When to transition

[letileon]

My 6 month old starting off sleeping in his crib but at about 3 months I couldn't take the constant getting out of bed to nurse, so we are now a cosleeping family. I don't mind it except that at some point I imagine he should sleep in his own crib or bed. At what point do most people try to transition their kids to a separate sleeping space? I am hoping that by 12 months we can make it happen...maybe....

[elisheva]

You say you think he "should" sleep in his own bed at some point. Is this your expectation or someone else's? We are fans of, "cosleep as long as it works for you and keep your mouth shut about it" :) after finding too many people weighing in on our decision.

For us it has gone like this: We coslept all together in a king-sized bed until dd was born (ds1 was almost 3 and ds2 was 14 months). At that point, we tried to transition ds1 into his own bed in the other bedroom and he did relatively well. We felt AWFUL though - here was the whole family sleeping together - except him :( We made our bed bigger and ds1 came back. Then, DH was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and there was no space in our wall-to-wall-bed room for his CPAP machine. We reconfigured the beds and DH moved into the other bedroom and ds1 went with him. That's where we are now. I sleep with the littles and DH and ds1 sleep together. I'd like to sleep with DH, but I know that time will come again soon enough. We're working on getting ds1 and ds2 to sleep together before the next babe comes. In the mean time, I jsut enjoy my snuggles :)

[justKate]

Well we transitioned DD into her own space when one big bed didn't work for us any more.  For us, it was 23 months.  She was just too squirmy, and none of us were sleeping well.  Now she's in a toddler bed right next to ours.  Out of convenience, I don't think it makes sense to move a nursing baby into his own space.  Wait until s/he is older and nightweaned, at least!

[aliciahorsley]

We have a fairly spacious room so we've stuffed two queens separated by bedside tables in. 7.5yo and 6yo sleep in one and DH and myself have the other.  The 4yo starts the night with me and gets booted to the 'kids' bed when he's fallen asleep.  Frankly, it's cheaper to air condition one room and I feel awful about booting kids out when the dogs sleep with me.  And the mess is confined to one room so there's less cleaning if that makes sense?

DH and I love have the kids with us even though they are getting older.  Being able to monitor them when they've been ill, covering them when they've kicked covers off and just watching them sleep is such a reward after a day on running, bouncing, 11 378 questions, 5 meals (it seems) etc etc.  Also, crime has been a bit of an issue in our area recently and I would worry about not being able to get to them should the worst happen.