Co-sleeping to own room - the transition

Sarah Vaughan · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 718

This is me thinking way ahead, as usual - as several people have
probably noticed, I do like to think out strategies for potential
issues/problems of parenthood well in advance rather than having to wing
it when a situation comes up. This has its pros and cons, but it's the
way I do things.

Issue I'm currently considering how to handle: transitioning to own
room. DS is currently a little over 4 months, and the current situation
is that when I go up to bed I change and feed him and put him to bed in
the travel cot (I think this is what Americans call a pack-and-play)
next to our bed. When he wakes for his first night feed, around 2 a.m.,
I take him and lie down on a mattress on the floor with him, and we
co-sleep for the rest of the night. This way, I can handle the night
feedings and still get some sleep, and DS gets a bit of experience
sleeping in a separate cot, which I'm hoping will make the eventual
transition easier. This situation is currently suiting me, DS, and DH,
and will not be changed until DS is at least 6 months old.

In the longer term, DH and I are not too happy with the idea of extended
co-sleeping. We both feel we'd like to have DS sleeping in a separate
room by the time he's somewhere round about 15 months. (I know this
decision will not meet with universal approval, but, too bad, it's what
we're comfortable with.) So I need to think about how I'm going to get
from Point A to Point B, as well as what exactly I want Point B to be
(for example, are we shooting for having him in his own room throughout
the night - which may not be realistic - or whether I'd be better off
planning to start him in his own room and then bring him through to ours
if he gets upset, or go through and sleep in his room if he gets upset,
or try to keep him in his own room for a certain amount of the night and
then bring him through to ours if he starts crying after 5 a.m., or
whatever).

What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you transitioned
a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room to
own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months, I
would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether
you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a bad
idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the
baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?
(And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF, formula,
mainly on solids?)

I figure that if I have a general idea of the kinds of problems and
issues I might face, I can discuss with DH in advance how we will handle
it if such and such happens, which I figure is hopefully going to be
better than transitioning him to his own room without prior thought and
then getting in a big fight about how we handle 2 a.m. wake-up calls.
TIA to anyone happy to share their experiences.

All the best,

Sarah
--
"I once requested an urgent admission for a homeopath who had become depressed
and taken a massive underdose" - Phil Peverley

Archived from group: misc>kids

Mary W. · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 395

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
>
> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months, I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether
> you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a bad
> idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
> interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the
> baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?
> (And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF, formula,
> mainly on solids?)
>
>
Around 12 months, I was no longer enjoying cosleeping with DD1, so
we started nursing her to sleep in my bed then transfering her to
her crib while asleep. She'd sleep there until sometime in the
middle of the night, at which point I'd bring her back into our
bed to nurse and finish off the night. Around 18 months, we could
no longer transfer her - she'd wake up. So we set up the double
futon in her room, got a guard rail and I'd nurse her to sleep
there. When she woke up in the night, I'd go in there, nurse
her and either go back to my bed or finish the night in her
bed. As we approached 2 years, and I wanted to start weaning,
DH took over the middle of the nights. She was pretty easy
about going to sleep without nursing at that point. Eventually,
DH took over putting her to bed, and that ended our nursing.
By 2.5 years she was reliably sleeping through the night in
her own room.

DD2 is still sleeping with us (8 months) but DD1 wants her to
start sleeping in her crib in thier room. We'll see. She
does routinely nap in her crib so we may have more luck with
her.

Mary W.

Anne Rogers · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 4184

So you want experiences, here goes!

We seem to have been doing the opposite of you at this stage, DS was mostly
sleeping in a moses basket starting the night in our room then after the
feed in the middle of the night, I would take the moses basket to his room,
it seemed to get about an hour extra sleep out of him. DS sleeping in his
own room and sleeping through the night for the first time accidently
coincided, I was in hospital and DH put DS in his room and the next he knew
it was 7am, I presume DH had given him a bottle of ebm before putting him
down. He was about 4.5 months and exclusively breastfed at this stage. The
mistake I feel I made at this point was to feed him in the middle of the
night if he woke up, which from then on was once or twice a week. I think I
should have tried to get him back down in other ways, because I don't think
he was waking for food. Gradually the number of nights per week he woke up
crept up and suddenly without really noticing I was up 3 times a night every
night, co sleeping some of the time and taking him to his cot others.
Personally I think we handled sleep badly between 6 months and a year, had
we done things differently we may have avoided feeling the need to do
something radical and a year old. At a year old we did controlled crying and
it was a life saver, took us 3 nights to get him to sleeping through in his
cot, by 15 months he was sleeping through in his own bed (he suddenly
rejected the cot at 14ish months). So we achieved your objective, but it
didn't last, at 16 months it all went pear shaped, resulting in now at 22
months we are mostly cosleeping, the most common arrangement is for DH and
DS to share a bed and for me to have one to myself, to be honest we are
happy with the situation, but as things will be changing at some point in
the next 2-3 months it is something we need to think about, so I guess I'll
be posting my own questions soon!

Anne

Ericka Kammerer · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 7437

Sarah Vaughan wrote:

> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months, I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether
> you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a bad
> idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
> interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the
> baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?
> (And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF, formula,
> mainly on solids?)

My experience, and my suggestion, would be to transfer out
of your room when he's down to waking you once at night (as long
as that happens within a few months of 6 months) to eat. My kids
didn't really co-sleep (except for the times I fell asleep before
getting them back in their cradles), but they did sleep in our room
for the first several months. I think it was about 6 months for #1,
4 months for #2, and 8 months for #3. It was very easy at that point
to move them to their own room. By that time, it seemed like we were
annoying them with our noise at night, and with only one night feeding,
it wasn't as annoying for me to have to go to their room in the middle
of the night. To be clear, they might be waking more than once during
the night, but *I* was only waking once. Often, I'd feed them before
I went to bed, and then they might wake once more before getting
up in the morning. I didn't want to be traipsing back and forth
all night, but didn't mind one trip.
As far as the other details went:

#1: transferred to own room at 6 months
started solids around 4.5 months
woke for a single night feeding until 15 months
weaned at 15 months

#2: transferred to own room at 4 months
started solids at 4.5 months
woke for a single night feeding until 15 months
weaned at 15 months

#3: transferred to own room at 8 months
started solids around 6.5 months
woke for a single night feeding until 18-19 monts
weaned at 17ish months

In all three cases, it was an easy move to make, with no major
fussing. On the other hand, they were good sleepers in general.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Melania · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 986

> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you
transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room
to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months,
I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether

> you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a
bad
> idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
> interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the

> baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?

> (And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF,
formula,
> mainly on solids?)

Hi Sarah,
Here's what we did:
Until ds was about 13 months old, he and I coslept and dh slept in a
different bed, sometimes in a different room. When we were somewhere
with a king-sized bed, we all slept together (we move around a lot, so
the experiences I describe are based on being in 1-bdrm, 2-bdrm, double
bed, king bed, all kinds of settings).

When ds was 13 mo, we moved him onto a mattress on the floor in a
separate room, with a baby gate on the door. I would nurse him to sleep
and then go to bed in the other room. For the first week, dh slept with
ds so that he would have warm, reassuring body there, and to get him a
bit more used to not having a breast available on demand. This cut me
back to one night nurse. As a side note, ovulation returned for me
about a week after this transition, and then I got my period back 2
weeks after that.

We followed this pattern till ds was about 17 mo, and then we decided
to cut out the remaining night nurse. At this point, he was sleeping on
a mattress on the floor in our room (now in a 1-bdrm). I still nursed
him to sleep, but would just go and lie with him and reassure him if he
woke in the night. He started sleeping through about 1/2 the time - and
I often woke up in his bed in the mornings. This was also the time I
started only offering to nurse for naptime and bedtime.

>From 20-22 months I resumed cosleeping with him, because we were
travelling so much that we felt he needed the extra comfort and
consistency - but I still did not nurse at night. At 22 months we moved
him into his own bed and weaned. He now sleeps through the night about
1/2 the time, and the rest of the time turns up in our bedroom at about
3 am, snuggles in, and sleeps the rest of the night there. Dh or I
often move to his bed at this time, which is fine b/c he's in a twin,
not a toddler bed.

He is now, at 26 mo, being left in his bed awake with the assurance
that we are "right outside the door if you need us," and this too has
been an easy transition in spite of him having gone to sleep with one
of us there for the first 2+ years of his life.

We've never used CIO, and we've certainly chosen to introduce new
things (night weaning, moving into his own bed, weaning, etc, etc)
because WE were ready for it, not necessarily because HE was (although
he was, actually!).

So, FWIW, that's our experience!!

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)

Bruce Bridgman and Jeanne · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 310

We didn't really co-sleep in the formal sense - the kids always had their
own space but they were kept close to us the first six months.

In DD's case, she was in a bassinette the first 12 weeks. Then we moved her
to a crib with the side removed and pushed up against our bed. Around 6
months, we decided to transition her to her own room. We put the side up
and moved the crib a bit away from our bed. Then moved the crib across the
room from our bed. Around 8 months, we put her in her own room. It was a
pretty painless if somewhat gradual process. But when she was 10 months, we
moved so we essentially started all over again. She was back in our bedroom
in the crib and over the next two months, we moved her further away from our
bed and then into her own room. She always wanted us with her while she was
falling asleep and several nights I ended up asleep on her bedroom floor.
Luckily she had very plush carpeting in her bedroom.

In DS's case, he was in our bed for the first 8 weeks. Then we moved him to
his own crib and put it next to our bed (but I don't think we removed the
side). Around 3 months, we moved DS into DD's room - she wanted him in her
room and since she slept through his crying and night waking better than we
did, that's what we did. Around 6 months (but it could have been 10
months) DD got new bedroom furniture so DS moved to his own room. We have a
double futon in DS' room so if need be, we can sleep with him in his own
room.

Both kids were still nursing and still had night wakings (DS more than DD -
hence the double futon). Both children tend to be okay if we hold their
hands while they are falling asleep.

Jeanne

Rosalie B. · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 1547

Sarah Vaughan wrote:

>you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a bad
>idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
>interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the
>baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?
>(And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF, formula,
>mainly on solids?)
>
I'll give you another datapoint although I did not usually co-sleep.
My kids usually started out in a small crib or cradle somewhere near
to where I slept, but not in the same room, as my mom felt that if I
was in the same room with a child I wouldn't get enough sleep. They
were almost always in their own bed and in their own room from the
beginning. This meant that if they half waked, and if I waited a
little bit to go to them, they'd often go back to sleep on their own.

They were breastfed until they self -weaned which ranged (4 of them)
between 1 year and 3.5 years. They never got a bottle of any kind,
formula or EBF. I started solids way earlier than is done now, but it
is too late to change that. I started them on milk or fluids from a
cup pretty early too - it was some time before they got any
significant nutrition that way. We didn't have sippy cups then.

The one time I did co-sleep and it was kind of by accident, was when
we were living in a row house in Philadelphia next to a guy who worked
2nd shift. When he came home, he'd slam his garage door down and wake
up my baby (dd#3). At that point I'd take her back to bed with me to
nurse and we would finish the night together. She was about 6 months
when we moved there, and about 14 months when we moved away.

My children were all of substantial size when born (the smallest was 8
lb 4 oz) and they were also sleeping through the night early. I don't
remember exactly when, but certainly by 3 months. DD#3 was usual in
the respect of waking up, and ordinarily I would have just patted her
on the back until she went back to sleep or something rather than
taking her back to bed with me, but I could hear our neighbors and I
figured if I could hear them, they could hear us.

I feel that the night feeds were given up early because a) the babies
were fairly big b) they were pretty active during the day and could
sleep through c) they weren't right with me and couldn't smell the
milk d) they were used to sleeping by themselves. Another factor was
that they all ate really fast - 5 or 10 minutes and we'd be done. I
pretty much let them set their own schedule as I was a SAHM.

grandma Rosalie

kathy.claytor · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 902

I always coslept with my dd, and my dh would sleep in a different room.
Actually I never sleep with my dh as I am a poor sleeper and he is a
snorer. At around 14 months old I transitioned her into her own bed,
but in my room still. My older dd also sleeps in that room with us.
Now, at 22 months I could easily move out of the girl's room and leave
them there without me as it is rare for my toddler to wake at night
anymore, but we don't have another room for me to move into right now
(we're going to add on another room), so I still sleep in the same room
with my dds.

KC

Irene · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 591

Well, with ds we didn't really co-sleep consistently, so I'll skip that
story. But what we did with dd is actually kind of similar to what you
are doing.

We started with the pack-n-play in our room, but she spent most of the
night in our bed, since she's a little snugglebug. Wink

I forget how
old she was when we got rid of the pnp, but then we just started
putting her to bed in the crib in her room. When she wakes in the
night, I'll either take her straight to my bed or nurse her back to
sleep in the glider (in her room) and then put her back in the crib,
depending on how tired I am, how much I want my own space in the bed,
if I want to snuggle with my snugglebug, if she settles down easily or
not so easily, or if I really want to read the book next to the glider!
Wink

So, at almost one year (!) she's in the crib about 80% of the
time, but she is in bed with me most mornings at least a couple of
hours.

Irene

postfromjan · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 81

Sarah Vaughan wrote:

>
> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you
transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room
to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months,
I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether

> you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a
bad
> idea or should have been done differently. I'd also be really
> interested to hear what happened about night feeds - how long did the

> baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did you handle this?

> (And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF,
formula,
> mainly on solids?)

We transition my younger daughter around 15 months. Before that she was
sleeping in our bed. The main reason for the delay was that we didn't
want her to wake up her sister, with whom she shares a room.

One thing that aided the transition was music. I picked a soothing CD
that I could listen to every night for an extended period of time. I
nursed her to sleep on our bed each night. When we transitioned, I
played the CD in her room while nursing her in a rocking chair. After
she was pretty groggy, I put her in her crib. I would then rub her head
for a few minutes and then leave.

That's about it. She would sleep in the crib until about 1 am, and then
wake up. I would then go get her and let her nurse and sleep with us
the rest of the night.

We stopped the night feedings at around 20 months. We did that through
cry-it-out, which I think is acceptable once the baby is over 18 months
or so, but others may disagree. This only took one night (same for my
older daughter). Since 20 months, she has slept in her crib until
between 5 and 6 am, at which point she wakes up to nurse. I do this in
my bed if it is closer to 5 am, or getup and do it on the couch if
closer to 6 am.

Jan

Leslie · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 690

When William turned a year old, we moved him to a mattress on the floor
of his own room. He would start the night there, then I would bring
him in our bed when he cried.

When I decided the time had come to have him in his own room all night,
I started going in his room to nurse him at night. Eventually this
started taking a few minutes only, then I would tell him I had to go to
the bathroom before nursing him and by the time I returned he'd be
asleep.

Sometime around 3.5 he started sleeping through.

I would skip the crib part altogether--that makes it very simple.

Leslie

Cathy Weeks · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 520

Sarah Vaughan wrote:

> In the longer term, DH and I are not too happy with the idea of
extended
> co-sleeping. We both feel we'd like to have DS sleeping in a
separate
> room by the time he's somewhere round about 15 months. (I know this
> decision will not meet with universal approval, but, too bad, it's
what
> we're comfortable with.)

I guess the only question I've got is: Why 15 months? Why not before
then if it seems right, or after that, if that seems right? I worry
that drawing a line in the sand will only set you up for grief.

> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you
transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room
to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months,
I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether

Well, My daughter co-slept in our bed in a snuggle nest until she was 7
months. Then we moved her to a sidecar that we built ourselves,
because she was turning sideways and kicking me and keeping me awake.
She slept in the side car until she was 2 3/4 years old, and we moved
from New Jersey to Minnesota. I was tired of it anyway - she was
rolling into me all the time. (I'm a weenie about having anyone
touching me when I sleep).

When our stuff was delivered, instead of putting her back in the
sidecar, we set up a toddler bed, also next to our bed. It used the
same mattress, but was several inches lower than the surface of our
bed, which meant she couldn't roll into me anymore. We also set up a
twin bed in her room, and 5 months after we moved, at age 3 years 3
months, she *asked* to sleep in her own room and own bed. I set up the
baby monitor so that the transmitter was on her bedside table, and the
receiver by my bed, and on the occasional night she needs attention, I
can hear her, though we've coached her to just come and get us.

My big thing was that I didn't want to transition her to her own room
until she was sleeping through the night regularly. She started doing
it occasionally, but not regularly at age 2. Since I have sleep
troubles, I wanted nighttime parenting to be as easy as possible to
increase my chances of going back to sleep. By age 3 she was sleeping
all night more often than not, and we had been thinking about
transitioning her anyway, but wanted to wait until we'd been in this
house for awhile - one big life change at a time was plenty.

Since this is pretty much NOT what you are looking for, I can relate
the experiences of a close friend. Their daughter coslept as a newborn,
and around 3 months of age, they transitioned her to a crib/cot in her
own room across the hall. She napped there, too. However, in the
night, they often just brought her to bed with them to sleep out the
rest of the night. She's now 21 months of age, and sleeping in a twin
bed in her own room, and when she wakes in the night, she just slides
off the bed, and heads to her parents room, and sleeps the rest of the
night there. I figure she'll keep doing that until she sleeps through
the night regularly, so there's no transitioning to be done. Her mom
told me that when she's caught up sleep-wise, she takes her back to her
own bed and settles her there, but most of the time, she's so tired,
they all just go back to sleep in their bed.

Hope this helps.

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

Sidheag McCormack · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 671

Sarah Vaughan writes:

> This is me thinking way ahead, as usual - as several people have
> probably noticed, I do like to think out strategies for potential
> issues/problems of parenthood well in advance rather than having to wing
> it when a situation comes up. This has its pros and cons, but it's the
> way I do things.

Me too Smile

First a remark: when our DS was around your DS's age he was sleeping pretty
well, maybe waking twice per night. This fell apart when he was about 6/7
months, and we had a long, long stretch of him waking every hour or so (a
night with two two hour stretches was a very good one for a long time).
Turns out that this is a really common pattern, whatever strategies people
are using. So don't be too surprised if it turns out that there's a
mountain between Point A and Point B, though I hope there won't be.

> how you did it, how it went,

We had DS in a cosleeper/bedside cot (3 sided) until we moved him into his
own room when he was around 14 months. We hadn't planned to move him - the
original plan was to have him in the cosleeper until he asked for his own
bed - but I had begun to suspect that some of his night wakings might be
caused by us disturbing him. With hindsight, I think probably they weren't.

We had a double futon mattress on the floor in his room; he was already
used to napping on it. We went away for Christmas and took the opportunity
of the break in routine to make the switch, i.e. before we went away he was
in our room and when we got back he was in his own.

For the first two weeks after the switch we didn't bring him into our room
at all in the night, because we thought that would be confusing. I went to
him when he woke, and if I was too tired to want to go back to my bed I
stayed there after resettling him. He continued to wake on the same pattern
as he'd had before the switch, to our disappointment, except that the first
waking moved back a bit - he had been waking about our bedtime most nights,
and that may well have been caused by the disturbance of us going to bed.
After the first two weeks, our next attempt at a plan was that we'd bring
him into our room on his first waking. However, that didn't work.
Transferring him from his room to ours seemed to wake him up thoroughly and
disconcert him for the rest of the night. So we were then stuck with me
doing quite a lot of cosleeping in his room, like it or not, because I
couldn't cope with lots of treks back and forth. The one thing we'd gained
so far was that we could go to bed with the light on, which I found a big
plus - I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed reading in bed!

About two months after we made the switch, his sleep fairly suddenly
improved. Possibly this was a delayed reaction to the switch of rooms, but
I think it's probably independent of it, TBH. Nothing else seems to have
changed; I think it's just a maturity thing. With hindsight, it might have
worked better to make the switch at 16 rather than 14 months. He quite
suddenly began to be much better at resettling himself, and he began to go
to sleep from fully awake without a breast in his mouth (he'd always come
off before he was completely asleep, but now he'll come off, look around,
smile at me and then go to sleep). He's had a terrible time with colds and
molars lately, but I think once that's all over he'll probably sleep
through regularly. Anyway: current state is that on a good night (e.g. last
night) he'll sleep through from his bedtime until between 4.30 and 5.30,
then I go in and he'll have a long feed, then we both go back to sleep for
another couple of hours. On a bad night, he'll wake at midnight, I'll go
and feed and resettle him and go back to my room, he'll wake again around
2, I'll go to him and spend the rest of the night there. Basically I stay
in his room rather than going back to my own if it's the second or later
waking of the night or if it's after about 3.30; that seems to work best to
get me enough sleep. (My bed is more comfortable but the trip is killing,
so it's a trade-off.)

> whether you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect
> was a bad idea or should have been done differently.

Overall I think it might have worked better if I'd had a little more
patience and left it another couple of months, but I don't think I could
have known that and I'm certainly not claiming there's a magic age for all
babies. I definitely like the fact that he's on a futon mattress not in a
cot. With hindsight it would have been worthwhile to get a good double
mattress to put on the floor instead of the futon though - the futon is not
ideal for my back though DS seems to sleep as well there as anywhere.

> I'd also be really interested to hear what happened about night feeds -
> how long did the baby keep waking up for them, how often, and how did
> you handle this?

Covered above I think. FWIW, though, I don't believe babies wake up "for"
night feeds. Don't know about you, but when I wake up at night, I'm not
aware that I'm waking for anything. I've never understood why babies are
supposed to be different.

> (And what was baby eating during the day at this point - EBF, formula,
> mainly on solids?)

Eating lots of solids, in nursery 9am to 4.30pm ish, also still
breastfeeding a lot when not at nursery.

HTH,

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003

Sidheag McCormack · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 671

FUMOP:

It may be worth saying that many things stayed the same between DS sleeping
in our room and in his: he was in the same sleeping bag, same animals and
blanket around, same bedtime routine, etc. That may have been important: if
transferring from cosleeping with adult sheet and blanket to cot with cot
bedding, it might perhaps be harder.

Also rereading what you wrote I realise that you may not think that babies
"wake up for" night feeds in the way I was commenting on, either - I may
have been reading a suggestion into what you wrote that wasn't there. Sorry
if so, I'm a bit touchy about it, since so many people seem to think that
DS would sleep through the night if only I'd night wean him. I really
don't want to, partly because I've read one too many stories about babies
weaning completely after the mother forces night weaning. (And I've also
read plenty of stories of babies who still wake after night weaning, and of
it then being much harder to get them back to sleep, and my instinct is
that that's what DS would do.)

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003

Sue · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 2818

"Sarah Vaughan" wrote in message
> What I'm after here is not advice, but experiences. If you transitioned
> a baby from co-sleeping to sleeping in own cot and/or from your room to
> own room some time between the ages of 6 months and 15 or so months, I
> would love to hear your story of how you did it, how it went, whether
> you feel your approach worked, and what you feel in retrospect was a bad
> idea or should have been done differently.

DD1: Slept in a bassinet at the end of our bed until around 7 months. She
was then transferred into her crib in her own room. She would usually only
wake up once during the night to be fed.

DD2: Same thing, bassinet at the end of our bed until around 6-7 months old.
Transitioned her into DD1's bedroom in her own crib. Had a night time
routine of a feed, read a book, rock and then put to bed. Both were awake
when put to bed and they fell asleep on their own.

DD3: Co-slept out of necessity for the first month of life, transitioned to
bassinet in our room and then transitioned into crib in her sisters' room at
6-7 months old. They all slept in the same room for quite a while until we
moved and then the younger two girls slept together and the oldest has had a
room to herself ever since. Kept the routine of rocking, singing a song,
read a book and on alternate nights they would have a bath.

All the girls were basically sleeping through the night at around 8-9
months. Due to weight gaining problems, DD1 was taking a supplemental bottle
to bed with her and we transitioned her away from that bottle at around 15
months old. I feel my approach worked well for us. I didn't want to
co-sleep, but clearly DD3 needed it, as she would not sleep for that first
month. I don't think I would have done anything different. I did have pretty
decent sleepers and I consider myself extremely lucky.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)