A little less "Family" in the bed would be nice!

[wagz]

Just found out last week that I'm expecting #3 in September, and that's motivating me to start thinking about changing sleep habits around here.

My 6 year old DS comes into our bed most nights, usually between 1 and 3am.  DH then goes up to DS's bed and sleeps alone the rest of the night.  This arrangement has worked pretty well for us for years and we really haven't been motivated to change it.

 But DH doesn't sleep all that well to begin with, and I'm sleeping less well now that I'm knocked up again so I'd really like DS to just stay in his bed for the whole night and let us all have a bit more peace.  I'm pretty exhausted these days so a good night's sleep would really help!

I'm also thinking ahead to when the new babe is here, and knowing I really would rather not be co-sleeping with an infant and then-7 year old.  Seems like if we can get DS solidly in his own bed now, the new-baby transition will be all the easier this fall.

Any ideas or experiences getting an older kid to finally solidly transition out of the family bed?  Thanks mamas!

-Maggie

[MarineWife]

I was coming on here for almost the same thing. We've got our 7yo and 3.5yo in bed with us all night every night. We've tried a few times to get them to sleep in their own beds in a shared room. In order for them to fall asleep in there we have to lay down with them until they fall asleep. That means that we usually fall asleep and wake up 30-60 minutes later and stumble into our own bed. At some time during the night, 7yo ds wakes up and climbs in bed with us, sometimes waking 3.5yo ds up and sometimes not. 3.5yo ds is better at sleeping all night in his bed but he still wakes up crying sometimes. We gave up on that because none of us were getting a good night's sleep with all that bed hopping.

We're now expecting #4 in July/August. I'm not comfortable with having 7yo ds, 3.5yo ds and a newborn all in the same bed. The main problem is that both of them insist on sleeping next to me. If I let that happen, then the baby would be next to one of the boys. I am not comfortable with that at all. I have tried to get 7yo ds to agree to sleep on the other side of his brother but he won't have it. My dh will be gone for the first 7 months or so after the baby is born (plus the last 5 months before baby is born) so having him sleep with the boys in their room won't be an option, either.

I'm not sure what to do.