My kids started sharing a room when my son was 2.5 years old and my daughter was 10 months old. For months building up to it I wondered if it would even be possible. Would her crying wake him up? Would I then have two crying kids in the middle of the night? How would bedtime work? The only thing I knew for sure was that our little baby had to sleep elsewhere, as she was keeping mommy and daddy up all night with her little sleep noises. They’ve been sharing a room now for more than a year, and I have to say I’m a total convert. They love it. I believe it’s brought them closer, and all the concerns I had have vanished. It is possible for your kids to share a room! Below, I provide you with a few tips I’ve learned along the way.
Staggered bed times
In the beginning, this was one of my biggest concerns. My son’s bedtime was later than my daughter’s. What to do? It’s pretty simple, really. We’d take my daughter into her room, read her a story, and then put her down. An hour later, we’d do the same with my son, except the story happened outside the room and he was brought in extremely quietly and put to bed. This part was a little tricky. A 2.5-year-old is not very good at being extremely quiet, but he understood after a while that he had to respect his sister’s sleep — soon, it became second nature.
What about naps?
Ah… naps. To be honest, I didn’t even try putting them down at the same time in the same room. I took the shortcut route and put my oldest down in their shared room and my youngest in a pack and play in our bedroom. It worked really well. There have been a few times where I’ve gotten them to nap in the same room at the same time, but it took a little too much work for my liking.
Going to bed at the same time IS possible
For the longest time I staggered the bed times thinking it wouldn’t be possible to put them down at the same time. I feared a big bedtime party would go down and they would never fall asleep. I was wrong. A fellow mom had her daughters sharing a room, so I asked her if she put them down at the same time. “Yeah, every night,” she said. “But how do you do it?” I replied, perplexed and in awe of this super mom. “You just do it,” she said. So there you have it, folks. As with many other things in life, I’ve learned that you just do it. The rest sorts itself out. No crazy life-changing secrets. Just do it. And it will be fine.
Sometimes it works TOO well
My son loved sharing a room with his sister so much that there were nights after putting them down that we’d discover my son had climbed into my daughter’s crib and had fallen asleep in there with her. We’d have to remove the offender, put him back into his own bed, and that was that. For a while it became a bit of a habit for him. I will say there is nothing as adorable as finding your kids curled up together, sleeping like angels.
These days we do our bedtime routine, and then off to bed they go. There have been times when my youngest has gone to bed first, only to pop up out of bed when my oldest enters the room — as if she’d been waiting for him to arrive so she could fall asleep. I truly think it’s brought them closer, and in the future, if we ever have a third bedroom, I’m not so sure we’ll be giving them separate rooms!
Do your children share a room? What has worked for your family?
