I am in need of some help! We have co-slept off and on with our son. When he was very small he slept in our bed, then moved to his crib no problems for over a year. I don’t mind co-sleeping at all, infact I really enjoy the extra cuddle time. However, I am due with #2 in February and I don’t know how well this will work with a newborn, 3 year old, my husband and myself all in one queen sized bed. We recently set up his twin-sized bed. We thought he’d love his bed - It’s one of those that is shaped like a car (which he is obsessed with cars right now) and we got him new sheets and blanekts to make it super comfy and cozy, he just doesn’t want to sleep there! The only way we can get him to sleep in there is if we lay down with him until he falls asleep, and then he will usually come creeping into our bed in the middle of the night/early morning. Some evenings we’re just too tired and just bring him straight into our bed without even trying his “big boy” bed. I know consistency is key in parenting, and letting him come straight into our bed when we are too tired has got to stop, but does anyone have any other advice to help him into his own bed all the time?
In my experience its about letting them do it in their own time. We started transitioning dd#1 at 2 years old but always let her come in our bed in the night if she chose to. When her sister was born I felt like it would not have been fair to her to say you cant sleep with us but the new baby can. She took advantage for a bit but it wore off and I think she realized she slept better on her own in her bed all night.
Now dd#2 is 2 and we are working on the same plan since we are expecting #3 next year. Again, I don’t plan to force it or make any rules regarding it… [name_m]Just[/name_m] a solid consistent routine and an open bed policy so she knows we are there if she needs us.
Also, we keep our babies in a co-sleeper next to the bed for the first few months. It gives extra space and a little more time for the older sibling to adjust to the new baby. It solves the room in the bed issue for that period of time and hopefully the older sibling will realize he’s not missing a party or anything being in his own bed 
Good luck!
Thank you! I am thinking about getting one of those [name_m]Rock[/name_m] N Play things from [name_m]Fisher[/name_m] [name_m]Price[/name_m] for the new baby and just have the baby next to our bed in that. Maybe DS will realize that baby screams and wakes up at night and his own bed is nice and quiet. I guess I’m worried that the newest baby will wake DS up, and then he’ll want to play or something in the middle of the night while I’m feeding the baby. Ugh, adding a second is scary!
I can’t help I’m afraid! My daughter’s only a little over five months, and we’re planning on getting her in the cot before this baby arrives. [name_m]Even[/name_m] though it makes me feel horrible… I think having a family bed would be nice (when they’re under two), but Husband does not. I’ve started putting her in her cot during her daytime naps, and she sleeps fine in there.The door between our and her room is right next to our bed, and her room is super cosy with stars and a moon dangling from the ceiling and lots of little stuffed friends, so hopefully it will be okay.
I think making sure the room is really cosy is important. Have a nice night lamp, a bedtime music box, read stories and sing songs in bed. Does he spend a lot of time during the day in his bedroom? I can imagine if you’re hardly ever in your room it might seem less familiar, and therefore harder to sleep in… maybe? But, like I said, I don’t know! Good luck!
Our son was sick a lot the first year, so we started bringing him into the bed after 6am on weekends… and somehow I lost control. He’s 5, and won’t stay the whole night in his bed.
I need my space. These babies aren’t getting any smaller. Ideas?
This is kind of what I’m afraid of, too. I have heard of some children sleeping in their parents bed until 8 years, or even longer! I don’t want to co-sleep for that long, no matter what.
My bf’s sister is going on 11 and still sleeps with her parents…I definitely want this LO OUT of our bed by the time she starts school. Since she goes to sleep in her bassinet each night until her first night feeding, I’m hoping once she sleeps through the night it will be an easy(ish) transition. Curious to see if anyone has good advice.
Well , i have terrible experience on that . My brothers even in that age ( 12 , 15 ) sleep occassionaly with my parents !! I found it terrible in that age . I think its okay ( and normal ) to co - sleep until i dont know age 2 - 4 . After that i feel you lose your control . I think sooner the better . But i am not parent so i dont have any advice to give you .
Good luck
Our bedroom is connected with our daughters’ small bedroom. She can close the door, open it or come and join us when she has nightmares. We sleep with our 3 mo son in supersize bed, he also owns his crib. I’m expecting child no 3 (due mid april), when he/she arrives I’m expecting my Daughter to move to the room next door (pretty little kid’s place), my son to be placed in the connected bedroom and the newborn to sleep with us.
I’m with Vitamom all the way. My daughter (22 months) sleeps in her crib sometimes, but will often return to our bed for several weeks at a time when she is teething or having nightmares or for whatever unknown reason. We will be doing our best to transition her to sleeping in her new twin bed before LO gets here in [name_u]March[/name_u], but we won’t prevent her from coming in when she needs to. I’m considering setting up a toddler bed in our room for those nights, so that we can pop her in that after she falls back to sleep. Would you be able to squeeze a toddler bed, or even just a mattress, next to your bed? DD is a wiiiiild sleeper and does a lot of kicking a sideways sleeping, so I don’t think we’ll have an easy time with all 4 of us in the bed. Something else we’ve got going for us is that her big girl bed has a built in trundle, so we may work it to where if she needs us, DH will go sleep on the trundle next to her. That will most likely work best for everyone until the new baby is sleeping g decent blocks at night
[name_m]Just[/name_m] a side note about the [name_m]Rock[/name_m] n Play… be sure to switch the direction the sleeper faces every couple nights. DD developed mild torticollis and a decently sized flat spot from sleeping it for her first three months (used only at night, she spent no time in it during the day). Her instinct was to always face toward me, so she always had her head turned right in the sleeper, and combined with gravity pulling her head down onto her shoulder because of the elevated position, she developed these issues. We were able to get most of it corrected fairly quickly, but it’s worth noting. If you read the reviews on amazon, we’re not the only ones that have had his experience. Sorry for the novel. It’s really a great little sleeper (especially is baby has reflux), but I don’t think it’s actually designed for the amount of time a child sleeps overnight (actually, that was what [name_m]Fisher[/name_m]-[name_m]Price[/name_m] told parents who wrote them concerned about this). Anyway, hope that was helpful instead of just annoying
Please ignore my weird font. I’m having to type this in the notes app on my phone because nameberry is being insane on my phone and keeps deleting my comments!
Okay, I’m probably going to sound very ignorant since I’m not a parent, but if you don’t want your child sharing your bed forever, why do you let them share it in the first place? If you start them out in a crib, then surely there’s no worry about transitioning them to their own bed because they’re already there. If they’ve never gotten used to sharing a bed with their parents then you wouldn’t have to worry about how they’ll cope when they have to sleep by themselves.
I don’t mean to offend anybody, I’m just wondering.
There are a lot of benefits to co sleeping if done safely, such as reduced SIDS risk, preventing post partum depression, etc. it’s also much easier for a breastfeeding mother to just feed the baby right there instead of having to get up, move the baby, soothe them back to sleep, etc. considering a bf newborn can eat every 1.5 hour, everyone sleeps A LOT better. Also many babies will sleep through the night in a parent’s bed but wake frequently in their crib.
My DD recently moved to her big girl bed after 3 years in a cot and we tried to make the transition as easy and painless as possible. It coincided with us moving house and us splitting the 3 kids up for the first time since DD left our room, so we took it slow. I’m also expecting a baby in [name_f]September[/name_f] so wanted her to be able to sleep in her room, without me having to sleep with her or spend a long time settling her.
At first all 3 kids slept on a mattress on the floor in one room, then DS1 moved into his own room and DD and DS2 shared the mattress. At bedtime I would lie down on the mattress with the kids until they were all asleep and then crept out. If DD cried in the night I would go back and lie on the mattress.
Then after we bought her new bed, we kept the extra mattress on the floor in case she fell out so I lay down on it until she fell asleep. This lasted for a few nights and then I sat on the floor next to her bed and over a few nights moved down to the end of her bed. Then I moved to a toy box at the end of the bed, then standing at the bedroom door. At first it was until she fell asleep, but then I began to leave the room when she was calm. If she cried and called to me I came back and stood at the door. I wouldn’t talk to her, unless to calm her down and didn’t give in to her million demands of water, change of jammies, toys, etc.
Then I stood outside the door with her door open a crack so she could see me. Then I said I was tired and was going to my bed across the hall, but would come back if she needed me. This took a few days of sitting in my room and returning to her door to calm her. Then I said I was going downstairs to tidy up. By then she could settle without me, but would still sometimes call me up.
it took about a month, but we can now say good night and go downstairs. She stays in her bed and talks to her brother, but if I hear them get out, I go up and put them back to bed and remind them it’s quiet time. They usually fall quickly asleep. It helps if they’re extra tired when you’re doing the sleep training as there is less temptation to mess about at bedtime. We also have a strict routine for bedtime of jammies, meds, teeth, toilet, story, song and kisses which helps.
We partially co-slept with her until she was just over a year (started in her own cot, but ended up in ours to feed) and did a similar gradual change from our room to sharing a room with her brothers.
Sorry for the essay, hope it helps.
[name_f]Birdie[/name_f] is the first one of my kids to ever sleep in my bed. My older three were happy sleepers and when they woke or needed to nurse I went to them. [name_f]Birdie[/name_f] had severe jaundice at birth and was in a plastic box under lights in the hospital and then wrapped in a light blanket attached to machines at home for the first four weeks. Once we were done with that, I couldn’t make myself put her down. So, she started sleeping with us and we would move her to the crib when she was asleep and bring her back in our bed several times a night for the past 15 months. I’m tired!!! Recently, we got a toddler bed and put it in the sitting room of our bedroom across from her crib. It takes a while to get her to sleep - I have to sit next to the bed, but I think she has already realized that she sleeps better there. [name_m]Even[/name_m] if she wakes up in the night, she just sits up and I can tell her to lie down and she does! She doesn’t get out of the bed until my husband’s alarm goes off at 6 and then she just toddles right over and we cuddle for a while before we start the day. I am AMAZED at this transition and crossing my fingers that it continues to go smoothly. I am not planning to put the new one in our bed - I’ve missed being in that spot next to my husband and I’m hoping this one likes to sleep. We’ll see.
@sarahmezz - some people decide to co-sleep and it is very deliberate for good reasons. Some people (like me) end up co-sleeping because of circumstances or not feeling strongly against it and then are ready for it to end Some people feel strongly that it is not right for them and never let it start. Lots of things happen this way in parenting - I had very strong feelings about food for my children and they are all adventurous eaters, my [name_m]SIL[/name_m] would marvel at the things my kids would eat. But she has a need for her house to be orderly and I would marvel at the way her children would put away toys and clean up after themselves, while one of mine was born a bit type A and the other two are walking tornados! Kids are all different and have their strengths and weaknesses, but the parents’ hot buttons are usually evident!
It’s not the same for everyone. I have a friend who very much wanted the family bed. They have slept with their daughter since she was born. When her little brother came along, the 20 month old wasn’t ready for her room. So the baby slept in a bassinet at night next to the bed and squeezed in during family naps. It works for them. But the baby is now sleeping in his crib alone overnights while they are trying to move his big sister into her bed.
I never intended to have a family bed, and given the opportunity, I wouldn’t.
I had a beautiful nursery set up for our son. And he slept in his crib overnights, waking every 2-3 hours to eat and be changed, for what felt like forever. And he napped there when home. We had no issues.
When [name_m]Weston[/name_m] was 11 weeks old he got very sick. And he had to be propped up to sleep. So we moved him into our room, and he slept in a car seat that we had waiting for him to grow into. Since he had a hard time breathing, we were up constantly. And since I couldn’t have him on the monitor, I never slept. We were exhausted. On weekends, after the 5 or 6 am feeding, he came into our bed to cuddle and play, and then nap 1 began. Eventually he went back to his room on and off as health dictated, but he never slept overnight in our bed.
We moved when he was 20 months, downsizing from a house to a small apartment. We converted his crib to a day bed. He kept falling out. He hated his room, it was too loud, etc. He kept coming to our bed. It got to the point when we were exhausted again. My husband reverted to his military training, and slept through everything. we’d go to bed with our son, but no one would wake up to move him to his room. We tried decorating his room in new stuff, we moved to a twin bed, and redid the whole room again… he would not sleep or even play in that room.
We’ve moved again this past [name_f]May[/name_f]. He has a nice room. He won’t stay in there. He wakes up crying and comes into our room. Now that my pregnancy is even more obvious, he is more attached to me than ever. He doesn’t want to sleep alone. We’ve tried everything.
I need more room. This weekend, we are moving the desk and spare tv into his room (something I never wanted to do.) But he is insisting that he is going to share a room with the babies when they come, so we’re putting a twin bed in their room, just in case. And adding a double to his room for company. I am hoping that the tv will keep him in his bed. It’s sad but true. I will try anything to get my bed back.
these poor new babies will never get cuddle time in our bed. I’m not risking it again.
Thank you all
malk - very good advice and this is what I need to try, I just feel like with this pregnancy I am so tired that everything is hard for me to do. I guess I’ll either have to suck it up and keep co sleeping, or suck it up and start sleep training!
We started cosleeping with our oldest when he was a few months old. He “self weaned” from our bed around 5-6 and now at 11 he only comes into our room when the AC stalls out in the middle of the night and he gets hot. 
I never pushed him into his own room when B came along…he was less than 2 and it was a smooth transition I believe because we allowed him to “continue life as usual”. Same goes with everyone else, we got a king sized bed and people just slept along side us until they were ready not to do so. Vio is with us half the time and the other half she is with [name_f]Bronwen[/name_f]. We technically have 5 bedrooms (one is a home office for DH now though) and the older 3 have their own rooms. We do have a cosleeper set up, but Vio is the one who is in that when its used. Originally got it for the baby, but Vio likes making a “tent” in there so Wolfie is in bed with us.
My own personal phrase I like to refer to is “childhood is a journey, not a race”, I think this in many aspects of their upbringing and my parenting. I am all about guiding them into what is best for everyone, but, also letting them get good sleep and for my kids, in our room up until they were “done” with it has brought everyone the best sleep. Tonight as I type this, my older 3 are in their own rooms snoozing away, no issues falling asleep, staying asleep, or sleeping without us present. [name_f]Every[/name_f] family does what works best, and for us, cosleeping has been a wonderful thing for everyone and continues to be for our littlest two for now. These days will pass quicker than you know.
The key for success is a very gradual transition. I have read that when you go from allowing your child to sleep in your bed, to kicking them out essentially with NO exceptions, the family bed becomes that alluring thing they aren’t allowed to have. THAT scenario is often what leads to a kid who never wants to leave.
[name_m]Bear[/name_m] in mind, I do not speak from experience. I am planning to begin this “weaning” soon but haven’t yet started with our 22 month old. We are going to pull his bed to the end of ours so they are basically connected. This way, when he wakes up he can climb right into bed with us. Then, I will gradually move the bed further away. Eventually, into his own room. At first, I will lay on a mattress next to him and leave when he falls asleep. After a few nights of that, sleep in my own bed with an open door policy.
Try to make their bed seem as wonderful as can be. Get the comfiest blankets, favorite toys. Maybe make a game out of it. “Oh you have the softest, nicest bed! I think Mommy will sleep here tonight. Or is this your bed?” Depending on reaction, you could suggest “well maybe we can share at first then you can have it all to yourself.” Depending on the age (and stubbornness), try to figure out the best approach to your child’s emotions, since that is what it boils down to. Try your best to make it fun without ultimatums. You could use a reward system, too. Get creative! Search online - there are quite a few good co-sleeping resources.
I think your argument is a bit strange. It seems to be logical at first but why would you let your child do ANYTHING you don’t want them to do forever? Wear a diaper? Suck a pacifier? Drink out of a bottle? Eat in a high chair? Breastfeed? Many things that children do are a phase that ends. If you ever become a parent, you may find yourself stuck in a similar predicament: there are parts of a parenting choice you love and parts you could live without. Many women hate the baby’s dependence on her for breastfeeding, but do so because of the health benefits. Many parents dislike the environmental impact of disposable diapers but love the ease of use. And there are a million more examples.
Being a parent is a funny thing because it is nearly impossible to be completely “logical.” [name_m]Even[/name_m] if it were, there is gray area in every parenting choice. Each choice comes with a negative. Cosleeping is just another one of those choices. Many parents love the ease of cosleeping - it is the first time they get a full night’s sleep, nursing is easier, and there is less to worry about with your baby right next to you. This doesn’t even touch on the potential health benefits. Yet despite all these pro’s, sometimes there are cons from the beginning or ones that develop. For example, as the baby grows, he begins kicking one parent in the back at night. This is not a cut and dry issue so hopefully I gave you some ideas to think about!!!