2 year old suddenly has separation anxiety at bedtime. Madness to put 6 month old in her room?

[bessmum]

2 year old DD previously went off to sleep beautifully after bath, story and milk. For various reasons now seems scared for us to leave her (spent Easter in various relatives houses, routine got messed up). Now she is really hard to settle to sleep, it can take hours with tears all round. We need to get her to share with 6 month old brother at some point and wonder whether we may as well try now - would his presence in her room ease anxiety or be a disaster? He wakes still overnight but settles quickly without feeding but still has a dream feed. Any experiences?

dd was 2 and ds1 was 8 months when he went into her room... they both loved it, so much so that when we moved house just before his first birthday to a house with 3 bedrooms she insisted he come in with her. when i was preg with ds2 she had great plans for him to join them too

she's 4 now and quite excited about havig a room of her own in a few months once we get blinds for it but the last 2 years have done both of them loads of good and we've never had any trouble from them sharing, they never woke each other except for the very rare exception, she could sleep through the worst of his teething and grumpy nights and he's slept through her night terrors and illnesses.

go for it, the sooner they get used to each other the better and at this age he'll really enjoy sharing... it's only as they get older they get possessive of their space

'she'll really enjoy sharing' - amongst other spelling mistakes

Thanks PT, we're going for it tonight - fingers crossed, have just put them both to bed and after 3 minutes of crying from the eldest both are quiet. DH thinks we're mad so I'm hoping to prove him wrong.

good luck

I'm intruiged to know how it goes....!
We are thinking of moving our 10 month old in with our 5 1/2 year old this weekend.
Any advice welcome! x

Well it wasn't too bad. DD woke up whilst I was giving DS his 11pm feed but seemed happy to watch and then went straight back to sleep. DS cried for a few seconds at 4.30am but this was enough to wake DD up and she grumbled for a few minutes but went back and I didn't have to get out of bed. They then both woke at 6am (DD usually sleeps much later). I'm fairly happy with this, if DD can get used to DS's crying then I think we'll be OK, 6am is a bit early but manageable I think. Good luck MooCow, I think we just have to go for it don't we and see (my two are both still in cots though so can't get at eachother)- let us know how you get on.

We had a similar thing with our 2.8 year old. I think in her case, she didn't see why she should be in one room when me, DH and DS are in the other !!! So now I put DD ad 8 month old DS to bed in our bed to sleep and we join them later. It seems to help him sleep, when he wakes up he hears/sees his sister and goes back to sleep...bonus.

Ooh, I'm interested in this as we are hoping to move our 11 month old DD2 in with DD1 (2.3) but we're reluctant to risk it just now as DD2 still having at least one feed a night and DD1 has suddenly gone from a great sleeper to being a nightmare at bedtime, hysterical about us leaving her.... sigh.

Anyway, will watch your progress with interest.

Hi NC, that's really interesting as our DD has been just the same. We've had 3 nights now with room sharing and our bedtimes are much calmer, she's still a bit unhappy when we leave but last night was quiet within a minute or two. The downside is that DS cried really loudly at 4.30 and woke her up which I feel bad about, I'm hoping that will improve. She did have a lunchtime nap yesterday though for the first time in weeks, catching up on her sleep. So you win some you lose some I guess.