Pls tell me how to get 3 1/2 and 1 year old to share a room and actually sleep

[Mimsy2000]

Hello-
Can anyone offer some good tips on how to get my little one's to share a room and also get some sleep?

My 1 year old is still in our room and although he can get himself off to sleep on his own, he still wakes and fusses. I think he may be doing this because he sees us right next to him. He's also a very light sleeper.

My 3 1/2 year old has never been a great sleeper, but he's improved. He still crawls into our bed around 5/6 am or sometimes even earlier if he's had an accident or some such.

How do you make it work? Will they constantly wake each other and set each other off?

Any thoughts appreciated

no one really?

Can't be much help as I've not done it yet, but I've been canvassing my friends who have two that share in preparation for trying to get mine (3 and 6months) in together.

One friend started hers out sharing by using a travel cot and just trying it out for a weekend when they had guests and needed the space. As it worked out well they did a few more weekend 'sleepovers' and then made it permanent after a while. I think the kids were 1 ish and 2.5 ish at the time. She said they sleep better together than they did apart, if anything.

My dd's went in together at about one year and three years eight months. The elder one has the ability to sleep through anything and the younger one is a light sleeper.
We have had very few problems. The younger one can now sleep through most things and having her big sister in the same room meant she often went back to sleep if she woke early. They do play very noisily though but we mostly ignore it. They love being together and when dd2 came out of her cot they often ended up in the same bed.

elk - the way your daughters are together is exactly what i'm hoping will happen. they will raise each other;-)

i just moved the cot over now [it's afternoon where i'm at now] and will try it out tonight. i imagine the first few nights are going to be rough, but needs to be done and sooner rather than later, i guess

Hi we just put our five year old and one year old together. We have had to juggle it a little by putting the older one to bed first, he needs more sleep as he is wiped out by reception and he can't get to sleep with the light off. The one-year-old is used to sleeping with no light. So generally 30 minutes later the elder is asleep so we put the one year old down and turn off the lights. So far it is working out very well.

Our 5 year old crawls in with us but it never wakes up the little one.

Obviously your children will be different but maybe you can work around it too.

I have my 2.5 yr old and 9 month old in together and have done for 3 months now. So far there has only been one occasion when one has woken the other in the middle of the night (toddler woke screaming and woke baby).
The main issue is the evening- the baby is still fed to sleep and then put in her bed. This is usually fine as my toddler is usually fast asleep already, but if baby happens to go down first, she is usually disturbed when ds goes to bed (he doesn't yet understand the concept of 'be quiet'!).
Mornings are ok as baby usually ends up in our bad by 5, and ds gets up about 5.30 (ouch) and goesstraight downstairs.