Lately sleeping in our house is crazy. My 7 yo would be waking me up several times a night with nightmares (really I think she just didn't want to sleep alone) and would have an upset stomach before going to bed. During the holidays she and my 4 yo asked if they could have sleep overs in each other's rooms (really her room as she doesn't want to be in his room). I want him to learn to sleep in a bed (he is sleeping on the floor) and we are thinking of having a third with no extra bedrooms to spare, so I figured this might work to everyone's advantage and let them sleep in the same room to see how it goes. They sleep through the night well, and my daughter's anxiety and nightmares have stopped and he is in a bed, but they are waking at 5 AM for various reasons. My son has to go to the bathroom and wakes her to take him or she wakes up and wants him to get in bed with her. We put a nightlight in the bathroom so he could go by himself. This morning they were screaming at each other because he forgot to turn the bathroom light off. For those that have kids that share a room, how do you get them to be quiet and sleep to a normal hour (the monkey clock that we had broke and had the kids so confused) or do I just call this experiment a failure and put them back in their rooms?
We put a small character lamp in their bedroom (almost 5 year old and a 2 year old, both boys) and have them stay in their room until the lamp goes out. Potty or illness is the only exception to the rule. We have some quiet toys they can play with in their bedroom so they can get up and be awake, just not disturbing the rest of the house.
I think the issue of this being temporary or not, as mentioned by Victoria, might be a deal breaker. Your kids are big enough to understand the concept of respecting the other's sleep. My 3-1/2 year old has learned to respect his little brother (1-1/2 year old)'s sleep when he is the one waking up (no talking, no opening curtains, no touching face or hands). I think you should get them to sleep separately until they understand the concept of waiting in bed until the clock says so. Then when that is fixed, emphasis the fact that they both need to "be good" if they want to share a bedroom. Most likely the little one might the one not been yet able to follow the rules, so if a morning both are up, return him to his room. If after 3 mornings, he is up too early, they are not allowed to share room until one week, lets say. Make sure the rules are spelled out, and that you are consistent. Use a star system and a calender. Soon he will understand what needs to be done. It is like sleep training, version big kids...
I am sure you can achieve this goal of them sharing their bedroom, if you need the space later. What is in your favor now is that you are not yet having a urgent need for that extra space, so you can use that as a tool for the kids to understand that night time means sleeping business!
Good luck.
Put them in their own rooms and figure out how to keep them there. It's really difficult-but if you don't, it will slowly affect everything else-when you go to bed, where you go to bed, when you eat, what you eat, where you eat, when you leave the house, when you get up, when you dress, -Pretty soon, the children will have taken over and you will be bereft of what to do-and quite confused as to how it happened.
My son has bunk beds so I do let them sleep in his room every other night or so-especially when they are off school etc. Kids are afraid of the dark a lot of the time and sometimes need the reassurance of other kids/siblings. It is just a stage and they will get to a point that they will sleep in their own rooms. My son is 6 and my daughter is 7; my son has always had more bedtime issues than my daughter and will still sometimes get out of his room and sneak into our room but it is really a phase and they will outgrow it. I think reward them some way when they do stay in their own rooms but don't make a BIG deal about it when they do want to sleep in the same room. If they are 10 yrs old and doing it, then you might have something to worry about. All the best ;)
We had to put our 7 and 4 year olds in a room together for about 7 months. Our 7 yr old was a boy and our 4 yr old the girl, though. It was never easy getting them to sleep. It was very stressful for me, and sometimes them, but mostly just me. They seemed to be having a GREAT time.
There were occasional squabbles over things, but the going to sleep issues were all b/c they didn't want to settle down and go to sleep, or they didn't want the same song/music on the CD/radio. We were building a new home, and no rental (except the 2 BR townhouse we ended up in) would take us due to our German Shepherd family member. :( Once we got moved into our new home, they went right back into their own separate rooms again, and bedtime got much easier for me again. They STILL like to share space at bedtime much of the time, though. On weekends, they will ask to have a "sleep over night". Or if we have a guest that needs one of their rooms, they will want to sleep on the other ones' floor in a sleeping bag. It is great fun for them still, and they are now 12 and 9. But those nights in a single room were very hard for me. I basically had to "stand guard" outside the room on the staircase for 20 minutes until they drifted off to sleep. Oy.
But if you are doing this long term, they may grow into a more calm routine. Mine knew from the get go that it was temporary. I don't know if that mattered or not. I DO know that they look back very fondly on those days they shared a room. I never had sleep issues with either of them. No nightmare problems, or anything like that. So, if it is less work to get them to sleep than it is to deal with a stomachache every night or nightmares in the middle of the night... then I say give it a shot. Eventually they will want their own space again. So keep that in mind. It's fun while it's temporary... when it isn't their choice anymore, squabbles will be more frequent.
