Sleep training while room sharing
We have two children, ages 3 years and 6 months, and live in a typical Berkeley home with two small bedrooms. Our goal is for both kids to be sleeping through the night in the same room. Right now the baby is sleeping in a crib in our room and the toddler is sleeping great in his own room. The baby still wakes up several times a night to eat, but our pediatrician gave us the green light to sleep train since he is very healthy and doesn't require middle of the night feedings. We used the ferber method to sleep train our toddler and it worked well so we're planning to try the same method with this baby. I have two questions: 1) How have other families sleep trained babies using a CIO method when room sharing and with a toddler in the house? 2) How have other families gotten a toddler and a baby to sleep in the same room? Our toddler is a good sleeper and I'm afraid of the baby waking him up at night.
Parent Replies
Hi! We were in the same position as you, and what we ended up doing was bringing the toddler into our room (a little floor bed w/ his toddler mattress in the corner worked great) while we sleep-trained his little brother in a crib in the other room. We took longer than necessary to move big brother back into their shared room (once everyone was sleeping through the night) but that's sort of on us (and him - he loved being our "roomie"). Good luck!
We moved our toddler into our room for a couple of night. and the baby into the kids’ room. That got us through CIO pretty easily. Once they were sharing a room, the little one would still wake up in the middle of the night on occasion, but the toddler would sleep through it.
We had the same issue with our small 2-bedroom house, and ended up moving the baby out to a corner of the living room while we worked on sleep training. It meant that after the baby went to bed we hung out with toddler in their bedroom, and then adults in our bedroom, but it was only 10 days or so until we were certain the baby was comfortable sleeping through the night. Moving the baby into the toddler room was a breeze, because both were solidly sleeping through the night. For awhile the baby went to bed earlier, then they both switched to having a similar bedtime (but we only have a two year age gap).
Also (unsoclicitated advice, sorry!) I really like the modified Ferber method described in The Sleepeasy Solution - in particular, the book describes a good method to uncouple middle of the night feedings (which can linger for awhile) with "sleep training" (which is typically considered babies learning how to self-soothe and go to sleep on their own without aids. Just another resource in case it's helpful!
We have a 12 month old and an almost 3 year old. They both sleep through the night if they are in separate rooms so we (the parents) sleep in the living room. If they sleep together, they wake each other up. Usually the younger one makes a peep and then the older one starts yelling. We've been trying to get them to sleep together for 4+ months. It was successful maybe 3 out of 45 attempts. Hopefully you'll have better luck.
We just went through this last year with our then 5 month old and 3 yr old. Toddler stayed in her room as my husband was worried about moving her out and messing up her routine since she sleeps on her own well and can be very particular about things - her pillow, blanket, etc (didn’t want to have to retrain her again)
We used our room where baby already slept in a pack and play next to our bed, and did the Feber method over one weekend. One parent took turns checking in on the baby while the other put the toddler to bed in her room, and then we would hang out in the living room till baby was deep in sleep before we could have our room back. We started sleep training on a Friday night and by Monday she was able to soothe herself to sleep. Even though she could put herself to sleep, she would still wake up once around 4:30/5am to feed then go back to sleep so she continued to sleep in the crib in our room until about 7-8 months when she started sleeping till 6am. At that point, we moved her into the room with the 3 yr old and I was always on alert to get her out of the room once she woke up at 6 before crying got too loud (thanks to setting my alarm and babycam stalking). That way she didn’t wake toddler who typically sleeps till 7am and can be a light sleeper.
Now they are 1 and 3.5 and both wake up around the same time and the toddler entertains the baby when they wake up
For bedtime, the. baby goes down first around 7:30pm. Toddler does her own routine - reading and storytelling in our bedroom and then we walk quietly using a phone night light to get her to her bed. She knows to stay quiet so she doesn’t wake the baby up but occasionally she sings to herself in a low voice as she falls asleep, and the baby is yet to wake up!