[susanrc]

Hi, I need a little advice on what to do w/ my almost 20 mon. DD. She has co-slept w/ DH and I since birth. I am almost 7 wks pg and have extremely sensitive nips but that is a different story. As much as I have been reading, it takes some time to transition your toddler into his/her own bed. I really would like her out of our bed b-4 new baby comes and have NO idea where to even start<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/dizzy.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Dizzy">: I tried the carside thing and it doesn't work for her. We put her crib next to ours but whenever she goes in it she screams something fierce. I think she thinks going in her crib is punishment. I thought about buying a toddler bed putting it in her room so she can get comfortable (in her room) and nursing her to sleep (although I tried that b-4 also and she would NOT go to sleep and finally gave up after a couple of days) That was sometime ago though. I just don't know what to do<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/greensad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="greensad"> She is a very strong minded little girl and KNOWS what she wants and if it doesn't go her way she gets VERY tempermental. Any advice would be extremely appreciated. Thanks for listening<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/smile.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="smile">

 

[hananana]

We bought a twin mattress when I was pregnant with #2 and had it right next to our queen on the floor. DS slept on it. At that point it just seemed like we had a bigger bed. Then after a while we raised our bed up on a frame but left his twin next to ours on the floor. He starts there at bedtime and can snuggle up by me if he needs it, but I won't go down to his mattress to nurse anymore. This has helped a lot. Now quite often he will come up to my bed for a couple minutes in the middle of the night to nurse and will crawl back down to his bed to go back to sleep. It has been a long transitional period from first buying the mattress until now, but we've just felt our way through it over the last year or so. It's working for us.

 

[BathrobeGoddess]

moving to toddlers....

 

[lisalulu]

We transitioned ds into a twin bed at about 22 months. For some background, he co-slept from birth, refused the co-sleeper, would tolerate being in the crib side-car to the bed for a couple hours but would always end up next to me when I got to bed. I thought it was going to be really hard.<br><br>
But I started asking him if he wanted a big boy bed and spent a couple weeks talking about it. We happened to find a book about elmo getting a big kids bed-it isn't perfect because it shows elmo in a solitary crib before but we read it anyway. We took him to IKEA to help pick out his bed. I let him pick out a couple sets of sheets and he helped me put the bed together. This is all in his own room-I also made a big deal about how he got his own room, etc. We did the same bedtime routine but in his new room and bed and he never had a problem going in the bed. Our difficulty has been that he wakes up halfway through the night still and asks for us. I am too lazy to go in and try and get him back down in his bed so I bring him in with us. I think he would go back down in his bed if I laid with him but by then I would be awake and have a hard time getting back to sleep.<br><br>
I have also heard that you can start with doing naps in the new environment/bed and getting them used to it that way?

 

[MissSJ]

We also have a twin bed next to our queen. My dcs are 19 mo apart and I was so not ready to put DS1 in his own room. There is plenty of room for all of us now and sometimes DS1 sleeps on the twin or dh will sleep on the twin and I will sleep between the boys. This summer I plan on putting a bedroom together for them and making the transition. Good luck!<br>
SJ

 

[rightonwoman]

I am also interested in this topic. I am 22 weeks pregnant and have a 22 month old child. Our bedroom is too small to add another mattress or a side car. I love sleeping with my child and think that I will have more problems separating at night than he will!<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/blush.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="blush"><br><br>
He sleeps so well with us, from around 8pm to 7 am and I fear that his sleep will not be so deep away from us. My second is due in early september so I know I should start transitioning the toddler to his own bed soon. He has a full mattress on the floor in another room which he has taken naps in before. I just don't know how to start...<br><br>
ugh, i am dreading this but I know he will get better night's sleep when his brother is born if he is not waking up every few hours for his feedings...

 

[Mihelinka]

I have a 3yo and a 5 month old. We started the "transition" to his own bed late & we're still working on it. But this is what we've done so far.<br><br>
WE bought a futon matteress w/ special sheets & his own blanket (fire engines on sheets, bright red blanket) Toddler bed seemed a waste of money to us, as ds is very large for his age & would grow out of it real soon. Figure the futon will get used much more. Anyway the futon is on the floor next to our bed.<br>
The bed sat unused for a month. Gradually I nursed ds to sleep, Naps & at night on the fire engine bed. Most of the time he ends up on our bed, comes on in the middle of the night. He slept in his own bed all night for 1 night only so far. BUT we are hopeful he will evenutally stay there<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol"><br><br>
HTH

 

[cheeseRjedi]

DD co-slept with us fulltime until January (she was 18 months). We made her a little bed next to our bed where she would go to sleep, but was always welcome in our bed. Pretty much right away, she only started waking to nurse 2-3 times a night (as opposed to 6-7 times when she coslept).<br><br>
When she got really comfortable with 'her bed', we slowly started nightweaning (I got pregnant w/ #2 in February). It was a lot easier for her b/c she wasn't sleeping next to the milk factory. She'd still wake to nurse once or twcie, come into bed with us, and I'd tell her no milkies until morning. Pretty soon she was sleeping through the night.<br><br>
About a week ago, we got her a full bed for her room (which was just a playroom up until then). The first night, she didn't come into our bed until 6am and then every night since then she's stayed there till she woke up <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/thumb.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="thumbs up"> .<br><br>
I think it really helped that we did everything really gradually and that she knows she is still always welcome in our bed.

 

[BonMaman]

Our story is similar to Lisalulu's. We have a crib sidecarred to our bed in which DS1 (now 22mo) slept for naps and part of the night for a while. I would nurse him to sleep in the rocking chair in his room, then lay him down in our room. When we were preparing for DS2 (now 6wks), we decided to go with a twin bed in DS1's room so that we could lat down with him if we needed to and because we didn't see the point of a toddler bed if a twin bed would work (so as to minimize the number of transitions). We borrowed a bed from DH's parents -- the bed DH's brother/DS1's godfather used, so it held great appeal because of that connection. He helped break it down at DH's parents' house and set it up at our house. We started out laying him down for naps in it. Then a week or 10 days later, we laid him down for the night in it. That was really hard. I cried when I went to bed and he wasn't there. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/mecry.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="crying"> When he woke up that night I brought him into bed with us, as I did the next several nights. Then I started laying him back down in his bed after he'd nurse back to sleep (we haven't nightweaned -- even now with DS2 on the scene). There were several nights he only woke up once, and even a few when he slept the whole night through -- something he'd never done before. I was like this: <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/jaw2.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="jaw2"><br><br>
When DS2 was born and we were home from the hospital, the first few nights were as they had been before DS2's arrival. Then DS1 started waking up more. I'm guessing it had something to do with his adjustment to our new reality *and* the incisors that he's been teething for a while. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/dizzy.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Dizzy">: He still wakes up 2 or 3 times a night. A few times he's wanted back in our bed, but mainly he wants to nurse back to sleep and doesn't have a problem going back in his bed. Oftentimes now he'll come in to nurse in the mornings, and during the day he likes to get up on our bed and crawl into the sidecar crib and play around, but overall he seems fine with it not being his bed anymore.<br><br>
We started this transition about six weeks before DS2's due date (but then DS2 was 9 days late). Maybe if we'd started it earlier, the nightwaking situation would be better now, but with those dastardly teeth coming through, I'm not too sure.<br><br>
Good luck!

 

[Eaglevoice]

We just went through a similar thing. DD has slept with us from day one. We never even bought a crib or anything since there was no doubt in our mind that we were going to co-sleep. But we only have a queen bed and as the pregnancy went on and dd got bigger and more mobile during her sleep I realized that it just wasn't going to work much longer because there's no way we could fit 4 in a queen bed. I thought about getting a co-sleeper for the new babe, but I doubt I'd use it. So, we decided to give dd her very own room. We made a big deal about it. She helped me pick out the sheets and we talked about how cool "Katelynn's bed" was. When everything was all set up, we took her into her room for her nap. I laid down with her and we talked about how pretty the blankets were and how neat her pillow was. Then we did our normal naptime routine of reading books and such and she fell asleep and I got up out of her bed just like normal. That night as we were getting ready for bed we talked about sleeping in "katelynn's bed" and she was all excited to climb in. She woke up crying for us around 2am and I went in and laid down with her until she fell back to sleep. I think she woke up again around 5am and I did the same thing. It took a good several days of waking up in the middle of the night and laying with her until she fell back to sleep. But now, it's only been two months and she'll sleep until 7 am and come into my room at that time and climb into bed with me and fall asleep until around 8am. We still have the occasional night time waking, but really maybe only once a week. So, I think if you make it a special thing and a gentle transition it really isn't all that hard.<br><br>
ETA: Early on in the pregnancy I decided to night wean her. I was having a very difficult time with nursing at that point and I felt like she wasn't letting me get any sleep at all. I think the fact that she was already night weaned helped out a lot, because she had gone a few months without waking to nurse already.

 

[dflanag2]

We put DS from full time cosleeping to his own full size bed in his own room at 22 mos, about 2 mos before DD was born. We were very low key about it. One night we said, "let's go to sleep in this bed tonight instead' I nursed him, stayed with him while he went to sleep (our usual routine), and that was that. Whenever he woke up, I would go to him in his bed, and there was plenty of room for my hugely pregnant self to lie down with him to get him back to sleep. Sometimes DH would lie with him, too. Since then there have been a few nights where I have moved from bed to bed providing nursies to whomever requested them <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol"><br><br>
Now, 10 months later, DS still sometimes wakes up in the early morning hours and joins DH, DD, and me in the queen bed, but we have encouraged him to go to DH's side of the bed to crawl in so that he is not close to DD. Some nights the entire family lies down with DS in his bed to help him fall asleep--those nights when it takes HOURS for him to settle down. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/dizzy.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Dizzy">:<br><br>
DS is very big for his age, so we would probably eventually put him in a full size bed anyway. (It helped that we already owned the full size bed and all the bedding required for it, no 'new' sheets needed!)<br><br>
hope this helps,<br>
-dflanag2

 

[angelcat]

I'd say to get as twin rather than a toddler bed, for sure. Crib mattresses (which is what you use in a toddler bed) aren't that comfortable. A twin will be closer to what your child is sued to, and they will have more space.Also, you can aly with the child to help them go to sleep. I've tried that with a twin, and it jsut doesn't work!!