Failing at having kids share a room

[Anonymous]

Looking for some advice on how to successfully have our 3 year old share a room with our 8 month old. We have had them separated until now first with the baby in our room, then in separate bedrooms in a vacation home for the summer, and the transition is not going well now that they have to be roommates.

For context, we sleep trained our first at 3.5 months old and it took 3 nights and we never really thought about it again. With our second we did the same process, and despite best efforts and tweaking the schedule, the baby will not sleep consistently past the early morning. We had them separated all summer into separate bedrooms and the baby would wake up at 5:30 every day despite black out blinds and a noise machine. We wouldn’t go in until 6:30am to start the day and he’d play the whole hour without falling back asleep. We tried feeding him initially at that 5:30am wake up at the beginning of the summer after we had sleep trained thinking he might be hungry, but he never would go back down after a feed.

Since we sleep trained him at 3.5 months, he’s been on two naps—one around 9am, and a second around 1:30. He’s always fallen asleep independently and happily. The naps usually last between 1-2 hours each for a total daily sleep time of 3-3.5 hours.

At night, he usually sleeps for a 10 hour stretch and we have trouble getting him to stay awake much beyond 8pm. Our oldest had no problem staying awake later and sleeping in later if needed even though the overnight sleep stretch was always 11.5 hours, but the baby seems to have a 7:30pm alarm set where he wants to go down immediately. When we stretch him until 8:30, it doesn’t make the morning wake up any later.

We live in the city and only have two bedrooms, so there’s no other option right now. They have to share until we can afford a bigger place in a year or so. We’ve been putting them down together at night and they go to sleep fine, but then 5/5:30am rolls around and the baby wakes up. We tried to leave him but he wakes up the 3 year old and everyone is miserable.

This week we tried bringing the 3 year old into our bed when the baby woke up, but he didn’t sleep because we’ve never coslept and frankly I don’t think he knows how. I tried the same with bringing the baby into our bed, but he was wide awake. I even tried feeding the baby at 5am today and putting him back down in desperation but he was wide awake and woke up the 3 year old.

Do we just have to grit our teeth and give it time and deal with a very cranky, sleep deprived 3 year old until the baby somehow figures it out, or is there some magic bullet I’m missing here? Sleep training worked so well when there was just one kid, and this feels much more challenging.

[Anonymous]

Any chance you have something like a large closet you can put a crib in?

Alternately would the 3 year old go to sleep early enough to be OK with being an early bird and getting up with baby? If the older kid is more flexible can you flex the older one?

[Anonymous]

It’s a great thought, but sadly we don’t. We are in NYC where closet space is a dream.

I have thought about putting the baby in the living room with a slumber pod or something, but that means the rest of us have to give up living space. The older one hasn’t been falling asleep as early as the baby, but his playing doesn’t seem to keep the baby awake at night. He fell asleep around 8:45 last night even though we put them down together at 8.

[Anonymous]

Guess you could try something like a Slumberpod in your room or the living room. I’ve never used one, so not a personal recommendation I can make but people use them in hotels, so maybe it’ll work.

Probably after a few weeks the 3 year olds schedule would adjust to going to sleep earlier to accommodate the 5am wake. So either way you would be getting up then, unless you can train the 3 year old to go potty by themselves and play in the room too with an OK to wake clock or something.

If you are going to leave for an hour or more after wake up in the same room that is going to require some adjustment to the three year old routine as well. It just doesn’t seem very realistic to me that they wouldn’t wake each other up in this scenario without some kind of modification to either align their sleep schedules or separate the room. So that’s why I would probably try the slumber pod, maybe you can borrow one. Maybe it will even work in their room, I’m not sure whether it also muffles sounds coming from within but maybe it would be enough to do that. Maybe some kind of other room divider in the room as well? Like a curtain around the 3 year old’s bed.

[Anonymous]

In this scenario I would put the baby in my room so as to let the 3yo get enough sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this scenario I would put the baby in my room so as to let the 3yo get enough sleep.

This. It's the only option.

[Anonymous]

My kids (2 years apart) started sharing a room when the youngest was 6 months old. We went through this same thing with the younger one waking up really early. We just brought the baby in our room when she woke up, fed her, and let her lay with us while we tried to get a little more sleep. Not a great habit, but better than the alternative of everyone being awake. Eventually she did learn to sleep past 5 am, but it took several months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this scenario I would put the baby in my room so as to let the 3yo get enough sleep.

This. It's the only option.

Yes, and Frankly, this entire post is OP looking for a way around this. It's a very, very long was of asking, "How can we force our two kids into sharing a room when the baby wakes up the 3 yo, because we really don't want to deal with the baby in our room."

It's pretty selfish, OP.

[Anonymous]

Sneak in at 5:25 and bring the baby into your room or the living room. Or each kid gets a room and you get a sleeper couch and sleep in the living room.

[Anonymous]

Won't work. We kept the baby in an alcove outside our door until he was 2, then they were able to share a room no problem.

[Anonymous]

The other thing I’d look at is actually an earlier bedtime. Ideal is 7 pm, and 8 pm is the absolute latest for this age. Second nap should be no more than 60 minutes. For your kid I’d cap it at 45 since baby is not sleeping 12 hour nights. Worth a try

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this scenario I would put the baby in my room so as to let the 3yo get enough sleep.

This. It's the only option.

Yes, and Frankly, this entire post is OP looking for a way around this. It's a very, very long was of asking, "How can we force our two kids into sharing a room when the baby wakes up the 3 yo, because we really don't want to deal with the baby in our room."

It's pretty selfish, OP.

Wow. That’s pretty harsh. I know of people who do room share their kids and seem to sort it out, so I was just trying to see if there was something I was missing that other people have done that might help.

Thanks to the people who suggested separating the baby with a slumber pod. I was hopeful there was a better option!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other thing I’d look at is actually an earlier bedtime. Ideal is 7 pm, and 8 pm is the absolute latest for this age. Second nap should be no more than 60 minutes. For your kid I’d cap it at 45 since baby is not sleeping 12 hour nights. Worth a try

That’s a good thought. I never had to cap my older one’s naps so I wasn’t really thinking of it, but I’ll give it a try! Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The other thing I’d look at is actually an earlier bedtime. Ideal is 7 pm, and 8 pm is the absolute latest for this age. Second nap should be no more than 60 minutes. For your kid I’d cap it at 45 since baby is not sleeping 12 hour nights. Worth a try

That’s a good thought. I never had to cap my older one’s naps so I wasn’t really thinking of it, but I’ll give it a try! Thank you.

It's a tradeoff. Would you rather have a tired fractious kid from 5:30-7pm, which you will get if you cap naps, or the status quo an awake and playing kid from 5:30-7am? Because you will have at least one of these for a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking for some advice on how to successfully have our 3 year old share a room with our 8 month old. We have had them separated until now first with the baby in our room, then in separate bedrooms in a vacation home for the summer, and the transition is not going well now that they have to be roommates.

For context, we sleep trained our first at 3.5 months old and it took 3 nights and we never really thought about it again. With our second we did the same process, and despite best efforts and tweaking the schedule, the baby will not sleep consistently past the early morning. We had them separated all summer into separate bedrooms and the baby would wake up at 5:30 every day despite black out blinds and a noise machine. We wouldn’t go in until 6:30am to start the day and he’d play the whole hour without falling back asleep. We tried feeding him initially at that 5:30am wake up at the beginning of the summer after we had sleep trained thinking he might be hungry, but he never would go back down after a feed.

Since we sleep trained him at 3.5 months, he’s been on two naps—one around 9am, and a second around 1:30. He’s always fallen asleep independently and happily. The naps usually last between 1-2 hours each for a total daily sleep time of 3-3.5 hours.

At night, he usually sleeps for a 10 hour stretch and we have trouble getting him to stay awake much beyond 8pm. Our oldest had no problem staying awake later and sleeping in later if needed even though the overnight sleep stretch was always 11.5 hours, but the baby seems to have a 7:30pm alarm set where he wants to go down immediately. When we stretch him until 8:30, it doesn’t make the morning wake up any later.

We live in the city and only have two bedrooms, so there’s no other option right now. They have to share until we can afford a bigger place in a year or so. We’ve been putting them down together at night and they go to sleep fine, but then 5/5:30am rolls around and the baby wakes up. We tried to leave him but he wakes up the 3 year old and everyone is miserable.

This week we tried bringing the 3 year old into our bed when the baby woke up, but he didn’t sleep because we’ve never coslept and frankly I don’t think he knows how. I tried the same with bringing the baby into our bed, but he was wide awake. I even tried feeding the baby at 5am today and putting him back down in desperation but he was wide awake and woke up the 3 year old.

Do we just have to grit our teeth and give it time and deal with a very cranky, sleep deprived 3 year old until the baby somehow figures it out, or is there some magic bullet I’m missing here? Sleep training worked so well when there was just one kid, and this feels much more challenging.

If the problem with taking the baby out of the room when he wakes up is just that baby is then awake (versus the act of getting the baby itself waking up the 3 year old), then isn't the easy answer just taking the baby out when he wakes up and then playing with baby while 3 year old sleeps? If the issue is just that you'd prefer to sleep, you could switch off with your spouse.