What age to start transition?

453 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Vicitoria, Apr 3, 2006

SharonAnne

Discussion Starter · Mar 31, 2006

I never ever thought I'd be posting this...

DD is only nine months old. She's slept with us since the day she was born, and we've had some rocky patches, but this past week has been the ultimate. She's been clawing at me in her sleep, pulling my hair, scratching my face, scratching my chest, TWISTING MY NIPPLE (ouch! Not a great way to be woken up at 2am

) The thing is, she's SLEEPING while she's doing this. If I get up and lay down at the foot of the bed, she sleeps well, until she wakes up to eat a bit. Then she falls asleep nursing and the whole clawing thing starts all over again.

It wouldn't be a problem at ALL if I could nap with her during the day, but I WAHM, and have to have regular business hours, because I take client calls. We're working on being able to hire someone else to take the calls, so that I can just do the accounting/advertising and such, which I could really do just about anytime. But, that's a bit in the future adn my lack of sleep is really hurting us all now.

I'm finding myself being very short with DD, not to mention short with DH, my mom, my clients

I really need sleep.

I guess what I'm looking for is this: How young is too young to start the transition out of the family bed...and who has succesfully gone about it and what method did you use.

Sigh.

TIA

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funkyjonx

· #2 · Apr 1, 2006

We had a similar rough spot, but it was around 12mos. What worked for us during the rocky patches is I would wake (or DW would wake me, it's all a bit fuzzy now) and I'd put myself between DD and DW.

DW got a lot more restful sleep, DD seemed to get restful sleep, but I had to pay a little in the bargain.

Would that be an option for you guys? DD only woke a couple times a night at that point, so it wasn't too awful.

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MrsTC

· #3 · Apr 3, 2006

I know it may not be a popular thing to say around here, but if it's time for your baby to go into her own bed, it's time. No one can really say when is a good time for any baby or any family.

A friend of mine cosleps with her ds (2.5yrs) but her daughter, who is 9mos old, sleeps better in a pack 'n' play right by the bed. She's a lighter sleeper than her brother was, and everyone sleeps better if she sleeps "alone."

Another friend of mine's baby coslept with her and her dh until he (baby) was 10mos old, at which time, he wasn't able to sleep well with other people in "his" bed, so they moved him to a crib, and everyone sleeps well that way.

My son, currently, sleeps well with us, so that's where he is. But when he is bothered by sleeping with us, he'll transition to his crib or a separate mattress in our room, and will move into his own room whenever he's ready to do so.

It's not an all-or-nothing thing, I don't think. You have to do what works for you and your family. If you suspect your daughter will sleep better on her own, try it out!

Good luck,
Tresa

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Vicitoria

· #4 · Apr 3, 2006

We had the same problem, maybe a little younger. Ds went into his crib to save all our sanity. I think he slept a lot better alone too. We moved 4 months ago and he has been in our bed ever since with no problems.

There was an old post that was revive here last week and I saw what I had written at the time. It was hard to believe the same person who wrote those words was me but then I thought about what we went through then and stood by every word of it again. You need to do what's best for the whole family. Is your dc really gaining something by clawing you in your sleep?

We did the mattress on the floor for a while. We would lay down with ds when we needed to help him sleep. You will find yourself up a lot at night comforting and it may take a while to get dc into bed but you also get time and space to yourself in the mean time. We still remember the first good night sleep we got.

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