My DD is 14 months old and we've just recently started putting her to sleep in her room. We took the siderail off her crib (making it a toddler bed) and put a twin mattress on the floor next to it. The mattress ends up about 5" lower than the crib, so DD can easily get down. I lay down with her and nurse her to sleep and then sneak away. She almost always wakes up about 45 minutes later, I go back in and nurse her back to sleep and then she sleeps about 2-3 more hours. I usually hit the sack in our room (just across the hall) in that time. At that point DH gets her and brings her to our room, she nurses again and then usually sleeps through until about 8am.
She took to this arrangement surprisingly well, and the time between nursing has been slowly lengthening. We started this about 3 weeks ago, and there have been nights where it just wasn't going to work and we just went to bed and brought her into our bed right away.
My ideal would have been to bring either a twin bed or her crib (which had never been used before this month) into our room, but there's no space. We got a king bed specifically for cosleeping, so that was great, but now there's no room for any other arrangement. Our bed is REALLY high off the ground and DH refuses to take it apart (in his defense, it's giant and heavy and would take a work crew to dismantle), so putting her to bed in there just isn't safe anymore, she's SO active.
Anyway, I'd say try something new if you want to, but expect it to be a fluid process- Most nights DD goes to bed around 9pm, but some nights she's just feeling wild and she goes to bed around midnight. On those nights she just comes to bed with us. We're totally going with the flow, she's very spirited and if we made anything too rigid she would absolutely revolt. On the nights I've tried to get her down in her room, when I knew deep down it wasn't going to happen, we just both ended up frustrated and I got angry and then got angry at myself for getting angry, and so on
She took to this arrangement surprisingly well, and the time between nursing has been slowly lengthening. We started this about 3 weeks ago, and there have been nights where it just wasn't going to work and we just went to bed and brought her into our bed right away.
My ideal would have been to bring either a twin bed or her crib (which had never been used before this month) into our room, but there's no space. We got a king bed specifically for cosleeping, so that was great, but now there's no room for any other arrangement. Our bed is REALLY high off the ground and DH refuses to take it apart (in his defense, it's giant and heavy and would take a work crew to dismantle), so putting her to bed in there just isn't safe anymore, she's SO active.
Anyway, I'd say try something new if you want to, but expect it to be a fluid process- Most nights DD goes to bed around 9pm, but some nights she's just feeling wild and she goes to bed around midnight. On those nights she just comes to bed with us. We're totally going with the flow, she's very spirited and if we made anything too rigid she would absolutely revolt. On the nights I've tried to get her down in her room, when I knew deep down it wasn't going to happen, we just both ended up frustrated and I got angry and then got angry at myself for getting angry, and so on
: I'm so confused.
)
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