if you transitioned a cosleeping + nursing 2 yo to nights with dad, how did it go?

[LCBMAX]

And I don't just mean did it go well or poorly, I also mean what was the progression of behavior, time, anything you can think of.

We are on night 4 of dada doing it all, almost a month nightweaned, and while it's relatively peaceful (which blows my mind, but there it is, I guess my son was ready!) there's still lots of wakefulness. For the 1st and 4th night there was no actual getting up, just hourly restlessness and fretful sleep. The other two nights had actual getting up, sleepy boring book reading and one return to sleep, one call for "morning milk" 15 minutes before we had planned. I'm sleeping alone and LOVING IT, and they call me to come in any time after 4 for morning milk. Then we nurse and doze for another 1 - 2 hours. The plan is to start slowly moving that 4am wake up call closer to 5.

So I'm wondering if this is likely to just be the new sleep pattern (and hey, I get to sleep, so no problem - sorry, feeing mercenary about that) or if others have seen this behavior in the early days with dad and then seen it level out to more consistent and peaceful nights. What was your/ your partner's experience with this?

Thank you!

[mom2lucy]

We started this process when DD was 18 mo. old and involved me sleeping in another room and leaving her and DH in our bed. I think that lasted for 2-3 weeks, which went relatively well. She did wake up at night but seemed OK with DH comforting her. I think there were only a few nights where she actually cried for a period of time for me.

I (like you) was totally loving the arrangement and never felt better! Once that inital nightweaning period was over we moved her into her own room with a double mattress on the floor. She actually really liked this and I think took "ownership" of HER bed in HER room. DH still layed down with her to fall asleep and went in during the night for wake ups (which at that point were pretty frequent). I would go in usually around 6 to nurse and sleep with her for another hour or so.

That lasted for a couple months until my milk dried up due to pregnancy and I became too uncomfortable to lay with her at all, and she was now totally fine with DH as the main nighttime person. About 3 months later we moved her into another room with a regular bed and she played a big part in decorating the room, and now she pretty much sleeps through the entire night.

For us it seemed like her sleep really improved as she got her teeth in. She's 26 mo. now and I think she's got all her teeth and she's sleeping well (or at least what I call "well"!)

My only advise is to be consistent and try not to be in a big hurry and your DS will adapt.

Good luck!

Oh, I also noticed an improvement in her daytime behavior because I think she was actually getting better sleep without me, and I was more patient and happy to be with her because I was also getting solid sleep. Win win for everyone!

[LCBMAX]

Originally Posted by mom2lucy

That lasted for a couple months until my milk dried up due to pregnancy and I became too uncomfortable to lay with her at all, and she was now totally fine with DH as the main nighttime person.

Thanks for that run-down, lucymama. In the couple months of your DH doing the main nighttime parenting, did her sleep pattern get more solid, or was that just after she went to her own big girl room?

I'm hoping we can all keep cosleeping once I'm rested up and my son is a solid sleeper. He's still doing well with dada at night, but he's super restless and dada is getting a bit of a work out...

[mom2lucy]

She was never awake wanting to play or anything like that during the night, but she would just not be sleeping soundly (rolling around, figity, etc) and that would keep DH up. I really can't remember how long that lasted, but I would say maybe a month? After that she still had nights like that but it only seemed related to when she was teething or not feeling well.
I had intentions of returning to the family bed, but when I tried it after that first month it was bad. She was even more restless and back to wanting to nurse all night, so we had to make a break.
good luck and it will definitely settle down, even though it doesn't seem like it now!

[jrose_lee]

Here is my experience with this.

At about 15 months we decided to try ds sleeping alone with dh because he was up every hour since birth and I did all the nighttime stuff. I slept in another room and they slept in the bedroom together. By night 2 or 3 ds was sleeping through the night. I couldn't believe it!

However, I kind of blew it at that point I missed my little guy and tried coming back into the bed. Gradually he started waking more and more until he was waking every hour again. Back to where we started! I put up with that until we got pregnant again when ds was 2.5 and then we moved to mattresses together and he was moved over next to dh so I could have some space. At that point he was getting older and starting to sleep better anyway.

Anyway....I think that if we do this method again with ds2, I'm not going to come back in the bedroom with them. They will sleep together until ds2 is ready to share a room with ds1 after he is sleeping reliably well. I'm too excited to actually get a year of good sleep before we start it all over again with a new baby!