Does newborn wake up older child while co-sleeping?

[Headmeister]

I'm newly pregnant and I've already started to dread the idea of change with sleeping arrangements. We co-sleep with our 14mo. We started out with an Arms Reach co-sleeper and then she went into our bed, but we added a side-car'd crib to my side for extra room. Just recently we put the other side back on her crib that's side-car'd to our bed in preparation to get her used to sleeping in her own space (to allow as much time as needed). It's been working ok so far and I will usually pull her into bed at some point (because she's teething and up a handful of times a night right now), but I have a feeling that eventually she'll be ok in her own crib/bed.

My problem is that I never thought I'd have to move her out of our room right away, but with a new baby on the way, how on earth will my DD ever sleep though the crying newborn? Fact is, she won't.

How did you transition your co sleeping arrangements when a new baby came into the picture? What are your sleeping arrangements now with multiple children?

Thanks so much for the input, it's greatly appreciated!

[Headmeister]

Has anyone here co-slept with a toddler and a newborn together in the same room before? Anyone? Anyone? Buhler? Buhler?

[pixiekisses]

Yeah, we do. It's fine. With co-sleeping, the one sleeping next to the baby wakes up before she starts crying bc we wake when she starts to wake up. So we get food into her before any crying takes place. That's the beauty of co-sleeping.
If the baby is up and crying for some other reason (like just being uncomfortable, gas or something) we take her out of the room to walk her around rocking her anyway.
The first few nights, everyone has to get used to the new sounds from the new person sleeping there, but then we all sleep wonderful again.

[Katie T]

ditto to what the pp said. We did it with no problems

[Peony]

I done it twice. The first time it was fine, the second time it was a disaster. DD1 could sleeping through a freight train coming through the house, she never once woke up with DD2 in the same room. I did have them in separate beds because DD2 was on O2, I was tangled up enough in the tubing!

When DS was born, we had both DD1 and DD2 still in the room, the later one being 2 at the time. DD2 is a *very* light sleeper, I swear she wakes up if someone farts in the bathroom downstairs. We tried the same bed, in another bed, we spent weeks trying all sorts of things, we've always slept with a loud white noise machine in the room. The problem was the combination of DD2 waking up at everything and DS being the loudest baby I have ever heard. He snorted at everything, just not little baby snorts, but you would of thought there was a hog in the room! He snorts the entire time while eating, every single time he woke up, he'd wake DD2 up. We ended up moving DH and DD2 downstairs to another room. DD1 stayed up with me. We still have the same set up, while DS at 7 months, is a little quieter now, he is still noisy, and DD2 still wakes up at everything.

[Daffodil]

DD was 3 and sleeping in my bed or right next to it when DS was born. None of the noise he or I made when he woke up at night was a problem for DD. She normally slept right through it.

[Drummer's Wife]

It really depends on the LO's. When we were co-sleeping with a toddler and newborn I don't recall the baby waking up my 2 yo constantly. No one really cried in the middle of the night b/c they were both nursing, and I could easily calm them if they started to wake and fuss by nursing.

I think maybe that's the trick if you have a light sleeper -- try to keep the awake one from screaming. I might have had to take the baby out of the room elsewhere for a while if he was upset, but I don't recall it being a frequent issue.

[mommy amber]

we sleep with our 2 in the same room.
when ds was born, dd was in a sidecar-crib arrangement and ds was b/w dh and I.
dd did wake when ds was having a hard time (he had awful gas issues as a nb) for the first few weeks but then adjusted.
now she is in a bed side-car-ed to our bed and rarely wakes when ds has trouble at night...

[acupuncturemomma]

I slept on the couch in the living room with DS for the first 2 months because he was too noisy and would wake up DD (we only have one bedroom). He would just be up and fussy and it would take too long (1-2 hours) to get him back to sleep. Now that he's in more of a rhythm we are all back in bed together!

[FreshDidysOnLine]

I am actually having the opposite problem right now. My 2 1/2 yo sleeps in her own bed at the foot of our bed and our 3 month old sleeps in a side-car crib cosleeper. I want to put the baby down around the toddler's bedtime, but if we all go to bed together, the toddler wants to talk and talk and talk and it wakes up the baby. I'm so frustrated right now.

And when the baby wakes up, I have to pop my boob in her mouth quickly because I'm afraid of the toddler waking up.

[confustication]

14 month old ds woke up for a copuple weeks (his crib is in our room- right beside my bed, but not sidecar-ed) after we brought DS 2 home. When we didn't make a huge issue of it, he learned to sleep though the noise and my coming and going with the baby in the middle of the night.

Our only issue at this point is that I tend to come back from the marathon nursing session on the couch (once a night the little one will not tolerate sidelying nursng, so we head to the couch for a bit) at about 5am, and DS 1 wakes for the day at that time.

[wbg]

We never had any issues. I had a newborn and a 2 and 3 yr old sleeping with us and it all worked out. With #4, she tends to wake up the eldest as there is now a significant age gap. When that happens, he just gives me a cranky groggy look, says something soothing to the baby and then passes right back out!
In return, on the rare mornings that baby decides to sleep late, his constant "mum, can I please play the computer yet?, can you come downstairs yet?" seems to balance out the who woke who karma up!! He will just keep at it until baby wakes up and we all go downstairs!!