How did you prepare for your DC's to share a room? (a baby & a toddler)

[ilikeyoursleeves]

Hi, my DS2 is nearly 4 weeks old and DS1 is 21 months. They will be sharing a room in a few months time when DS2 outgrows his moses basket so I'm thinking now about how to prepare for this.

DS1 sleeps well from about 730/8pm to 730am straight. DS2 is up every 3 hours ish in the night for a feed and pretty much goes back to sleep OK in his basket but he obviously cries when he wakes hungry. Fine just now as he is in our room but I don't want him to be waking DS1 constantly when he moves into his room!

I also need to get a proper bed for DS1 as DS2 will go into the cotbed.

So my questions are....

-how did you introduce a bed to your DC?
-how did it go introducing a duvet and pillow ? (DS1 is in grobags)
-what's your experience of DC's sharing after one of them being on their own for so long?
-Oh and what's their bedtime routine? Do you put your DC's to bed at the same time even if they are different ages?

Thanks!

Introducing a bed: just took the sides off the cotbed. He soon got used to it.

Introducing duvet & pillow: introduced pillow when he started taking cushions to bed with him to rest his head on Not on duvets yet.

With these things, I would not worry about them, just do them. Children adapt very quickly.

Experiences of them sharing: bizarely, they didn't actually wake each other up even when screaming. However, we have actually had to split them up again because the toddler kept throwing stuff into the baby's cot (toys, clothes etc) and we didn't feel this was safe.

Routine: We put them to bed at the same time, and the baby just has more naps during the day.

Congratulations on your new arrival!

We've got a similar gap and they are now almost 3 and just turned 1, and they share a room.

We kept dc2 in with us until he was sleeping through 11pm-6am (about 6 months ish) which kept disturbing dc1 to a minimum.

We had them both in cots at the time, but have since changed dc1's cot into a bed, she still uses a grobag but has a pillow aswell and is fine. I think she was about 2.6 ish when we moved her to the bed. I've avoided the duvet thing as I think she'd lose it in the night and wake up cold. We made a huge thing about what a big girl she is in a big bed, and let her 'help' us set the bed up, put her teddies in etc. She was great about it and although she got out a few times the first couple of nights, she soon settled.

We've been lucky as dc1 will sleep through most things and settles herself brilliantly. When dc2 first went in with her he woke her when he cried, she soon got used to it and now if he cries she doesn't even roll over - just sleeps straight through it!

At the min dc2 goes up to bed about 15 mins before dc1, partly cause they like to 'chat' if they go up together, and partly as it gives us a bit of time with dc1 on her own.

They both seem to love sharing a room - they spend ages chatting and laughing at each other in the morning.

Tbh, I pretty much just bunged them in together. I told DS1 (who was about 2.9 at the time) a few days in advance that DS2 (whom he adores, luckily) would be sleeping in the same room as him - and did my Mary Poppins, "How exciting, DS1!" voice.

We put DS1 in the bed a couple of weeks before we moved DS2 in - he was quite pleased to be getting a big boy bed, and had chosen new bedding (pirates) himself. He has lost the duvet a few times, and the pillow ends up scrunched up against the headboard, but no real problems there - he'd learned how to unzip the grobags by then, so was often out of them by morning, anyway!

I was very anxious about them sharing - DS2 was 9 months, and still waking at night for feeds, and I've always thought of DS1 as a light sleeper. In fact, it's been great. they both like it, and even when DS2 wakes up yelling (not so often these days, thank goodness, unless he's poorly) he ahs rarely woken DS1 - and DS1 has in any event gone back to sleep. Sometimes DS1 has woken (e.g. wet the bed) and sometimes that has woken DS2, sometimes not. But overall, much easier than I anticipated.

Currently (they are 3.6 and 1.6 now) we put them both to bed at the same time, about 7. Bath together, stories in their room, DS1 back to the bathroom to do teeth and have a last wee while I bf greedy DS2, and then bed for both. Touch wood, it's fine most nights. We may have to review as DS1 gets older, but we'll see.

Good luck with it!

I just put them in together one night tbh.
There is an 18 month age gap and I kept ds2 with me until he was sleeping through which was about 3/4 months! yay and then just moved his cot into ds1's room, no problems.

On friday, we got ds1 (2yo) a proper size single bed (ds2's cot broke so put him in ds's cot) and moved the whole room around, no problems.

Ds2 goes to bed at 7pm and ds1 gets in the bathn then and is in bed by 7:45

Try not to worry, IME, if you get nervous and uptight, they do, just continue as normal and they may adjust just fine