My 3.75 year old has been complaining a ton at bed time about being lonely and wanting to come downstairs with us. It's heartbreaking, but also obnoxious because she doesn't stay in her room until close to 9, and I have to be awake by 5:15am which means I get tops 7 hours of sleep by the time I get housework done and unwind (I work full-time and get home between 5:30-6pm).

I mentioned potentially sharing a room with her 15 month old sister and she is really into the idea. My husband on the other hand is not. The baby is a great sleeper. She likes her crib and goes down well. She occasionally wakes up once in the middle of the night very briefly, but I'm a light sleeper and always go in immediately, give her her pacifier and lovey, and am out (the whole thing takes less than one minute). The baby sleeps 7:30-ish pm-7:30-ish am, and the older one sleeps about 9pm-6:30/7am. She used to go to sleep closer to 8, but bed time has been so dragged out due to her being so lonely at night. She really needs more sleep, and not getting enough effects her behavior during the day. She takes a nap at school and sometimes at home, and will often nap for 3 hours on the weekend (at home naps are usually in the stroller because she won't go down in her bed for me; at school is only an hour and she complains because she wants to sleep longer. This will be a bigger issue in a year, because she is young for her grade and will be in kindergarten next September so unable to nap at all).

I'm not super concerned about her waking the baby up, because she does occasionally ask to go see her before she herself goes to bed, and she understands that she can't talk when she goes into the room or else her sister will wake up and sabotage her story time.

The location for the nighttime routine isn't an issue. The baby's glider would go in the shared bedroom and her routine would happen there. The older one's routine would happen in the new toy/reading room.

So what are your thoughts? Do we take the plunge and see if it works? I admit part of my wanting to do this is also based on cutting down the time it takes for me to manage laundry as it would now all be in one room. This isn't insignificant being that I work 40+ hours and my husband works close to 60 hours, so any time-savers are helpful!

Sorry this is long...TIA for your feedback!