2 boys sharing a room was it a mistake?

[Nqw]

Hi there, looking for some advice. We have just put my 18 mth and 3year old into the same room. They both are not the greatest of sleepers but we live in a 2 bed and wanted to get our bedroom back after sleeping in the living room for 6 months. The 18 month old has been waking up 4.30/5 am and waking up the older son. Its only been 4 days but we are already exhausted. My eldest has a sensory disorder which means if he doesn’t sleep he struggles with daily tasks. Should we just call it quits and move them back into two rooms and effectively we sleep in the living room? Our work, marriage, mental wellbeing is really suffering but we are at a loss? Is there light at the end of the tunnel..

DS's sleep improved a lot at 2 yrs old. 18 months is a tricky time for sleep (although tricky times don't stop at 2 yrs either!)
But another 6 months might be what it takes.
If you can't move to a bigger place I think sleeping in the living room might be your best option for now.

Following as we're in the same boat. We put 14mo in with our 4 yo a couple of weeks ago and it's been an absolute shit show since. Have resorted to cosleeping with 4yo and dp back on the sofa. Only a 2 bedroomed house so I'm at a loss really.

Tbh I'm not really sure it's even safe to have two children that age sleeping in a room together, and if one of them is a poor sleeper they're then negatively impacting the other. So yeah, I think your only option is to separate them. Can the little one go in with you so you don't have to sleep in the living room?

My kids share a room, and DC2 always wakes up before DC1.

A few things help to keep DC1 in bed: 1) we use white noise all night long so that little sounds don’t startle her awake; 2) we leave our bedroom door open so we hear DC2 the MINUTE he wakes up (we used to go get him in his crib; now that he’s in a bed he knows to come straight out to us); 3) we’ve had many conversations with DC1 about ignoring her brother if he wakes her up. It took a few weeks, but now she’s pretty good about waking up, rolling over, and going back to asleep for another hour or so.

Around 20 months we also had moderate success with getting DC2 to wait to get up until his gro clock turned green. Didn’t work every morning, but probably 70% of the time.