If your kids share a room....

[Anonymous]

We recently moved our 2 year old into our 4 year old's bedroom. Both generally slept through the night without problems before the move. One thing we haven't figured out is how to handle night-wakings and early wakings. When one gets up and calls for us, it always wakes the other. We would normally wait ten minutes or so before going in during the night, but we are so afraid of waking the other kid, that we have been running in to stop the crying/yelling and it has only encouraged/exacerbated the problem. How have you handled this? Any strategies you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Teach them to get out of bed and come to your room when they need you. If early waking is a problem, try a nightlight with a timer (it's not time to get up unless the light is on.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teach them to get out of bed and come to your room when they need you. If early waking is a problem, try a nightlight with a timer (it's not time to get up unless the light is on.)

Yeah this. Letting your kid cry and then eventually going in just teaches them to cry louder and longer, so it will probably take a while to undo what you’ve taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach them to get out of bed and come to your room when they need you. If early waking is a problem, try a nightlight with a timer (it's not time to get up unless the light is on.)

Yeah this. Letting your kid cry and then eventually going in just teaches them to cry louder and longer, so it will probably take a while to undo what you’ve taught.

OP here - I realize that what we did while she was sick has created this issue. My question is whether we just let her cry to break her of it (consequently waking her sister) or is there something else we can do that avoids waking her sister.

[Anonymous]

I think if you are going to have young kids share a room, you have to accept they will wake each other up at times and maybe get slightly less sleep. It’s a trade off.

[Anonymous]

They learn to ignore each other. But also, there is a clock that tells them if it's time to come out or not in terms of early wakings.

There's no yelling. If they wake early they are allowed to go to the bathroom, but otherwise they have to stay in bed and "read" or play in their bed quietly.

If they cry, they come knock on our door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach them to get out of bed and come to your room when they need you. If early waking is a problem, try a nightlight with a timer (it's not time to get up unless the light is on.)

Yeah this. Letting your kid cry and then eventually going in just teaches them to cry louder and longer, so it will probably take a while to undo what you’ve taught.

OP here - I realize that what we did while she was sick has created this issue. My question is whether we just let her cry to break her of it (consequently waking her sister) or is there something else we can do that avoids waking her sister.

Is this the older one or the younger one? At 4, I'd practice coming to find mom and dad when she needs you at night. At 2 some kids are still in a crib, or scared of a dark hallway, making that harder.

But I'm not entirely sure what happened with her being sick. If a sick child, who usually sleeps through the night, woke and called for me, I wouldn't wait ten minutes.

[Anonymous]

Oh, man, it was such a bleary time for us. I think what we did was to use the guest bedroom as holding pen for whichever kid wouldn't settle. So, if the fussing got so bad it was waking up the other kid, we would move the crier to the guest bed, and then proceed with the sleep training, etc. with them in separate rooms. That way we did not wind up over-consoling and building bad sleep habits, but the one who was not fussing could get some rest. It was definitely a rough time, but they did eventually figure it out. Hang in there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, man, it was such a bleary time for us. I think what we did was to use the guest bedroom as holding pen for whichever kid wouldn't settle. So, if the fussing got so bad it was waking up the other kid, we would move the crier to the guest bed, and then proceed with the sleep training, etc. with them in separate rooms. That way we did not wind up over-consoling and building bad sleep habits, but the one who was not fussing could get some rest. It was definitely a rough time, but they did eventually figure it out. Hang in there!

+1
Just moved them into bunks at 6 and 3. The naughty or restless child goes into the guest room until they’re settled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, man, it was such a bleary time for us. I think what we did was to use the guest bedroom as holding pen for whichever kid wouldn't settle. So, if the fussing got so bad it was waking up the other kid, we would move the crier to the guest bed, and then proceed with the sleep training, etc. with them in separate rooms. That way we did not wind up over-consoling and building bad sleep habits, but the one who was not fussing could get some rest. It was definitely a rough time, but they did eventually figure it out. Hang in there!

+1
Just moved them into bunks at 6 and 3. The naughty or restless child goes into the guest room until they’re settled.

+2. Our 4yo and 1.5yo share a room. If they are crying just bc they don't want to go to bed, we let them cry. That rarely lasts more than 5 or 10 mins. If someone's crying in the night it's usually sickness or something, so we rush in before they both seriously wake up. We have a pack and play for the baby that we set up in our 2nd bathroom for nights when they really can't be together for whatever reason. We'd use a guest room for that if we had one!

[Anonymous]

We moved them together when the youngest was almost 3 and put an ok to wake up light... we never had issues