How to Transition Your Young Kids into Room Sharing!
Welcome back, beautiful!! I assume you've clicked on today's blog post because you have two young children you'd like sleeping in the same room!? If you've been following my Instagram stories over @ coolmomandcollected, then you already know that I successfully did this in less than a week, and boy was I successful! My entire family has benefitted from the decision for our kids to room share. My three year old son finally has the roommate he's been asking me for. My one year old daughter is now sleeping straight through the night in her brother’s room. My husband and I have our closet back (where our daughter was previously sleeping), our bedroom back, and the ability to party in it all night long! The whole family is sleeping better, and I'm so happy I took the leap!!
Throughout this post, I hope to help as many moms as possible by sharing my tips and tricks for young children to have a smooth room sharing transition. (After all, the goal of my blog IS to help you become more cool, calm, and collected!!) :-)
TIP 1: Have the conversation with your toddler
I can’t stress the verbal prep for your older child enough! (In my case, this was my three year old son in regards to his one year old sister joining the party). All throughout the day leading up to the big transition, I reminded my son that his sister may cry because she's learning to sleep like a "big girl!" I realized I needed to have these repetitive conversations much earlier, after the first night, when he freaked out once his younger sister started crying! He yelled for me, "Mommy, mommy, Sister is crying, she wants milk, she dropped her water bottle, etc!" I would explain, "If she cries, just stay 'night night!' She will see you sleeping, and she will go back to bed too!" I would not only tell my son this repeatedly throughout the day, but I would ask him, and have him repeat it to me! Each day that I continued to prep him, the more and more he started to feel better and grasp it. The whines at night got shorter, and shorter, until they were little to now…non-existent!
TIP 2: Blackout the room!
I strongly suggest blackout shades, or my cheap hack of throwing a blanket over your current window scenario, haha! I noticed that when I added a blanket, my children started sleeping in to their normal scheduled time of 7am/7:30am because the sun did not wake them up!
TIP 3: Use a sound machine
Prior to room sharing, both of my children slept with the same type of sound machine, and I would strongly recommend using the one I use here. Since we had already owned two sound machines, we placed one on each side of the room to equally help with unwanted sounds. (My kids are not the deepest sleepers, but the sound machine allows them to sleep through the unfamiliar noises, or cries, that they may not be used to.) They also associate the sound of the sound machine immediately with bedtime, which is a huge plus for setting the mood!
TIP 4: Play music
This may not apply to everyone, but my son loves to sleep to music! We play Scripture Lullabies, which I'm absolutely obsessed with!! These artists take Scripture, and play it to music with the most beautiful soothing voices! Even though my daughter never slept with music, I knew she'd taken naps in the car with music, so we played it once we made the transition. It didn't bother my daughter in the slightest, and my son was able to keep that part of his routine!
TIP 5: Try to keep each child’s personal routine during the transition!
Since you are combining and transitioning TWO children, you should also be combining as much of their TWO routines to make their transition as smooth and effortless as possible! Prior to their moving in together, I would rock my son, and count to twenty in Spanish, pray with him, scratch his back, and tuck him in before saying,“Night Night!” I would leave the room to nurse my daughter on our bedroom chair, and place her in her crib (either awake, or asleep).
On the first night of room sharing, we moved that same nursing chair into my son's room to give my daughter that familiarity, and she didn't miss a beat! Combining these two routines looked exactly the same as usual, just back to back! The biggest challenge was instructing my son to be quiet as I nursed my daughter after placing him down. Thankfully, my daughter can now sleep regardless of his adorable “whispering voice” to me! It's important to keep these transitions, especially if they worked for your children prior to transitioning. We start bedtime 15 minutes earlier to combine the routines, and leave space for any unexpected moments.
TIP 6: Stay consistent
Children thrive off of structure, and knowing what to expect! Routines are comforting to them so it's important to show them consistency during this process. Being that this is a new transition, your child may test the waters to see how much control they can have in this different situation. Do not show fluster, hesitation, or uncertainty. Remain confident in the routine to help them transition with confidence themselves!
When I first laid both of my children down to sleep in the same room, (having already explained exactly what I was going to do step-by-step), I exited the room the first night, and they cried. The scenario was clearly very new to them, and they didn’t know what to expect. A week later, leaving the room with this same consistency continued, they no longer called for me, or show any concern because they now know that once mommy leaves, they will sure enough see her in the morning. Every family is different, but I notice that staying consistent and building confidence works best for my children. I prefer this rather than running in the room at the slightest cry (which I think builds anxiety in their waiting, and turns us into big mommy wrecks)!
TIP 7: Give it time!
All new routines take TIME! My success in transitioning my kids very obviously occurred at Night 5. However, Night 1 and Night 2 felt like WEEKS!! I lost SO much sleep, and was terrified I screwed their future sleep up with this attempt of a transition. Night 3 and 4 very positively started looking up which I credit to CONSISTENCY, COMMUNICATION, and ASSURANCE. By Night 5, I KNEW I had made the right decision, and I was so happy that I didn't back out! Mamas, every child is different, but stay strong, and you will be rewarded in the end!
TIP 8: Keep the video monitors nearby
It may be difficult in the beginning to hear your children acclimating to their new transition. Having a camera on EACH child will help ease this concern of yours, and will allow you to watch them to your heart’s content! This will also help solve mysteries like “Who might be waking who in the morning?,” so that you can address the behavior at a later time. I removed water bottles, and any objects the kids could potentially throw on the floor, or at each other! They each have only a pillow, blanket, and stuffed animal (*As long as they are of age in terms of safety!*)
TIP 9: Give a reminder, but then let them work it out
I comforted my son Night 1 and Night 2 on solely the initial middle-of-the-night waking of my one year old daughter. He's always been a "sleep-through-the-night" kind of boy, so hearing him flustered at her cry hurt my heart. I knew this was a very new experience for him. In fact, he would cry for me in concern for his sister when she cried, and then he would out-cry her to the point of keeping her awake! I knew, for me, the right thing to do was to go in on that first and second night (for the first initial wake up), and gently remind him that everything was OK, that mommy had a camera and was watching them, and to go 'night night,' and his sister would do the same.
Night 3 and 4, I felt strongly it was time to STOP entering, intervening, and let them work out the middle-of-the-night wakings themselves. The night I stopped interfering was the night they started sleeping better, and crying shorter and shorter as they continued to learn each others rhythms. Having each other started to become soothing for them!
TIP 10: Praise their great efforts!
Every morning, I would praise my children for all they did right the night before!!! Funny enough, no matter how bad Night 1 and 2 were, my son and daughter awoke the happiest I’d seen them. I knew it was fun for them to not wake alone, to wake to each other, and that has been a beautiful moment/memory to witness.
TIP 11: Address the areas they need to work on…
Not only can you encourage their progress, and reward them with encouraging words, but you can give them reminders/warnings on those areas they need to work more on. The key is to find the balance, and keep GRACE present during the beginning of the new process for your little ones!
TIP 12: Have marital/or some kind of support
This is a BIG one! Don't decide to randomly do this on your own because this transition will affect your whole family! Others may hear middle of the night whining, or crying that could wake them, and you may need emotional support because lack of sleep can drive a mama crazy!
Night 1 and 2 may be a bit emotional for you. Have your hubby, or a friend/family member on call to assure you that although transitions can be hard, they will eventually work out if you allow them too! If I didn't have my husband on Night 1 and 2, I don't think I would've gotten very far! Even when my kids were successfully sleeping, I would find it a struggle to sleep out of fear of waking up to them crying! There is LIGHT on the other side of the tunnel, Mamas. I'm also here for support in the comments below!
TIP 13: Put them to bed at the same time
There are three options when it comes to how you put your toddler and baby down when they room share. 1. Put them down at the same time, 2. Put your baby down first, and your toddler after, or 3. Put your toddler down first, and then baby after. It all depends on their age, and current sleep patterns. The benefit of putting your toddler and baby down at the same time (if it works for their schedule) is that they will get used to each other quicker, and learn to fall asleep together. This is the approach we took since my kids normally go down at the same time anyway!
TIP 14: Tweak throughout the process as needed
Prior to this transition, my son and daughter would normally sleep from 7pm-7am/7:30am. On Night 5 and 6 they both finally slept straight through the night until this time!! I was ECSTATIC. However, a few days after I noticed my daughter kept waking at 6am, leaving my son with the hard task of falling back to sleep. (He didn’t, btw.)
After doing some research, I realized that there is a reason for early wake-ups in children. Lately, my son has been taking naps at around 3pm to 4:30pm. That'll cause an early wake up time!! In fact, if your child has a 7pm or 8pm bedtime, I read that they shouldn't be napping past 3:30pm. This is clearly an area I can personally perfect with my son! (You would think the later you put your children to bed the later they will wake. LIES.)
If your child is waking too early, which my daughter specifically is, it could be that she in fact needs to go to bed EARLIER. So, instead of starting the bedtime process at 6:45pm, I'm starting at 6:30pm in hopes of them BOTH falling asleep closer to 7pm (their usual bedtime), and waking closer to 7am (their usual wake time) without one waking earlier. I hear this process can take up to 3 weeks, and I’ve only just completed week 1, so I will have to try that out!
I really hope sharing what I've learned through my children's room sharing experience can be helpful to you and your family!! If it was, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below! I'd also love if you shared this post with any other mamas that you think it may benefit! Sharing always helps my blog grow, and I appreciate everyone who does! I look forward to growing more cool, calm, and collected with you throughout this blog, as well as the different seasons that motherhood takes us! Much love, and happy room sharing!!!
Cool, Mom, and Collected,
