Co-slept until 2 now in big girl bedroom...need advice!

[FrenchMama]

To start from the beginning, we have never really let our 2 year old daughter cry at night. So everytime she woke up when she was in her crib, I would just pick her up and take her to our bed. Even though I don't think that I couldn't have let her cry for too long, a big reason for that was the fact that we both work full time and...well we need sleep.

When she turned 2, in July, we moved her to what she calls her "Super Hero Bedroom" which has a full bed. I am pregnant , so I would just lay down next to her to get her to fall asleep and most time, just stay there all night. Since I am due to give birth on Nov. 1st, we decided that it was time to try and get her to spend the whole night alone. On Thursday it will be 3 weeks since we started a new routine; I lay down next to her until she falls asleep and then leave. When she wakes up, i usually go make sure that she can find her pacifier (yes....we need to get rid of that thing!), and then I leave.

At first it was really hard for her to fall back asleep on her own, because she is used to falling asleep while rubbing our ears. I would just sit next to her bed, push her hand away and tell her to go to sleep. It seems like she is getting used to not having to rub our ears anymore, but she starts screaming when I leave her room. If I sit or lay on the floor and I just make a sound to show her that I am right there she falls back asleep, but if I leave the room and tell her from my room, which is really close, to "go back to sleep, Mama is right here", she gets upset and after a while starts to cry until we go in. Lately she has been waking up at 3.30am and after I get her to fall back asleep, which take forever if I keep leaving her room, she sleeps until around 8am.

I am not sure if anybody has done what we are doing and could give us some advice. I thought that giving her a stuffed animal to sleep with would help, but she couldn't care less about it. Should I keep going in and sitting quietly in her room and hope that one of these days she just won't wake up and sleep through? I am 35 weeks pregnant, so I am exhausted!!

Any word of advice would be much appreciated!!

Thank you!!

[HappyMonkey]

I just wanted to say good on you for starting this now. We didn't and our 22 month old was a wreck with two in the bed. I had to move to a different room with the baby and overnight night wean.. it was so hard! She adjusted well... but I wish I had done something when still pregnant.

[FrenchMama]

Thank you HappyMonkey! I am happy with the last 2 nights; The night before last she was "mad" at me when she woke up and I went to check on her and just pushed me away! And last night, I went into the room  when she called for me and she didn't even move and just fell back asleep until the morning. We are getting somewhere. I might actually get a month of not having to get up in the middle of the night...until i have to start all over again!! :-)

[Learning_Mum]

Do you not want her in your bed anymore? DS1 would start the night in his bed and then if he woke up during the night (or rather when he did) he would just come in to our room and climb in to bed and go back to sleep. He's 6yo now and has been sleeping in his own bed for a long time. They will grow out of it.

[FrenchMama]

We won't have room, with a newborn coming in a month, in our Queen bed for the 4 of us! We are not what you would call petite size people!! :-)

[dosergirl]

I don't have advice but I am not even right there with you, a little behind. I am pregnant with our second and actually overdue at this point and our 2 year old is still in bed with us. We moved about a 1.5 months ago and just got her big girl room and bed set up, but she has yet to sleep there. We take naps together in the family bed and she still sleeps with us. At this point, I think I am just scared to make the jump to her in her own bed and if I don't, I'm not sure what is going to happen when the baby comes (any minute now).

So, at least you started the transition!