My 5 Top Tips for Room Sharing
5 TIPS to Room Sharing!
There are multiple reasons why you might need to have more than one child in a bedroom. Perhaps you are moving houses, you are anticipating the arrival of a new baby, you have a house guest, or you are travelling. Here are my 5 top tips to having a smooth bed sharing experience!
1) Talk About It. Whatever you do, prepare your children with age-appropriate conversation about the exciting plan to share a room. Best honest with them. If it’s for a few days or forever. Let them roleplay with dolls or toy and talk about it when they are calm and happy during the day. Do you not leave it till the bitter end and tell them during the bedtime routine as this change could result in an unnecessary tantrum.
2) Stuffy and Bedding. Ensure each child has something from their original bed whether it be a stuffy, pillow or blanket. Having something that is familiar in an unfamiliar situation can help decrease anxiety with change.
3) Appropriate light. Assuming the children are different ages, ensure there is an appropriate amount of light or darkness. I always recommend blackout curtains and a dark, dark room but inevitably as toddler’s imaginations grow, some develop fears of the dark. If your child is struggling with a fear of the dark, I highly recommend a nightlight. This is preferable to leaving a bedroom door open with the bathroom light on as fire safety recommends closing all doors at night. For instance, my 5-year-old needs the closet light on but my 3-year-old sleeps in the dark. I was able to discuss this with the 5-year-old and we compromised with a smaller amount of light coming out of the closet.
4) Bedtime. Honour their appropriate bedtime. If a child usually goes to sleep at 7:30 and one at 8:00, continue with your routine. Ideally a child falls asleep in 15 minutes, allowing the next one to sneak in and go to bed. It’s not uncommon for the children to disrupt each other’s ability to fall asleep with talking and joking so that’s why I suggest the staggered bedtime still.
5) Allow some time for adjustment. Children need to time to adjust and can usually do so after 3 days/nights. If they don’t adjust right away, give them some grace, sometimes what we see as a simple change can be a huge deal to a child.
Let me know how bed sharing goes in your household!