Thoughts on 3 1/2 and 14 Month Old Sharing a Room

H.,

I have a 3 yr old and a 13 month old that share a room. For the most part they don't bother each other. The 13 month old still wakes at night and I was suprised that my 3 yr old sleeps through it. The only hard part I have is at naptime. If the baby isn't asleep before I put the older one in the room she stands in her crib and wants to play with him. I have not had any problems at night. I would give it a try. I was terrified of doing this at first and afraid of having both kids up in the middle of the night screaming, but it hasn't happened. Good luck.

L.

I have a 2.5 year old and a 6 month old and they have been in the same room for about 5 months now. It seems to work great! My daughter, 6 months, still wakes up to nurse at about 3am and my son doesn't wake up when she cries for us. My daughter goes to bed at 6:30pm and my son goes to bed at 8pm. He loves sharing a room with his sister. In fact he gets concerned when she is not in her bed when he goes to bed. (if she is sleeping in our room or she is still awake)
If my son wakes up before my daughter he sometimes will climb into the crib and wake her up. we have never gotten upset at him for it and it doesn't happen all the time.
I think you need your room back!! You're nice to let your son have your room. lol I'm sure they will be great together. It may have a short adjustment time but i'm sure they will enjoy it!
I have great memories as a child sharing a room with my sister!
I hope everything goes well...
Good Luck!

Hi H. - I put my 2 girls together at 4 months and 2 years. The sooner they learn to deal with each other the better. I have no problems now - children are very adaptable. They love having their room together now (they are 2 and 3.5) Give them the benefit of the doubt. And for heavens sake - get your room back!!!!

Hi, H., I have my girls, 6 and 20 months sleeping in the same room. I actually find it very helpful. They have different sleep schedules, but when my baby wakes in the middle of the night she goes back to sleep seeing that her sister is still sleeping. So, there are benefits and you would get your room back. Sometimes my 6 yr. old comes in our room in the middle of the night. She knows to be quiet when she opens and closes the door so her sister won't wake up. It works out quite well.

Hi H.! It's perfectly fine to put both of your boys in the same room. Mine each have a room, but we thought putting them together would be great for their relationship and mine with my hubby. When my boys wake up around the same time in the morning, they start laughing and end up playing. If one wakes up before the other or really early in the morning, he'd come up to our bed.

I think it'd be great to put them in their own room. I wouldn't recommend putting a baby in the room with a toddler who's less than 3 and doesn't quite comprehend that smothering the little one with a pillow isn't fun, y'know what I mean? That's scary. But I think that your 3 1/2 is already a big boy to know what might be harmful if he's taught to avoid such things.

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Hey H.!

My boys are 3 1/2 years apart and have shared a room since they were almost 4, and the other around 4 months, even though we have an extra bedroom and could've let them each have their own room.

Some reasons why we chose this are

1) My husband and I wanted and needed to sleep (really sleep, I'm not even talking sex here, although that was easier, too, since we weren't so stinking tired) together, without kids -haven't learned how to follow this with the dog, though!

2) I've read that one possible aid against SIDS is hearing the breathing of others to help the infant to remember to breathe while they sleep, so I was reassured that this was good for the baby

3)Their whole lives they're going to have to adjust to others, so the time it takes to get used to being in with someone else and learning how to not wake the other one up or to get themselves to sleep is good practice in flexibility and self-regulation

4) We live and work on a college campus and have discovered through the students' funny stories that kids who share rooms at home in general adjust much better to roommates in college - they have better expectations of how to live together and better boundaries

5) Speaking of boundaries, it's good for all four of you to know what belongs to whom, so it's healthy, normal, and beneficial for you guys to all have and use your own space. Someday you'll laugh that your tiny baby got the master bedroom and you and your husband slept in the livingroom! :)

You guys sound like a fun family! Good luck!
S.

So you sleep in the living room so that you older one does not wake the little one in your bedroom? So if you put the little one in the bedroom with his brother, when the older one wakes up he will go into your room to wake you and leave the baby asleep. Did I miss something.....Girl give you and your husband your room back and allow your boys to adjust, nothing disruptive about that.

Sounds OK to me ... Tell him it's a try and see to have his baby brother in with him, and see how it goes. You deserve your bed!

H., i have 2 boys 3 yrs and 3 days apart. i was worried about the same thing when we decided to put them into the same room and it turned out that the boys LOVED it!!! to have a buddy there. at times i would have to go in and let them know STOP TALKING lay down, go to bed! but it was great to have our privacy back. good luck

I have two boys, 18 months apart, and at around 18 mo and 3 years I put them in the same room together. Bedtime was just too hard trying to put them both to bed at the same time in separate rooms. They both love it, and it's worked out really well. They're 3 and 5 and don't want to be in separate rooms. If one wakes up in the night they come into our bed without waking up their brother.

Although I only have one child, my suggestion would be at least do a week or two trial and see how it goes. Give them a fews days to get use to it before you decided to go back and take it from there.