Co-sleepers: how did you transition LO into their own bed/room?

[HarperCait]

12 mos old DD is a half-the night crib sleeper, half-the night co-sleeping cuddler. Her crib is still in our room beside our bed. We're all starting to feel that the time may have come for her to sleep in her own bed & room. Neither of us (parents) particularly want this, but we feel that she is not getting enough quality rest, and the whole family could probably benefit from deeper sleep at this point.

How did you transition your LO to sleeping the whole night in their own bed, and in their own room?? (Obviously I will still get up to BF her as needed, usually once, but I want her to go BACK in her bed afterwards, lol!)

[lifeguard]

I never slept well with ds in bed with us but he woke soooo often for the first 16 months that doing otherwise was out of the question. Once he reached a point where he was only waking once or twice a night we decided it was time to move him.

We actually moved him directly to a twin bed (with rails) so that I could still lie beside him & nurse him to sleep. It went really well right from the start. I'd nurse him to sleep & then go to him when he wakes in the night.

Depending on the night, how often he's waking, how I'm feeling, etc. I sometimes bring him back to bed with me partway through the night or in the early morning.

[Knitting Mama]

We haven't gotten there yet-- my daughter is only 6 months old and we're all very happy with bedsharing. But, I can tell you how it went for my sister's kids. They are 18 months apart. For all of their lives, they both slept in my sister's bed. When the oldest was 5 and the youngest was 3.5, the oldest decided she wanted to start sleeping in her room, so she did, with no hassle or hard transitions. A couple of weeks later, the youngest decided he missed his sister too much and he began sleeping on the floor of her room. Then a few months later he transitioned to his own room, again, with no hassles. It was truly beautiful to see them make the transition so easily and happily at their own speed.

[SilverFish]

my dd is only 7mos, and is partly bedsharing... we have been doing some work on her room and had some guests over the summer, so her crib has been in our room for about 2 months. before that, she had been sleeping most of the night in her crib, and rarely waking at all. then we hit a rough patch with teething and so on, and she ended up spending most of the time in our bed because she wasn't falling and staying asleep like she used to. having the crib 2-3 feet away from the bed is more annoying than useful... our room isn't big enough, and any small noise or movement we make just wakes her.

now the work in her room is finishing up, and so we'll be moving her crib back in there. i have no idea if she'll start sleeping better... i definitely think having mama in bed is a pretty big distraction.

anyway, my point is that it doesn't need to be a cut in stone transition. it can be as fluid as you want it to be. i will start putting my dd down in her room at regular bedtime...if she needs us to be with her, no problem, she can bedshare like before. but for the sake of my back (today i was woken predawn hanging half off the bed!) and in the interests of deeper sleep, we will be trying to move back to what was working quite well before.

[akind1]

OP: We did what you did - part crib/part co-sleeping, but his crib is in his own room. I was bringing him to bed with me when I went to bed.

Last weekend, because we were painting our bedroom and it was chaos, we left him in his crib (to see what would happen) - DS slept through the night! In his own crib, in his own room. He has every night since, except the two nights of the days I work in the office, because he reverse cycles a little bit on those days we are separated. We started him out in the crib, but he woke around 2 a.m. hungry, so I just kept him in bed after that.

He is 10 months old, and the STTN is about 10 hours. Our struggle is putting him to sleep. He doesn't want to fall asleep in his room, so I have been nursing him to sleep in our bed, then transfering him to the crib.

Can you try doing what you are doing, part co-sleeping, part crib sleeping, but move his crib into his own room, and then go from there?

FWIW, I would have done the twin bed thing, but my dad built our crib and I just cannot part with it. so I have to make do.

[Terrilein]

DD went from sleeping in our bed to sleeping in her crib/junior-bed-combo-thingy as a sidecar, then the crib was moved to another part of the room, and then we moved into a bigger appartment where she got her own room and moved in there on day one. Granted she did come to visit in the morning a few times before she got used to it. Oh, and she was almost 5 when she finally moved out.

[BathrobeGoddess]

moved to family bed...

[Shaki]

My DD is 4 years old now and sleeps in her own bed in her own room sometimes all night and sometimes part of the night. This works fine for our family and she knows she is welcome in our bed whenever.

When she was a baby she co slept all the time. We never owned a crib, we did have a co sleeper but it functioned more as a laundry and book container . In any case when she was three we put a full size mattress on the floor in her room and started putting her to sleep in there. I (or DH) would lie down in the bed with her until she was asleep and then leave once she was out. This is still what we do.

At first when she woke in the night she would call for me and I would go get her and bring her into bed. Now if she wakes in the night and wants us, she just comes in our room and climbs in (which means more sleep for me). So we are still co-sleeping at least part of night with her--even if she sleeps all the way through she still climbs in bed for a morning cuddle. If it was more important to us to have her stay in her own bed all night long we'd probably have one of us walk her back to bed when she wakes up and then lie down with her in her bed until she was asleep again. But as I said we're fine with having her still come in in the night (truth is, I like it!).

Plus I think since she is naturally sometimes sleeping all night in her bed if we just let her do it in her own time she will eventually sleep in her own bed all night long every night. We are cool with letting that happen at it's own pace (Of course if she were still nursing/nursing at night I'm sure I'd be a lot less cool with it-one of the reasons this works for our family is that I get the most sleep this way!)

Hope you find a solution that works for you!

[mamazee]

When she was 3, she started talking about wanting to sleep in her own room. So we started having her start there, and we'd say she could come in if she woke up and wanted to, which she did for a long time, but eventually she started just sleeping through the night in there.

[CatsCradle]

Well, DD co-slept until she turned four years old, which was last week.

All last year I kept asking her: Are you going to sleep in your own bed soon? And she would say: When I turn four I'll sleep in my own bed.

Voila, she turned four and climbed into her own bed and has never looked back!