Managing Cry It Out While Room Sharing

I looked down at the envelope I had been addressing and realized I put the stamp on the wrong side of the envelope. Instead of placing it on the right side, it was on the left. Our return address was on the right where the stamp should be. Clearly addressing envelopes while monitoring my baby who was crying it out was a little too technical for my brain.

Sleep training a baby is hard. There are so many factors to consider and track. Adding room sharing to the mix can really increase the stress levels. Is the older child going to be able to sleep? Is the baby going to be disturbed by the older child? Can a baby even fall asleep with another person in the room? Lucky for you, I have some tips.

Separate For a Time

The first thing you want to do is figure out how to have the children separate if at all possible. I know, I know, this is a post on sleep training while room sharing. So why am I talking about separating? 

I am talking about it for the sake of both children. Baby will have a much easier time falling asleep without a person in the room making noise. Your older child will clearly sleep better without crying from a baby to keep him up.

You are sharing for a reason. If it is out of want and not need, you can put one in a different room for  a bit. If it is out of need, you will need to get creative. You will want to move one of the children to a different location until baby gets this figured out. It should only be a few days. 

Some people move the older child. The benefit of this is that baby is able to get used to his own room rather than a different room. Some people move the baby. A benefit of this is that a baby is usually easier to fit into a different space. It also helps the older child if the older child has some anxiety over adding a baby to the family. Some children have a hard time adjusting, so moving them out of their rooms while you do CIO can be too much. If your child is perfectly fine with the baby as many are, you can sell the sleeping place change as a fun adventure.

Some people see if the older child can go to grandma's house for the weekend and start CIO over the weekend. The first few days are the worst, and for some, it is basically over in a weekend.

When my second baby was born, the house we lived in wasn't very sound-proof. Brayden and Kaitlyn didn't share rooms, but they were right next to each other and there was a vent that was so open between the two rooms that for sound, they may as well have been in the same room.

We left Brayden in his room. With Kaitlyn, we moved her around. She took some naps in her room and some in my room. She started the night in my room and moved to her room after the dreamfeed. She did CIO in a bassinet in my room and in her crib. It never bothered her. She is a flexible angel baby type of personality, though, so not all babies would be okay with the constant change.

A baby can sleep in a bassinet or pack-n-play in a bathroom, walk in closet, spare bedroom, office, or even family room. You just want to be sure the room baby is in isn't cold. Sometimes a large room can be cold or drafty at night. 

Stagger Bedtime
In most cases, when you have a baby and an older child, the older child is at most taking one nap a day. That means that a baby can be in her room for most naps in the day. You could move baby out for one nap if it over-lapped with the older child. Or the older child can nap in a different location once a day.

So then night is your biggest challenge.

I would recommend staggering bedtime. I would put the baby to bed first, then once baby was asleep, put the older child to bed. You just make sure the child's bed is all set up and ready for sleep before you put baby down. You can do pajamas in the room before baby is down or take them out of the room and get into pjs in a different room. You read stories in a different room. You just move the bedtime routine out of the bedroom. You also teach your older child to go in quietly at bedtime so the baby won't be woken up.

If your baby and older child need to go to bed too closely to the same time, while you are training, you can do what I did and put the baby to bed in your room, put the older child down in his own room, and then move baby into the bedroom after the dreamfeed. Most babies are mostly if not fully asleep at the dreamfeed and don't cry after eating. 

Use White Noise
I get a lot of questions from people who are concerned about using white noise. They worry their child will become dependent on it. Sleep props are something that are wise to avoid as much as possible. However, there are times and circumstances when the sleep prop makes sense. This is one of those times. Both children will sleep better with some white noise.

White noise is a "prop" that your child will sleep better with but will also be able to sleep without. When we go out of town or the kids sleep at grandparents, they don't have their white noise. They still fall asleep without it. They don't usually sleep as well as they do at home, but that is typically true when you travel, anyway. This post contains affiliate links. 

We have a few different white noise methods we have used. For years, we used humidifiers. We live in a dry climate and a humidifier is nice anyway. As kids got older, however, they would at times play with the machine during independent play, so we moved to a white noise machine. But it works well for a baby. If you want a humidifier anyway and have an older child, you can always remove it when you get to doing roomtime each day. One thing to watch when purchasing is the noise. Many are made with the intent to be extremely quiet, so if you want one to double as a humidifier and a white noise machine, you might want to avoid the quiet ones.

We have a Graco Sound Machine for each bedroom. We have owned three for many years and been happy with them. They have a night light, the white noise options, and can also play an iPod, which comes in handy for independent playtime. It can plug in or run off of batteries, which is handy for portability. It also has a timer function, so if you are worried about dependency, you can use that and have it turn off after your child has fallen asleep. We have been very happy with this machine and I would have no hesitation in purchasing it again.



We also have a Dohm  sound machine. This is the best seller on Amazon. I am always up for trying out products in order to pass on if they are any good or not. I wanted a backup sound machine on hand in case one died since ours are all several years old. I decided I would take a small risk and try this one out. It is hard to buy something new when you love what you have--don't fix what isn't broken! It was only a small risk, however, since it rates so well and is the number one best seller. It is a great machine if all you want is a sound machine. The sound is a little different than the Graco. My older kids are a bit turned off by that, but my younger ones didn't bat an eye. It could be personality or just age. It doesn't have any additional features--it is just sound. But the sound is more natural sounding. It sounds more like the humidifiers we used. There is less to break in it since it is so simple. So it is a good machine and I don't think you would dislike it. I don't know what I would get between the two--I love the light, battery, and MP3 options of the Graco.

Conclusion
You might feel overwhelmed with this task of teaching a baby to sleep while sharing a room. I know a lot of these baby things can consume you and make something as simple as placing a stamp on an envelope to be too much! It can be done! You can follow these few simple ideas to help make the process easier. Be sure to see my below linked posts that can help you with the other aspects of sleep training and room sharing. You will be back to normal in no time--well, the new you normal :)

Related Posts for Cry It Out and Sleep Training:

• CIO Bootcamp--Revised and Updated
• Optimal Waketime Lengths
• Sleep Training: The Four S's

Related Posts for Room Sharing:

Room Sharing {9 Tips}

Help Me Out: Room Sharing Tips

Related Posts for Siblings:

• Older Children While Baby Naps
• One to Two Children Transition
• Babywise With Baby Plus Older Child
• Planning Your Schedule for Multiple Children

If you don't already, be sure to follow me on Facebook. I share what is posted here each day along with other articles I find helpful and interesting. I also answer questions and do live Q&As each week. It is a great way to connect!

McKenna Child Summary: 5 Years Old

McKenna has been teaching herself
to play the piano

This is a summary for McKenna at 5 years old. McKenna is a very fun person. She is one of those children that everyone always stops to tell me how much they enjoy her. She is the life of whatever party is going on. Even people who only see her because they have a child who is friends with one of my older children stop me to comment on how much they enjoy McKenna.

EATING

McKenna eats a lot and eats a very healthy diet. Her favorite foods to eat are fruits and vegetables. Her weird quirk with food is whenever Kaitlyn is around, she wants to eat things exactly how Kaitlyn likes them. For example, if we have spaghetti, Kaitlyn likes hers with just butter and Parmesan cheese. So McKenna has hers that way. If we eat spaghetti for lunch (when Kaitlyn is at school), however, McKenna wants it with spaghetti sauce. 

SLEEPING

McKenna still needs a lot of sleep. If she doesn't get at least 12 hours of sleep at night, she needs a nap the next day--not just rest time, but a nap.

Rest time is 30 minutes typically.

ROOM SHARING

You might remember that shortly before Brinley was born, we had McKenna and Kaitlyn share a room (see Room Sharing Log). It didn't go to well--McKenna could not leave Kaitlyn alone. She was also at the time the type to need to sing at the top of her lungs to fall asleep.

Well, she was 3 then. She is 5 now. We decided to give it another try. McKenna still rememebred the last time we tried and what happened when she didn't listen. She has been wanting Kaitlyn to share with her this whole time, so she was very willing to be good.

She has been great! She stays in her bed until it is time to get out, even if Kaitlyn leaves the room. She is quiet. She doesn't try to steal Kaitlyn's blankets. She is the model room sharer. It is SO NICE to have all of the girl toys in one room instead of spread between the two. Brayden is loving having his own room again (he was starting to feel modest). All around, it has been a great change. 

SWIMMING LESSONS

To catch you up, she was a great swimmer (still is--her teacher says she is very much a natural). She decided she was terrified of having lessons. She isn't terrified to swim, just to have a swimming lesson. Pure terror here. At this point, she is even tall enough to touch the ground and bob up easily for air. Even so, swimming lessons are terrifying for her. 

Our plan was to do group lessons, but the lessons didn't work with our schedule. So her teacher asked her if she would swim with her just for play. McKenna is all about play so she agreed. Her teacher gets her to do things just in a play way. It isn't as beneficial as actual lessons, but it is a step in the right direction. 

McKenna still has ear tubes and she says it hurts her ears for them to go under water. She will get her tubes out in late May, so I am interested to see if that changes her feelings toward lessons at all.

DISCIPLINE

McKenna has gotten much, much better about how well she listens to me. She still has a tenancy to argue despite her never receiving any benefit from doing so. She is strong-willed and apparently likes to debate. This is definitely something I would like her to learn to control. I like her willingness to confront things when she feels the need, but she needs to be more respectful toward authority figures. She often now says to me, "Can I please tell you something?" when she has a debate in her. I like that much better than the flat out debater. 

SIBLINGS

McKenna loves her siblings. She wants to be just like Kaitlyn. Her favorite color is whatever Kaitlyn's favorite color is. She wants to eat whatever Kaitlyn is eating. 

McKenna has a special love for Brinley and is still obsessed with her. 

McKenna and Brayden have the least in common of all of my children. They get along fine, but McKenna prefers to do girly things and Brayden isn't into that. When they play, they find something to do that has mutual interest, like Legos or a board game. 

MISS INDEPENDENT

McKenna has always been very independent and still is. She has a lot of initiative in life and that spills over into her independence. Add in two older siblings she wants to emulate and it can create problems when she wants to be independent outside of her funnel. 

GAME LOVER

McKenna is obsessed with playing board games. Every day after Brinley goes down for a nap, we sit and play a game together. It is fun to play with her and teach her strategy. 

BALLET LOVER

It is so interesting to see how your different children are. McKenna doesn't sit still much, but she loves the ballet. Loves. Kaitlyn gets bored with no talking or singing, but McKenna loves it. She comments on how impressed she is with how well they do different things. 

SCHEDULE
Here is our typical schedule:

7:00 AM Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast. Daily chore.
9 AM Go to school.
12 Noon Get home and eat lunch. Free play with Brinley.
1 PM Game time with me. 
2 PM Rest time.

2:30 PM Indpendent playtime
4 PM Play with Brayden and Kaitlyn
5-5:30 PM Dinner then time with family
7 PM Start getting ready for bed
8 PM in bed

Room Sharing {9 Tips}

Brayden and Kaitlyn's bunk beds--designed and built by my husband

Room sharing can be quite nerve-wracking! I think any parent who does Babywise, Babywisperer, or follows Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child has a high value on sleep. We believe sleep is super important for the development and growth of our children. Room sharing has potential to disrupt good sleep, and that makes it scary.

Naturally, whenever parents are about to embark on room sharing, they want to know the good tips! What can you do to make this as successful as possible?!? 

Have the Right Kids Share

My first tip is to have the right children share. This is assuming you have some sort of choice. When we first started room sharing at our house (summer of 2012), we had Kaitlyn and McKenna share. This made sense because they were both girls. Here is the problem. McKenna is not a compatible person for sharing. Things started off fine, but long term they did not go so well. At the time, McKenna spent 20-30 minutes at night singing herself to sleep. No problem when you are alone, but a problem when your sister is two feet away from you. She also is a party girl. Slumber party every night!  There were other problems. McKenna needs more sleep than Kaitlyn, but naturally she would wake in the morning when Kaitlyn woke up, which led to grumpy McKenna. 

With Kaitlyn starting school soon, I didn't want her tired every morning. One morning, she said to me, "Mommy, I am so tired! I just want to sleep but McKennna won't let me." McKenna obviously was not ready to share a room with someone. We moved Kaitlyn in with Brayden. It has been a non-issue since! 

If you have a choice in the matter, make these considerations--these are in order of importance for me:

• I would recommend you choose two children who are on similar schedules. Brayden and Kaitlyn are both in elementary school, so they both need to be up at the same time. McKenna can sleep in some in the mornings (and does--she sleeps 1-1.5 hours later than they do). Bedtime is not critical because you can stagger bedtime, but morning wake-up time is harder to have different. Now, if you have no choice, you can align morning wake up times to match and just make bedtime earlier for one child if she needs more sleep.
• Choose your two best listeners. Which two children are better at obeying? This makes all the difference in room sharing. Brayden and Kaitlyn are great at following the rules, so they make easy room sharers. 
• Choose children who won't play with each other as much. Many people will do the oldest and third share a room or second and fourth. Children who are right by each other in birth order are often good playmates. This can make for "party time" instead of sleep time. Obviously my oldest two do just fine sharing. That is why I list it below the "best listeners" part.
• Consider gender. This is last on my list, though initially I had it first. Now, at some point--at some age--gender will move up the list of importance. Right now, it is low for us. Even when children get old enough to want to be modest when changing clothes, clothes can be changed in the closet or in the bathroom. 

Prepare them Mentally

I have found such great power in preparing children before changes occur. When I want them to be out of diapers, we make a date on the calendar and count down to it. When I want them to share a room, I let them know ahead of time so they can think about it and we can talk about it. Talk about what that will mean, what rules will be, and what expectations will be. Some children will need that time to prepare themselves for change.

Prepare the Room

As we approached sharing a room, I prepared it to be a shared room. I changed photos to reflect both people. I changed decorations that had one child's name to be for both. I moved clothes and toys around. Seeing these things helped get everyone excited.

Create an Optimal Sleep Environment

A good sleep environment is important no matter if you share or not. A tricky thing with sharing is creating the optimal environment for two different people. And anyone who is married knows that well right! When my girls shared, I had one who liked her room warm and one who liked it cold. I had one who was fine with sun in the morning and one who needed black-out curtains. So figure out how to work the environment for both people. One might need some extra blankets on the bed, and one might need fewer blankets.

Have some white noise! White noise is so great for sharing. Then you don't hear every little noise the other person in the room makes. We use the Graco Sweet Slumber Sound Machine. We like it enough that we own three (one for each bedroom).

Another consideration is what type of bed set-up to do. I highly recommend bunk beds. So highly. When the girls shared, they were on a bed with a trundle. So each morning we were taking everything but sheets off of one bed and stacking them on the other bed and putting the trundle away. I didn't love that. Or like it. Plus I think it made it easy for McKenna to party.

With Brayden and Kaitlyn, we did bunk beds. Yes! That is the way to go. Bunk beds make it harder to see and hear each other. There are down sides--obviously if you have a young one on top, that can be concerning for falling. It can also be annoying if you have a potty-training child on a top bunk and there is an accident. So bunk beds aren't necessarily a perfect situation, but for us, it has been ideal. 

Establish Rules

Have a short list of rules that cover what is expected at bed time. Here are some rules we have:

1. Never wake a sleeping sibling (morning or night)
2. Stay in bed (until the designated time)
3. Use your whisper voice

And we later had to make rules like "no stealing Kaitlyn's blanket." 

Establish Consequences

Along with your rules, you need Consequences. For us, if McKenna didn't obey the rules, she had to sleep in a different room that night. This was devastating to her. And eventually we just moved Kaitlyn out all together. Think of a consequence for your children that will be meaningful to them.

Lights Out

Many people have a "no talking after lights out" type of rule. Some find it works well to have the children go to bed 10-30 minutes before they want the child actually going to sleep. During this time, the children can read and talk quietly, Then they turn lights out and no more talking. Part of the fun of sharing a room is some bonding time through conversation and this is a great way to get the best of both worlds.

Make the Change When Sleep Can Be Lost

Don't make the change in the middle of a school week or work week. Don't make the change right before your family vacation when you want everyone to start out well-rested. We made the change in the summer. You could do a weekend if you were sure things would be relatively smooth. You need to be able to handle the potential issues that arise only focusing on those issues, not stressing out about having to get up for work the next morning or worrying about how this will affect her obedience at great-aunt Martha's house next week.

Stagger Bedtimes

If you find bedtime to be an issue, try staggering bedtimes. Put the child down first who falls asleep the fastest. Then put the other child down. Just be sure the one down first is not a super light sleeper. Brinley is a super light sleeper--just opening her door wakes her up instantly. So when we are vacationing, we can't put her down first. We put McKenna down first since she is a very heavy sleeper. You can yell her name and get not even a stir from her. 

Your Tips!

Do you have tips? And for reader tips given in the past, see this post.

Preschooler Summary: 3 years and 4 months

McKenna waiting for a parade

EATING

This will be of interest to you--eating was not smooth sailing this week. She ate fine so far as willingness to eat and try new foods. But with breakfast, she would eat only what was necessary and then stop so she could play. She insisted she was full. Then an hour later, she was back and she was starving (her words). The first time it happened, I let her eat because that was odd for her. Then I quickly saw this was becoming some grazing thing where she thought the entire span of the morning really could be eat here and there. 

I had to get strict with her. Breakfast is over when it is over.

I do need to make sure there is a snack mid morning (about 10-10:30). I have come to notice that often times, three year olds cannot make it as long between eating as they did as two year olds. I don't know if it is due to being more excited about play so they spend less time dedicated to the meal or if there is some major growth spurt action going on. 

PLAYING

Playing is great. The novelty of having both siblings home at all times is definitely gone. She does not mind playing alone in the least anymore. My guess is over time, she will go back to not wanting to play alone when they are home once school starts. I think that is understandable--she misses them and wants to spend time with them when she can.

SWIMMING LESSONS

We have continued with her having lessons without us right there and it has worked really well. She is loving swimming lessons. She is excited to go and loves to jump into the water, which is a great improvement from not wanting her head to go in. 

ROOM SHARING

Room sharing went perfectly for quite some time, and then McKenna decided to test her limits. She will do well for several nights, then she will have a night she gets up and pesters Kaitlyn. On those nights, we currently move her into the baby's room in a pack and play to sleep. She doesn't love it, but not enough to stop herself from the thrill she gets in bugging Kaitlyn in the moment. 

That is definitely a difficulty we have with her--she is very much a live in the moment type of person. That surely has its benefits in life. That is what contributes to her pretty much always being at the peak of happiness. The down side is that it also contributes to her not being so concerned with the consequences. 

For McKenna, the room sharing is okay. I don't mind having to move  her out some nights (I would obviously prefer she just obey, though). She still naps so any lack of sleep that can come from room sharing is easily compensated for during her daytime nap. I will say, however, that she is definitely on the tired side of the scale. I have even moved her nap up to 1:30.

For Kaitlyn, however, there are some issues. Kaitlyn is not getting the sleep she needs. If it weren't for school, room sharing would be something I would fight through to the end. I will not send her to school in a sleep deficit. We have decided to get bunk beds for Brayden's room and have Kaitlyn sleep in there with him for now. We don't have the bunk beds yet (we are actually going to make them), but hope to soon. We won't be moving her over fully--she will just sleep in there. I know for a fact I can trust those two to go to bed and be responsible.

McKenna will be sad to not have Kaitlyn anymore. I will explain that if she can respect Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn can move back in. Hopefully it will be a consequence that will speak to her. We will revisit it again--probably at Christmas break. Maybe we will try Fall break. For now, with a new baby coming, I need to not have to worry about Kaitlyn's sleep as she enters Kindergarten.

DISCIPLINE

McKenna has definitely been testing limits all around this month. She is testing every rule. I can fully believe that she is getting too many freedoms right now with me being at the end of my pregnancy. The other day I was explaining to a friend what she was doing and the friend responded, "So she is being a three year old?" Ah yes. I don't remember Brayden or Kaitlyn testing with such tenacity--but McKenna  has always contained more than her share of tenacity. 

My husband and I both believe a lot of the discipline issues she is having this month are tied to her lack of sleep this month. This is another reason we want to have Kaitlyn sleep with Brayden for now. Her discipline issues directly correlate with her lack of sleep. 

LOTS OF FUN

Through the difficulty of the month, at least McKenna maintains her total fun. She has a great personality and a great outlook on life. She is optimistic and enjoys each day to the fullest--those are valuable qualities that are hard to teach.

OUR SCHEDULE

7:15-7:30--Wake up and eat breakfast. She then can play with siblings. Right now, I like them to play outsisde after breakfast so they get some outside play in before it gets too hot.

9:00--Get ready and chores

10:00--Learning Poster and read stories

10:30--Independent Play

11:30--Free play with siblings

12:00--Lunch

1:00--Learning activity and free play with sibling if time

1:30--Nap

4:00 or 4:30--Get up--TV Time 

5:30--Dinner

6:00--Family Activities

7:30--Get ready for bed

8:30--Bedtime 

GOOD BOOKS

• On Becoming Preschool Wise
• Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood
• The Five Love Languages of Children
• The Preschoolers Busy Book
• Children's Learning Activities (website)

RELATED BLOG LABELS

• Preschoolers
• Preschooler Summary
• Room Sharing Log

Poll Results: DO ANY OF YOUR CHILDREN SHARE A ROOM?

Yes! By choice	4 (14%)
Yes! By need	9 (32%)
No	15 (53%)

Votes so far: 28 

RELATED POSTS/BLOG LABELS:

• Poll results
• room sharing

Reminder: You can leave comments on poll results posts if you would like to add to the poll after it has closed. This would be helpful for those who have more than one child, those whose children have reached certain ages after a poll closed, and those who didn't visit the blog while that poll was open. To find closed polls, click on the poll results link above

Room Sharing Log

image source

June 1, we started having Kaitlyn and McKenna share a room. It has been three weeks. Overall, things have gone very smoothly and I am happy with where things are. I though I would share what we did and have done, and how the process has gone.

Preparation

Preparing for any major milestone event helps make the process smoother. I have learned this from potty training, transitioning to a big kid bed, starting a new activity, etc. I figured this would be no different.

First, I asked around for advice. I asked here on the blog and got a whole lot of great advice from you readers. Thank you! I went through your comments with a piece of paper and pen in hand and wrote down the advice. My husband and I then went through it and talked out our game plan and what our rules would be.

An important step we took was to verbally prepare our girls. We actually started talking about it last February or so, and they have been counting down the days to this event. They were so excited. We would talk about the need to respect each other's sleep and that you need to obey.

A great piece of advice a reader gave that I fully agreed with (hence our timing) was to make this big transition when everyone can lose sleep. Do not do it during the school year or right before some huge event that you want the children well-rested for. Know that sleep will be lost. If we had tried to do this when Kaitlyn needed her sleep for something (McKenna is young enough she doesn't have any events going on in life, but Kaitlyn will be starting Kindergarten this fall), it would have stressed me to the max. This way I was only stressed to the upper third :).

To help get the girls excited, I redecorated certain elements in Kaitlyn's room (we moved McKenna in with Kaitlyn) and had them involved in it. Kaitlyn had some things with her name on it that we made work for both (turned KAITLYN blocks into SISTERS for example). I spent two days before our first night moving McKenna into Kaitlyn's room. I moved her clothes and toys over. The girls were excited to see things getting set up.

First Week

The first few nights were THE WORST of the process.

We got the girls ready for bed and then went over the sleeping rules with them. We had only three rules:

1. Once lights are out, you must whisper
2. Never wake a sleeping sister
3. Stay in your bed

That is what we started with. 

The first night, we got them down too late. They were at my parents for the day, then we were explaining rules to them and they were excited about the new room set up. We decided to shoot for the best case scenario in putting the girls down. A friend (holla Harmony!) had recommended I just put them down at the same time and let them get used to each other. While on vacation, we have always staggered, but sometimes the one you put down first takes a long time to fall asleep and the second one gets down way too late. We agreed that ideally, they would be able to go to sleep at the same time, especially with a baby coming. We didn't want to be worrying about when to put down child number two while worrying about a new baby. The girls talked (but whispered so they followed the rule) for an hour after they were in bed. Then Kaitlyn woke at 6:40 (I was watching in the video monitor). McKenna soon followed. 

They stayed in bed until the light turned green (Kaitlyn has a clock that turns green when she can get out of bed), so that was good. They were both quite emotional that morning--especially McKenna who rarely woke before 8 AM. They were both put down for a nap by 12:30 that day.

With the right perspective, I think it was a good first night. They obeyed the rules. The sleep wasn't perfect. I expected that--that is why we are started 2.5 months before the baby is due. But it is still hard for me to see sleep lost. Also, when you are on the front end of anything, it is hard because you don't know when it will get better. If I knew three nights would be hard and then things would be pretty perfect, I wouldn't have worried so much, but I was worried. I worried if they would ever get it--what were we going to do if the girls stayed up late and woke up early every night?!?!? That would not work once school started. My husband was calm and just reminded me to be patient over and over. One of you needs to decide to be the calm and rational one--that is a must :).

I also had the great advice of many of you who said to give it time, and my friend Raegan even commented to give it two months. I kept that advice in mind while my logical self tried to tell my irrational self to chill out.

The second night, there was improvement. We made sure the girls were asleep early (more advice from a reader!) so that they could visit before falling asleep and still fall asleep at a good time. The both woke around 6:45 or so the next morning.

The third night, I gave Kaitlyn a new rule and she followed it perfectly. Her rule was to ignore McKenna. No matter what McKenna said or did, I told her to just lay there, close her eyes, and try to go to sleep. We changed our "whisper" rule to "no talking"--that is the rule for now. As they get used to sleeping together, we will allow for some visiting before falling asleep, but McKenna is a party girl. She likes to have fun, so if she gets to talk with Kaitlyn, she will. 

I was very happy with the progress this night. Kaitlyn fell asleep before McKenna for the first time that night. McKenna is kind of noisy as she falls asleep (or was up to this point). She had this routine where she needed to sing loudly for a bit before she fell asleep. I was been worried about that leading up to room sharing. That night, Kaitlyn fell asleep and stayed asleep through the singing. Before that, she didn't fall asleep until McKenna did first. That was a huge weight off my shoulders--I knew Kaitlyn could fall asleep even if McKenna was noisy and that meant there was hope this would all work.

I determined McKenna was having a hard time with the light from the sun. The sun goes down so late here this tine of year. It is light until about 10 pm. McKenna's old room is super dark. When we moved into this house, I knew it was the perfect room for her because even as a newborn, she did not nap well if there was light in the room (my other kids napped with blinds open). Kaitlyn's room is quite bright--one of the brightest in the house, which is perfect for her because she sleeps great with light. She kept falling asleep at 9:30 when the light got to be less outside.

The fourth night, falling asleep went well. The girls got to bed late because Brayden's baseball game went until 8:30--which is 30 minutes later than we had been putting them down and we still had to come home and get ready for bed. Kaitlyn was asleep within five minutes. McKenna was very quiet until she was trying to figure out if Kaitlyn was asleep or not and was first whispering her name and then escalated to yelling it. Kaitlyn kept sleeping. My husband went in and told McKenna she was breaking two rules ("I am?!?!?"--she has those things memorized better than I do but obviously needed some application training). She then went right to sleep. Great success! I was happy to know Kaitlyn would sleep through McKenna yelling her name. This was another relief for me.

The next morning was not so great. McKenna visited me in my bed, woke me from some crazy dream, and asked where Daddy was at 6:15 AM. I asked what she was doing and she said she needed to go potty. I told her to sit on the potty (which she did and produced nothing). Kaitlyn was going potty. I was going to tuck McKenna in bed, and I was busy telling Kaitlyn to go back to sleep because it was still night when I realized that wouldn't happen with them together. Just like the sun is up late, it is up early. It gets light in the 5 am hour so by 6:15 it is shiny and bright outside. 

We had left McKenna's bed set up in the other room just in case I needed to enforce some rules. I knew being separated would be a problem for McKenna. So I put McKenna in her old bed and told them both to go to sleep. McKenna was very upset and I told her she is supposed to stay in bed. She fell asleep and slept until 8:30. I knew I had a great power to hold over her if needed, and I knew that she would remember this separation and try to avoid it from happening again. But I was still not sold on the room sharing and that it would work out long-term. I spent time thinking about other options.

The fifth night,  the girls were perfect that night and the next morning! They both fell asleep quickly. McKenna didn't need any rule reminding once she was in bed. They woke just before 7, saw the light wasn't green, and tried to go back to sleep. They never did (light turns green at 7:15), but they tried and that is all I ask. So I was very happy and thought maybe it would work after all.

The sixth night, the girls fell asleep quickly and they slept past the light turning green the next morning. Victory!

Days Since

Things have really only improved since.

One thing that helped McKenna a lot is that I made black-out curtains. Kaitlyn wanted a light pink front and a hot pink lining, so one day I was choosing which hot pink would help with the sun best. As I was doing it, Brayden was giving his input (he has an opinion about home decorating). He told me I needed to use black fabric if I wanted to block the sun. I agreed but wanted it to be colors that matched the room. He then said, "Why don't you just put the black between the two pinks?" Genius! And I did. And the curtains are awesome. The sun is not a factor in anyone waking up nor not falling asleep at night.

Another big help was the placement of white noise. Most everyone with room sharing children seems to stress the importance of having white noise in the room. We had that. Once I moved it between the girls, though, morning sleep improved. 

We told McKenna to sneak out if she woke up before Kaitlyn, and she did, but it always woke Kaitlyn up. One mornnig, Kaitlyn was awake and saw how McKenna sneaked, and we realized why. McKenna's idea of "sneak" is not what the standard connotation of sneak is. She crouched as low as she could put her hands up, and basically stomped out of the room. We all got a good laugh out of that. 

All in all, things have been good. They are learning to sleep through each other's noises. I am learning how to accommodate two different people who like different sleep environments. Most nights we have zero issues. I now feel confident room sharing will work out great. The girls love sharing a room. An interesting thing is that McKenna falls asleep much faster because she has stopped singing to herself before falling asleep. She lays quiet and still to allow Kaitlyn to sleep, so she just falls asleep. Who would have thought sleep could even improve with room sharing?

Help Me Out: Room Sharing Tips

We are on our countdown to when we will move Kaitlyn and McKenna together to share a room. They are 5 and 3. We have never had children share a room before, so I am looking for your tips! What can we do to make the transition smoother and have the most success? Do we put them to bed at the same time or stagger bedtime? What rules work for going to sleep?

Please comment with your tips on room sharing. Thanks so much!