Sharing a room

It's been almost a week that Brooklyn has been sleeping in the crib in the same room as Hayden at night. If you're curious how we made the transition, here's how we did it:

Brooklyn's been taking her morning nap in the crib in their room for several months, to get used to the crib as a place to sleep. Hayden still takes an afternoon nap so she naps in the Pack n' Play crib in our room for her naps 2 and 3, which sometimes overlap/alternate times with Hayden's nap)

I've been talking to Hayden through Brooklyn's 'voice' and he really likes that, in like a high-pitch tone I say, "Hi Hayden, I love you Big Brother!", "I can't wait til I'm big enough to play with you!", "Good night, Big Brother! See you in the morning!", etc. About 2 weeks ago I started saying "I can't wait til I'm big enough to sleep in the crib all night long in your room with you!" and he responded really well to that idea.

Once Brooklyn started sleeping well enough (only waking up once, or twice at night to feed) we decided she was ready to be in the same room so not to disturb Hayden too often. It was also good timing because neither kid was sick (so no late-night coughing noises or needing god sleep) and we didn't have too much going on during the week if the kids were a little less well-rested than normal and were crabby/needing good naps.

During the day last Tuesday, we prepped Hayden by telling him it was finally the day Brooklyn got to sleep in the room with him. We tried to make it sound positive and exciting and really playing up "You're so nice to share your room with Brooklyn. She is so excited!" He seemed excited too, especially when we told him he got to get ready for bed in Mommy & Daddy's room and read books on OUR bed!!

We get her ready for bed first. While she is falling asleep in the crib (on her own usually, another victory she started doing well about a month ago!), we do Hayden's bedtime routine in our room (takes a bit of forethought to get everything for him out of his room and adjoining bathroom). He loves cuddling on our bed and reading books and singing lullabies in our bed. Then we tell him, "OK, it's time to go to bed. Now remember, Brooklyn is asleep in the crib, so NO TALKING! I'm going to give you a good-night kiss and leave the room and I want you to fall asleep without making any noise." Shockingly, he did just that.

Unfortunately, at 3am, when Brooklyn woke up for her feeding, Hayden got REALLY upset. I think he forgot she was in there and it really scared him to hear her in the middle of the night. It took a lot of comforting to get him back to sleep. Then he woke up again several times, calling out loudly to us to come get Brooklyn, which of course woke her up and made her cry. So Brooklyn slept in our room from about 4am on.

We've continued to do this every night and she keeps ending up back in our room sometime around 3:30am. I keep just gently telling Hayden that I know it's hard to hear her make noises when he's sleeping but that he has to try to pretend he doesn't hear them and just keep sleeping. I think he's learning to sleep through them much better because she has made little noises at night and he hasn't woken up for the past couple nights. I know there is an adjustment period where he has to learn how to sleep through those sounds. We're going to just be consistent and hope it's sooner than later!