Encouraging two year old to sleep in crib

[TechieMom]

My son slept with us exclusively for the first year of his life.  Now our little sweetie (who just turned two) goes to sleep with me or my husband each night, then is placed in his crib.  He doesn't seem to mind it, and for a while was sleeping all night, then waking in the morning to softly call for us to come get him.  Recently, he has begun to wake up in the night like he used to, and to call for us between 12 and 2.  At that point, we bring him into bed where he stays with us until morning.  He has always moved and thrashed a lot in bed with us, so in our queen sized bed, nobody gets much sleep when he's there (except him.)  Because of this, my husband has been taking him into the guest room, as there is more space to spread out with only two in the bed.

I miss my husband, and also want to make sure that my son is sleeping on his own before we have our next baby, as I don't think we could possibly fit all four of us in our queen bed.  We've been thinking about moving him to a toddler bed, but we feel like if we don't get him accustomed to sleeping without us before we get the bed, he'll come into our room every night on his own. Don't get me wrong, I love holding him close at night, but his thrashing makes sleep practically impossible.  I don't think he's waking due to pain or anything, since he doesn't cry.  He just calls 'mommy'and 'daddy' until we come.

Does anyone have any suggestions for encouraging him to stay in his crib?   I'm sure somebody has had this happen before, but most of the moms I know have sleep trained their children, so they can't relate.   I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks for your help!

Sleepily,

Shannon

[coffeegirl]

Hmm, tough one. The only thing I can think of that might work is just to not bring him into the bed with you when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night.

You could go pick him up and nurse/rock him back tp sleep (or better yet, until he's drowsy but not asleep) and then put him back in the crib. First few nights, you'll probably get less sleep and might have to do this over and over again, and you may have to deal with him fussing about it as well, either a little bit or a lot....but eventually it SHOULD work. Good luck, let us know what you decide to do and how it works out for you.