she goes back to sleep. They definitely get used to it! Go for it 😊

Following this with interest and adding additional questions if that’s ok? Have seperate bedrooms for a 2 year old and 9 month old but both sleep through the night and as a solo parent i think it would long term be easier for me if they shared a bedroom. Do the people who did it think there are benefits beyond freeing up another bedroom (I’m vaguely convinced from my own childhood it made us feel safer / solved things like nightmares and such more)? Both kids currently wake up and then chat to themselves in bed for about an hour dozing in and out of sleep in the mornings - would they disrupt each other or would they just chat to each other a bit?

IME the toddler doesn't wake up when the baby wakes at night, but we used to stagger bedtimes as they didn't do well if one of us was in there waiting for the other to go to sleep. I'd either feed the youngest to sleep and then carry him through, or we'd do one bedtime first and then do the other's bedtime quietly with the sibling already asleep.

They love sharing a room (good thing as there is no choice!) and they do play together in the mornings. We used a gro clock, which you have to enforce at first but once you've set up the expectation it works really well.