Posted by
Wheelymate
18 yrs ago
there was a survey done by HKCC awhile back about the above but can't seem to find the thread anymore.
so just want some fresh inputs from parents - when did your kids start sharing a room? our plan is for baby to go into his brother's room once he can sleep from 10.30pm to 7am (ie after the dream feed) so that there is minimum disruptions. our 2 week old is currently in our bedroom in his own cot but i am trying to get him used to his brother's room by putting him to sleep there when his brother is not using the room or in school.
thanks! obviously i know it'll be quite sometime before my baby sleeps through the night but just curious to know about others' experiences!!
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We started when #1 was 26 months and #2 was 8 months.
Worked very well. They both seem to enjoy the other's presence, though there is the occasional "waking up the other" incident. We have also taught #1 to be very quiet. She knows that if #2 wakes up she will get no attention for a while so it's self-enforceable. ;)
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thanks for sharing. what were your reasons for sharing the room at 8 months - was your younger one sleeping through or you wanted your room back? :) and did they go to bed at the same time when you started it off?
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"thanks for sharing. what were your reasons for sharing the room at 8 months - was your younger one sleeping through or you wanted your room back? :) and did they go to bed at the same time when you started it off?"
#2 had her own room from about 2-8 months. But we thought it was a good idea for them to share.
They don't fall asleep at the same time, but this isn't really a problem. #1 sleeps through when #2 comes in later for the afternoon nap. #1 is quiet when she comes after #2 in the evening.
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crj
18 yrs ago
Ours have been sharing a room at night since the baby was about 3 months and mostly sleeping through the night.
Now Toddler is two (last week) and baby is about to turn 10 months next week.
We only were able to have them sleep together for the lunchtime nap when baby was about 6/7 months.
We talked to todler first, and said do you want baby to sleep here? What's this? 'Baby's bed' etc... He knew it was going to happen and was excited for it.
At first toddler went to bed first, then we put baby in. And got her for the 11pm feed later, which he slept through. If baby woke up very early (before the official 6:30 am wake up) I would sneak her out and toddler would stay asleep.
But now it is like magic, they 'chat' to each other in the morning before we go in and at night after we put them to bed, they LOVE sharing. In fact, when I was away for 2 nights with baby in HK (from BJ), the toddler was very very upset and couldn't sleep well without her. (and this is our amazing sleeper who loves his bed and loves to sleep).
We often find baby standing in her bed looking at toddler, or them both standing/sitting looking at each other and talking. One nap time was really funny, they were talking away... then toddler got quiet, and I heard baby scream... she was standing in her crib screaming at him to wake up and keep talking to her hahahaha!
The strange thing is, if Toddler or Baby cries, the other one does NOT wake up. The only time Toddler woke up when Baby cried was when there was a problem and he called for us (but we were already on our way as we realised something was wrong) Baby was practicing crawling and BANGED her head on the crib, her cry was not 'normal' and Toddler wanted to be sure we knew - very sweet!
They go to bed and wake up at the same time - they share bedtime and morning rituals, the same for the lunchtime nap. The baby has her morning and afternoon nap alone in the room.
It's scary those first nights, but totally worth it and WONDERFUL results. We figure the biggest threat we can give them when they are older is 'if you're bad, you'll have to sleep in separate rooms!' haha
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"The strange thing is, if Toddler or Baby cries, the other one does NOT wake up.
Same here. They have this sort of aural blind spot I think.
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thank you for the positive stories, really relieved to hear that it's possible!
the truth is, i'm one of those mums who sleep badly in the same room as baby, listening out for every noise made while my husband sleeps through like a log unless baby is really wailing.
but at the same time, i am paranoid about baby sleeping alone at night because of SIDs.
so i guess what i will do is have baby in our room and working towards him sleeping well at 7pm and after the dream feed until next morning and pack him off to our toddler's room.
in the meantime, i might camp out in the office and have hubby wake me up when it's time to feed...
by the way, how well do you think a 2 year old will be able to understand the concept of room-sharing? and by the way, are your older ones still in cots or toddler beds? i have this fear that the older one will get out of bed and start throwing things into baby's cot!?!
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crj
18 yrs ago
Our babies have never slept in our rooms.
Our Toddler is still in a cot bed with bars, he loves his bed. Even though he physically can climb out, he does not. I also think he likes having the same type of bed as his little sister. We are trying to keep them both in cot beds as long as we can! Our expectation is that we will take the bars off of both at the same time, because when baby (then a toddler) sees big brother getting his bars off, she will probably want her bars off too... but we will try to keep her in bars longer if we can, we hope to have another year at least with the toddler and more with the baby.
And YES your less than 2 year old can understand the concept! Our babies are 14 months apart, so Toddler was about 17/18 months when they started to share and he knew what was going on and could say baby's bed, baby sleep, etc... but even if they can't say it, they do understand A LOT of what goes on around them and of what you say.
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"the truth is, i'm one of those mums who sleep badly in the same room as baby, listening out for every noise made while my husband sleeps through like a log unless baby is really wailing.
but at the same time, i am paranoid about baby sleeping alone at night because of SIDs."
I understand being worried. My wife was very worried with #1 since she stopped breathing three times before we left the hospital. But apart from precautions, there's only so much you can do. Children do "want" to live and have mechanisms to ensure they do. You can also move a mattress into baby's room and sleep there during a transition period of a few days.
If you follow four simple steps the risk of SIDS is dramatically reduced.
- Always on the back to sleep.
- No cover of any kind except a growbag. When it's hot, just pajamas or whatever.
- Hard mattress designed to be ventilated. These tend to be very hard but babies don't weigh much so they don't suffer.
- No pillow.
Pacifiers may also have a mitigating effect.
In any case as soon as your baby is 4-6 months and can lift his/her head reflexive action will prevent suffocation unless he/she is smothered by something.
"by the way, how well do you think a 2 year old will be able to understand the concept of room-sharing?"
Our two year old had no problem understanding this concept. And understanding the need to be quiet.
"and by the way, are your older ones still in cots or toddler beds?"
Our older one was in a child/teen bed (not a toddler bed) with three quarter rails from 15 months. We wanted to use the crib for our upcoming younger one. We bought a cute little step stool so she can get up and down easily. She took to the bed no problem. We had pillows around the foot end (where there are no rails) for a while but she has never rolled and fallen. We'll probably take the rails away when she's three or so
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I wanted to write in and ask this same question several months ago.
The first time we tried it, it didn't work as they both kept each other up, plus the little one kept teething and so was waking up in the nights. I decided then that I wasn't going to place the baby in the same room as his brother until he got all his teeth. Finally about 7 weeks ago, I put the little one who was 15 mths old at the time with his brother who is 3 years plus. By the way, he hasn't got all his teeth yet but he does have most of it. We too found, that once the older one is fast asleep, he doesn't seem to hear his brother's cries unless it happens close to his waking up time.
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"I decided then that I wasn't going to place the baby in the same room as his brother until he got all his teeth. "
Well, it takes until about 2½-3 years for all the teeth to come in. ;)
Seriously though, pocoyo well demonstrates that all children are different.
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just a slightly different view on this. I had both of mine sharing a room from ages 2.5yr and 5 months. However, my eldest used to climb into the cot to sleep with his sister..... and we would go in and find them cuddled up together. All very sweet but I was concerned that he could smother his sister, so we moved them out. He is back in again now at 3.5, but she is 18months and capable of fending for herself. He still likes to climb in and jump up and down with her in the cot! It seems to depend on the kids, but worth trying out.
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Kim11
18 yrs ago
Congratulations Wheelymate on the birth of your baby! I have followed your pregnancy through these threads for a while as others have and he is finally here.
We just moved to Hong Kong and had to put our kids in the same room since we are in a two bedroom serviced apartment. I didn't think I liked the baby in our room becuase she is a noisy sleeper and I like to read before bed and thought I would wake her up. But the week before we moved here we had her in our room at my inlaws house and she slept through the tv!
But we decided to still put them in the same room to give us some space. The baby si 10 months now and older son is 3 in a few weeks. My son's friend also started sharing a room with her sister just before we moved which helped him get excited about it. If she was doing it he could too.
It worked much better than expected. They don't wake each other up at night as often as I thought they would but the baby wakes up the 3 year old in the morning. Since she gets up anywhere from 6am I tell him to go back to sleep for 10 min and I will come and get him. He cries and screams andthen is quiet and will sleep for another 45 min or so. I usualy put them down seperately, whoever is ready for bed first goes in to sleep then I have quiet time with the other one. the 3 year old goes in quietly and without a problem and the baby might cry a bit when she goes in but they both settle eventually.
But I am not sure if this would have worked earlier on since the baby was not the best sleeper for a while. She also hasn't had any teething or illness issues yet so we will see what happens later.
good luck
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Hi all,
thanks for all your posts. as expected, every baby is different hence all the different experiences!
i couldn't sleep last night because of the noises baby was making. in the end, i went to sleep in the study room (it's got a single bed with a pull-out one below). i slept much better and because it was right next to baby's room, i could hear when he cried. i am thinking of camping out in the office until baby sleeps nicely through from 10ish to the next morning and goes into his brother's room.
but it won't be without challenges. firstly, my toddler is in the midst of the terrible twos and one of his antics include delaying bedtime tactics. once he goes to sleep, he loves his cot, no issues about that. but he'll always do a dramatic cry after his stories as my husband leaves the room - makes me wonder how he'll ever keep quiet because his baby bro is in the same room!
crj, i wished i had an extra room to spare but alas as we have our own business, hubby uses the 3rd room as a home office so impossible to convert to nursery no. 2 until baby is sleeping well enough to bunk in with brother!
kim11, thanks for your well wishes, i hope your move to HK is going smoothly. thanks for sharing your experiences and glad to know the room sharing experience is going fine for you!
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hey wheelymate can't help you on this one, but wanted to congratulate you on number two!! hope you're having fun!
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hi goddess, thanks for the well wishes...
fun...depends how you define it! the sleep deprivation bit is certainly not but the new little man in my life is absolutely lovely with all his silly expressions!
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crj
18 yrs ago
WM you wrote:
"crj, i wished i had an extra room to spare but alas as we have our own business, hubby uses the 3rd room as a home office so impossible to convert to nursery no. 2 until baby is sleeping well enough to bunk in with brother!"
We only had a 3 bed in HK too, and we had the baby sleep in the office the first few months until we could put baby and toddler in the same room.
The office was not changed at all, except we put the crib in it, and then put the basinette in the crib at night for night time sleeping.
In the daytime, baby napped in the master bedroom (we moved the basinette) and at night in the 'office'.
Awake time was spend in the toddler's room (which had the books, toys, changing table, clothes, etc...) or the living room, etc... anywhere but the office!
Then we moved baby to sleeping in the 'baby room' (ie with the toddler) at night, and eventually for naps.
Now are are lucky to have a four bed in Beijing and we have one master, one office, one baby sleep room and one baby playroom.
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crj,
ah, lucky you to have 4 bedrooms in beijing now!
our office is not too suitable for a baby sleeping. not a particularly pleasant room to sleep in even for an adult so i guess we have to sacrifice my lovely bed for the time being. so ours sleeps in his brother's room during the day and our room at night. we figured it will be good to get him used to his brother's room since he will sleep in there eventually.
last night was 2nd night camping out in the office and i slept better once again. he got up once at 10.30pm, which was time for a feed anyway and at almost 3am before sleeping until 7am, which i thought was as good as it can get for a 3 week old!! but every night is different though, depending on how well he slept/fed in the day.
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crj
18 yrs ago
The space in BJ is a luxury compared to HK/Sing :)
It is really important for you to sleep well.... you have a lot to do and need your energy. Our office wasn't nice for a baby either, but heck, what difference did she know haha.
Sounds like he is sleeping like a charm anyway, so it should go fast before they are together!
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fingers crossed......
you know how babies like to surprise you!
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