Has anyone moved their older children from a family bed to their own bed?

[monkeybum]

I'm wondering how you do it.

I have a 3 and 6 year old, both of whom cosleep with me (DH sleeps in another room). I really would like to be able to have them sleep in their own beds now - for a variety of reasons I won't go in to. I don't mind if they wake in the night and want to come in, but I'd like them to FALL asleep in their own rooms at least.

I don't mind lying down with them, but there are two of them and one of me, and DH is not home at bedtime. I don't want them to sleep together as my older son is very active in his sleep and ends up kicking my younger son, or hugging him or some such thing and waking him up.

They have only ever coslept and the thought of them off in their own room by themselves to go to sleep breaks my heart for some reason, but yet it's something I need to do.

Any ideas? Anyone moved older children to their own beds, at least for the "going to bed" part? If so how did you do it, what worked, what didnt'?

TIA!!

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

My 51/2 yo has always co-slept with us up till about 6 months ago, we brought in a twin mattress and put in on the floor beside our king bed. Our 20mo sleeps with me and DP in the king and my 5 yo sleeps on the floor beside us. This has worked our really well for us. We don't want him to sleep alone in his own room yet. So we have started a transition....i would like to have the baby eventually sleep with the 5yo. We may need to up the size of the bed on the floor though!
At first my 5yo would fall asleep on the bed with us and my husband would move him to the floor. Then some nights he would wake up and try to crawl into bed on my DH's side. Most nights he slipped right in beside my DH and DH didnt even know it. He's stopped doing that...so it's working out really well now. At this point we say good night and he gets in his bed and we turn out the lights and he falls asleep easily.

[artgoddess]

My 6 year old mostly falls asleep with us. Then we lug him off to his bed. He will sleep through the night in his bed though. He has tried to fall asleep in his bed a few times since we got it for him. I haven't really pushed it but I should because he weighs a lot! He rather me be there, and rubbing his back or at least resting my hand on his back while he falls asleep. I have a few times done the thing where I say I'll be right back, and I leave for a minute or two and come back. Then 5 minutes later g do something else and come back. It works pretty well.

My biggest hurdle is that the 2 year old falls asleep later than he does because she still naps. So it's hard for me to sit with him quietly and help him fall asleep in his own room, when she's coming in and disrupting us.

[Treasuremapper]

Yes. Our kids were pretty old, I think 5 and 6 when they moved out. We have a large master bedroom. So we moved their entire beds into our bedroom. After a few months, we moved their beds back into their bedrooms. The girls have full sized beds so I cuddle up with them until they fall asleep, then I leave.

[mamazee]

Well our dd at some point liked the idea of her room, but was just unsure about staying there all night. What we did was to have dd start out in her room and then say when she woke up she could come sleep the rest of the night with us. Eventually she got used to that room and wanted to stay there.