This is a guest post by my friend Andi who has previously blogged about her breastfeeding woes and gender selection.
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There are so many advantages to living in Manhattan with young kids. There are always things to do on the weekends, hundreds of playgrounds, Central Park and all the activities offered there, thousands of classes… I could go on and on. But there is one thing that Manhattan doesn’t have, and that is space.
Currently, we live in a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment on the Upper East Side. It’s a little over 1,000 sq. ft and it’s perfect for my family of four. Of course, having only 2 bedrooms means that the kids have to share a room (and it’s not enough space when we have overnight guests!)
Luckily, I have two boys so they can share a room longer than siblings of the opposite sex. Now that they are 4.5 and 2.5 years old, it’s great that they share a room – their beds, toys and clothes are all in their bedroom and they have a walk-in closet where we store everything. I love watching them play together in their room when they’re not fighting over something. Getting them to share a room was not always easy though. Sleeping arrangements have varied over the last several years, and I can’t remember the last time the boys slept in their room and husband and I slept in our room all night. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s never happened before.
My oldest, Logan, has been sleeping in his own room since he was about 2 years old. We were co-sleeping/sharing a room before that, but I had to move him to his own room when the baby came. To help with the transition, my husband would sleep with him. Having Logan in a separate room was a blessing when Max was a baby. Max would nurse half the night and would scream if he wasn’t fed right away. Logan was teething and having night terrors around this time, so he would scream half the night. Having the kids in two separate rooms prevented them from waking each other up, so that at least one kid got a decent amount of sleep, even if the parents didn’t.
Then came the day when I knew Max had grown out of co-sleeping. He told me, in his limited words, at 18 months that he wanted to sleep in Logan’s room. We had a toddler bed all ready for his use in the kids’ room and he just crawled in and started sleeping there. Although the transition to keeping two kids in one room was not hard since it was initiated by Max, there have been nights when sharing rooms have been a problem.
For example, my kids had a very hard time with teething. When Max was teething, he would scream and only a bottle would console him. So in the time that it took us to heat the bottle and bring it back, Logan would wake up from the screaming. This meant that one kid got moved to Mommy’s bed while Daddy slept with the other one in the kids’ room. There were nights when one kid (or both) have been sick and coughing all night, eventually waking up the other one. This also meant that one kid got to sleep with Mommy. We’ve also had nights where someone has a nightmare and only sleeping with Mommy will fix the problem. Basically, even though they “shared” rooms, Mommy’s bed was there to fix any issues that came up.
We are finally at a place now where both kids sleep all night except in cases of illness or nightmare. Unfortunately, my husband never moved out of Logan’s bed. I don’t think the kids really need him there except to fall asleep and put them back down if they wake up – but my husband doesn’t see them much during the day so he’s having a hard time letting go. For now, I don’t plan on pushing the issue since I get the big bed to myself. There are still nights when one kid cries for some reason, but they are both pretty deep sleepers so they don’t wake up easily. And if they do, Mommy’s bed is always there for them.
I have no idea what we will do if we have another baby though. We may need to buy bigger beds.
Will your kids share a room together?
guest
I also live in Manhattan and imagine my kids sharing a room when I have them. But, and I am not judging, just being honest, I felt sad when I read that your husband and you don’t sleep in the same bed! I really wouldn’t be willing to do that; my marriage is the most important thing. I wonder how to make a 2 br apartment and two kids work without doing that.
pomelo / 5178 posts
I hope to have our DD and DS start roomsharing when DS is around 18-20 months. I’m really excited for them to share a room; I loved sharing with my sisters, and I want my kids to get the same experience!
pomegranate / 3053 posts
I’m always amazed at how parents do it in big cities. I used to live in San Francisco and thought that I would love to raise my kids there in small spaces; but now that I moved East and live in the suburbs I am spoiled by having a big house with enough rooms so that our kids won’t have to share a room. Although, my oldest said he can’t wait until his little brother grows bigger so he can sleep in his big bed with him. I can just see them sleeping together or even wanting to share a room together when they are a little older. Hope you all get uninterrupted sleep soon!
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
We have a 3 bedroom home so if we have 2 kids, they’ll each get their own room! I’m not sure the bedrooms are big enough for two kids to sleep in, unless I get a bunkbed. Then whoever sleeps on top would be awfully close to the ceiling!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@Jojo: I really don’t think that having a parent sleep with the children is a prerequisite for two kids sharing rooms. In my family there were six kid and we all shared rooms! I shared a room with three of my siblings at different times and we never needed our parents help to go/stay asleep. Sure we kept each other up some nights but it wasn’t that big of an issue. We always made up for sleep.
I think that room-sharing is actually beneficial to children and I have no qualms with making my children share rooms.
blogger / pomegranate / 3300 posts
My three boys share a room. One is four years old and two are three years old. There have definitely been times where they kept each other up and bed time is not always easy but the are so used to it if their brothers aren’t around they get lonely. Our daughter who is one has her own room.
guest
Our 3 year old and 6 month old are now sharing a room, and it’s going pretty well so far! Our 6 month old typically wakes up once a night to eat still, and although she cries, it rarely wakes up big brother. When he does wake, he seems to roll over and go back to sleep. He calls it a “sleepover” and is so excited to have his little sister in the same room. He did feel badly one time when he sneezed and she started crying, but they both fell back asleep fine! Some nights we keep the baby in our room (in a pack n play) to make sure everyone gets a decent sleep, but we’re slowly transitioning to them sharing a majority of the time. I never understand when people say that girl/boy can’t share a room very long. At least in our house, all they do is sleep there – playing happens everywhere else in the house, and frankly, we just don’t have space for them to have separate sleeping rooms. Maybe there will be a room divider or tape down the floor at some point, but they will be sharing a room until we can afford a bigger place, and I think we can make it work!
hostess / papaya / 10540 posts
Our kids will definitely share a room. We have a third bedroom, but it’s so small, that it would feel unfair to make one of them use it as a bedroom. Plus, it’s our office space and we selfishly don’t want to give it up. We are hoping for another boy when we have a second child just so they can room share indefinitely if need be.
guest
My two kids will definitely be sharing a room. We 4 bedrooms, so the issue isn’t space. It’s loneliness, on the part of our kiddos.
We are currently co-sleeping with the two-year-old and four-month-old. We have two queens in the master, on the floor, side by side, so everyone has plenty of room. I don’t believe my son will ever like sleeping alone, so the plan is to transition them when our baby girl is old enough to safely sleep with her brother. Then we’ll move one bed out of our room and into theirs, where they’ll be sharing a room for the foreseeable future. We have another room for one of them, as they get older, but I think sharing is beneficial for them and for me. The other room is currently my office.
What’s interesting to me is that my son doesn’t really wake up when my daughter, the baby, is crying. Anymore, that is. He did at first. Now it’s like he registers that it’s her, rolls over and goes back to sleep. She doesn’t do it often, but we’ve all been sick recently and THAT was a mess of middle-of-the-night wake ups and coughing and TV watching that I don’t care to repeat for a while. I like having our guest room available for a parent and child to use if the other kid is coughing/keeping us all awake. But other than that, we all get the most sleep when we’re together, and that’s really my goal right now: sleep.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
I we have more than two kids they will have to share a room because we have only three bedrooms. If we have two kids I’ve thought about having them share one bedroom and use the other room for a playroom/school room/guest bedroom.
coffee bean / 30 posts
We had our younger son at 6 months join his older brother (31 months) and it was/is a complete disaster that we are still paying the price for 3 months later.
Our older son had NEVER come out of his room/bed and sleep was never an issue since being an infant. At one point in the past 3 months, he was coming out of his room 20 times a night! Thank goodness our little guy (now 9 months) is an amazing sleeper. It’s nearly impossible to re-sleep train the older guy at 35 month old bc he shares his room with his brother. We would love to have them in separate rooms, but living in Manhattan, it’s not an option for us. We’re hoping things will get better!!
pea / 23 posts
We have a 4 yo daughter and identical twin boys (almost)3yo. The boys share a room and I hope to have them continue to share for as long as they wish to! (We do have a 4th room available should they want it)
We’re lucky though because they have been together forever and even when one wakes in the night it doesn’t seem to phase the other one.
I think we’re done having babies (twins were a huge surprise) but I sometimes feel guilty… our daghter is always asking when she’ll have someone to share a room with!!!