For those who co-slept, when did your LO start consistently sleeping in own room?

[MindUtopia]

Basically, if you've co-slept, particularly long-term, I'd love to hear when your LO made the transition to sleeping all night in their own rooms happily and how you made that happen?

Our daughter is just over 2. We have bedshared from birth, though she did have about 7 months (from 13-20 months old) when she slept most of the night in her own room, usually just coming in to us in the early mornings (5/6am) or if she was sick or teething. We went through a rough time with sleep around Christmas and since then she's been back sleeping with us in a big family bed all night every night.

Most days I actually really enjoy it, believe it's really beneficial for her, and it's made a huge difference in how functional I feel at work as I'm getting more sleep (like I said, most days). But some days, like today, I wonder if we really shouldn't be encouraging her to sleep in her own room. She was up, running around our room, tossing and turning, taking her socks off, wanting them back on, generally kicking me in the back for 3 hours last night. I'm exhausted today and just generally feeling a little disgruntled that she isn't one of those 2 year olds who just goes to bed and we all sleep well (and separately!) until we see each other again in the morning.

Realistically, we do plan to TTC at the end of this year/early next year, and at this point, we barely have the time to 'practice' because we just rarely have any alone time and certainly not in our own bed. Plus, we don't have the space to safely bedshare with two. So some point in the next year, she's going to have to transition to sleeping in her own room. I'm not sure I'm really in a hurry to do it (well, today I am! but it's because I'm tired). But just wondering at what age it happened smoothly and stuck? Obviously, we've done it before, but then life happened and we were back to co-sleeping. And how did you do it with a toddler? Last time, we put a mattress in her room and slept there, either with her or next to her, until she started sleeping better all night.

 

[misspriss]

I feel your pain, DS was up last night too. Granted not running around the room, but climbing all over the pillows, laughing and giggling...kicking me in the back, boobs, face....everywhere! He just turned 2, we have cosleep from the early days.

I am also due shortly with my 2nd, we just bought a new king sized bed so we can safely bedshare with both. Let's just say new baby was NOT conceived in the family bed (nothing raunchy, it was the guest bed which is now the bed in DS's room that he neither sleeps or naps in...). DS can get out of bed, but not back in (too tall) so he doesn't get up and run around the room at night (yet).

He is one of those good 2 year olds most nights, but every so often we have one like last night. DS still wakes to nurse, so I can't see moving him soon. I was hoping he'd drop it as is comfort nursing now without milk, but I want to tandem nurse so I haven't stopped it. I have no idea how he will react when there is milk there again, or if it will be difficult if he has to wait on a newborn at night (since they will be on separate sides of me).

 

[Odd Socks]

DD2 co-slept with me until she was 2.5. She moved into DD1's room unexpectedly one weekend when the futon DH had been sleeping on finally gave up, leaving him without a bed. She's slept fine in her own bed ever since, & even started sleeping through!

 

[Casey3]

We moved him to his own room the week after he turned 3. He looooves his own room and has slept better there for sure but still requires I sleep with him half the night lol. We are night weaning now so I'm hoping that encourages more sleep too

 

[Bevziibubble]

We are still co sleeping at 3 years old, but we are setting her room up for her soon and seeing how she gets on in there. She is extremely scared and needy in the night, so I think that it will be a long journey for us.

 

[OmarsMum]

DS moved to a mattress in our room few months back, he asked to move, he wants to move to his own room, but as he moves a lot while sleeping and his bed is high, we didn't move him yet. He's been asking for a new bed and we are looking for a low bed with rails.

 

[SarahBear]

Violet is just about 2.5 and bed-shares still. Violet, Leo, and I sleep on one mattress ("full"sized mattress) and my husband sleeps on a twin mattress that is pushed up against it. The set up is that I'm between Violet and Leo to keep Leo safe from Violet. Additionally, Violet is the one near the crack to avoid the baby being near an entrapment hazard. It's also generally considered safer for a baby to not be right next to the father.

 

[Angelbaby_01]

From about 2 and a half years.

 

[Cangaroo]

We moved house when DD was coming up to 3 and set her up with a lovely bedroom, complete with "princess palace bed". She didn't want to move at first, and she didn't push. One day, when she was a month or two over 3, she asked for her princess palace bed at bed time and has gone to sleep in her own room ever since. She wakes most nights, still, but trots through to join us without even waking us most of the time. We co-sleep with DD2 and I expect her to choose to move into DD1s room sometime after she's 2. We have a room for her if she wants her own room, but I expect to have siblings who chose to co-sleep with each other.

 

[Sbmack]

I'm pregnant and getting bigger. While I love the cuddles, sometimes it's just to much and I don't sleep well. I also like to use a pregnancy pillow once I reach a certain stage. Because of these things we have been transitioning our 18 mo to her own bed. We took the front part off the crib and moved the mattress very low. She can get on and off the bed no problem. We started introducing it by just telling her it's her new bed and putting some stuffed animals that she loves in it. We would lay down and read stories to her in it and she loved it. She would climb up in the bed whenever we were in her room. Eventually we got her to nap in there, which was a huge feat in itself. She would only nap while being worn, in our bed or being held for the longest time. I still wrap her to sleep and then transition to her bed. Now part of our bedtime routine is that I lay down with her and her owl. I sing songs and she usually falls asleep fairly fast. She sleeps a good chunk of the night in her bed. She usually wakes up between 1-4 and my dh will get her and bring her back into our bed. We could lay with her a bit and she'd fall right back asleep but she may wake in another hour or two so we've just been bringing her in with us so that we get enough sleep. I figured as I get closer to my due date we will work on getting her back to sleep in her own bed. She's a light sleeper and I don't want to have her in our room when the baby comes because I'd be afraid she'd wake up every time the baby did.

 

[northern_me]

My oldest was 4 when she stopped.

 

[minties]

Sophie is still very needy at night and the day. We still co-sleep.

 

[fatandlumpy]

My wee man is 23 months, still night-nursing and likes to run around the room for at least 30mins before settling down to sleep. The other half keeps on telling me that I'm 'unnatural' for nursing and co-sleeping for this long (we've also invested in a King Size bed for the family and little man sleeps between us). My partner is the stay at home parent but still lies down with the mini-him for his afternoon nap.

I AM SO STALKING THIS THREAD!

Don't get me wrong. I will miss sleeping with our wee man, but he's starting to kick me out of bed in an effort to wiggle away from his snoring and farting father.

 

[vermeil]

We moved our son when he was 3 a few months before his sister was born. He was always a difficult sleeper. She slept through the night 11 hours since she was 7 weeks old! No two kids are the same.

He still wanders into our bed regularly. I'm typing this squished between them to right now, complete with baby bum in my face and kid arm in my neck haha

 

[mum140381]

2 years or there abouts for mine x

 

[MindUtopia]

Thanks all for your responses! We are going to start making the transition in about 2 weeks. It's been hard to find a clear few weeks when we'll be home enough to do it. We travel a lot in the summer for work, so are away most weekends or things are just too crazy, and I wanted to start on a weekend so I don't have to pretend to be functional at work on little sleep if it's a rough night. Our daughter will be 2 years and 5 months then, which I think is fantastic. I'm pleased we've had such a great time bedsharing and that we did it for this long and it was such a positive experience. But I'm looking forward to her transitioning to her own room too. It's getting to the point where she wakes up a lot in her own room, but resists coming to ours, but if we leave her there, she just wakes up again 30 minutes later. If she sleeps with us, she sleeps well the rest of the night (usually she wakes up around 11pm when we go to bed). But it's a bit of a battle because she doesn't always want to come into our room. At the same time, we need to sleep as we are both busy with work and can't cope with the sleep deprivation at the moment. But I think my plan is for the first 3 nights (Thursday, Friday, Saturday as I don't work Fridays and then have the weekend off, obviously) I'm going to just try settling her back in her own room and going back to our room to sleep. I'll see how this goes after 3 nights. If she's sleeping longer stretches after the 3rd night, we'll keep that up if it's manageable. I do need some sleep. So if it's not, we'll try moving a mattress into her room and sleeping on the floor next to her and see if that helps. Will keep you posted.

 

[Srrme]

Our 2 oldest are 3 years old and 4 years old. We just moved them to a bedroom together (separate twin beds) and they have done very well! They sleep all night without a peep.

 

[AnneD]

2.5 here and nowhere near ready to sleep on her own. She still breastfeeds and comfort sucks when she wakes up and can't go to sleep without me. We are ttc and it's not easy with a child who wakes up a lot.

 

[Bevziibubble]

My 3 year old has now been in her own room for 3 weeks. She comes into my bed in the middle of the night still but is going in her own bed from the start of the night and doesn't need to feed to sleep anymore. I just sit with her until she falls asleep. This is a big step for her and one I thought she would never make!

 

[fatandlumpy]

Actually - we've had some progress. Our progeny has started to nap in his own room now and it's been a week! He used to sleep on his Dad for his afternoon nap. We're going on holiday (Scotland - to visit the OH's clan lands...) at the end of July, so we're thinking of transitioning our little contraceptive kid into the nursery when we come back and start attempting to produce the spare.

He's still night nursing though - but I think my supply has started to go as he's squarking with frustration at me 1/2 the time.

Bless him. I never thought I'd still be nursing him at 2!