How to move on from co-sleeping and bed sharing.

[Spudtastic]

My daughter is 8 months old and co-sleeps in the bed (not with a co-sleeper). If I try to put her in her cot she knows and will cry. (The cot is right next to my bed) As soon as she's back in my bed she's asleep. My 3.5 year old has taken to sleeping in our bed too. It's a small bed. I'm not sleeping very well. My husband isn't sleeping very well. We have our own business and are exhausted. I would like to aim for getting my babies back in their own beds around Xmas/new year. Any tips on getting my babies back into their own beds. Just gentle parenting techniques please.

 

[SarahBear]

We have a king sized bed with a twin right next to it, so no advice, but good luck!

 

[jessmke]

Where do they nap? Maybe start with naps in their own beds. Also start putting the 8 month old in the cot outside of sleep times so she gets used to the space. Before moving my daughter from the Moses basket to the crib I would make sure she had some play time in her crib each day so it was a familiar space to her when we did start having her sleep in there and the transition was smooth and painless. When your older child comes into bed with you could you take her back to her own bed and lay down an have a cuddle with her there, then go back to your own room? You'd have to be consistent and do it every time she comes into your room for it to be effective. Other than that I'm not sure what else you could do, good luck!

 

[Spudtastic]

Sarahbear - that's a great idea.

Jess - thanks for the help. I need to work on nap time. My eldest doesn't nap but the 8 month old naps in the front pack. I guess I need to start putting her in the cot for naps.
With my eldest I used to take her in for a cuddle and get her back to sleep in her own bed but for some reason when the baby arrived my eldest always woke up at breastfeeding time so she just climbed into our bed. I couldn't stop breastfeeding to get her back in her own bed and she didn't want daddy.
I know once dd2 is sleeping in her own bed and not breastfeeding at night I can focus on getting dd1 back into her own bed.

It's a good idea to get her to play in her cot.

 

[Spudtastic]

I remember now why we're all in one bed. It's 11.30pm. I've just spent so much time getting dd1 and dd2 into their own beds. I've just fallen asleep when dd1 comes in. So I get up and take dd1 back to her own bed. Then dd2 starts to cry so I go back to see her but dd1 isn't asleep so she comes back to my bed. So I get dd2 back to sleep and get her into her cot. I get dd1 out of our bed and into her room when dd2 wakes back up and cries but dd1 isn't asleep so she follows me back in to see dd2. So that's right. To get sleep I took them into my bed.

 

[wishingonastar]

Been in this situation so I feel your pain. One child slept in our bed til she was 2 yrs. At that stage I explained she was now going to sleep in her own bed, I lay her in it and gave her a large teddy (to substitute me next to her). I then sat holding her hand til she fell asleep. After a couple of weeks we used the gradual retreat method to get her falling asleep without me (as shown on super nanny website)

My other child had begun getting in too and sleeping across bottom of the bed. We just had to be firm but gentle and after couple of nights she accepted staying in her own bed

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

This may be an odd way...but worked. Though my dd was much older (3)

We put mattress on floor and I would sneak out when asleep. She gradually just started sleeping longer. Id lay to re settle then leave.

 

[MindUtopia]

Our daughter bedshared with us until she was a little over 3, so I have no advice for a younger toddler or baby as for us, it was just better and easier and we got more sleep bedsharing at that age. But for our 3 year old, I had an idea of when we would like her to start moving to her bed as I was getting ready to start a new job (which would involve a very early commute) and also we want to have another baby, so we started to talk about her sleeping in her own room. She had long since gone to bed in her room, but she would come in to us when she wanted to during the night and then stay with us til the morning. So we started to talk about it and her sleeping all night there and I talked about getting her a gro clock, and she was really excited about the idea of having a clock that would tell her when it was morning so she could come and wake us up. So we got the gro clock and talked about it and explained how it would work and basically just got her excited to do it. By 3, I think she was ready to understand this. It wouldn't have worked for her when she was younger.

Then one day she just announced that she was ready to sleep all night in her room (because we'd been talking about it), so we set the clock and just did it. She did wake up once or even a few times a night for maybe the first 2 weeks, but we gently took her back to bed, explained that she needed to wait until the sun came up to come into our room, and helped her go back to sleep. And that was it, after about 2 weeks, she just slept through the night all night in her room. She does occasionally wake up and come in to us, but we take her back to her room and give her a cuddle and then she gets back into bed and goes to sleep. That worked for us, but I really think it was because she was just ready, so we didn't have to try to hard.

 

[EcoMama]

I'm a rubbish one for advice as my ds turned 7 last month and as part of his turning 7 we agreed that he would now sleep in his own bed.
It's been a week of him sleeping in his own bed so that's great!
We tried to encourage dd, who's 3 to move in to her own bed too but she's having none of it and has resorted to sleeping with ds in his bed!

Both dd and ds have their own beds so normally one of us would sleep in the double with the 2 kids, and the other one of us (usually me) would sleep in one of the singles. Sometimes dd would sleep in the single with one of us too.

personally I think that children should bed share until atleast 3 years.

 

[babykate]

I am also not qualified to give advice, as we have 3 children in our bed these days (ages 1.5-4.5). We have 2 double bedframes with a California king mattress and a rail on either side so no one can fall off. In the past, I just lay down with all of them so that they fall asleep and when they do I move my two oldest to their toddler beds (in our room) so that we can have a restful night. They sometimes wake up and come into our bed but it's becoming more rare.

I'm pregnant with my 4th now and I'm starting to get concerned about how to put all 4 to sleep at the same time, because I'm often alone at bedtime and my youngest already doesn't want to sleep so early (the boys need to be asleep by 7:30/8 to make it through the long school day). So if she's hyper, they're hyper and everyone just ends up jumping on each other (and me) and bedtime is becoming a nightmare. I want to get the boys used to being in their own beds, alone at bedtime. How can I do this???