Co-Sleeping

[Jaycee]

My little man is 21 months and we are just starting the transition. I am sleeping with him in his single bed and in a couple of nights I will start to sneak off when he's asleep and take it from there. We were ready to do this though, I can imagine it would be hard if you're not ready for it. Good luck

[blackduckies]

We just let them go when they want, we found that around 3-4 they like to go into their own bed but will sometimes wake an hop into our bed, but by the time they are 5-6 they hardly ever wake, they might come for a cuddle in the morning on a weekend.
We have a cot & a bed set up in our bedroom and our 4 year old happily starts off in there and more often than not sleeps through in it now, our 2 year old starts in her own cot but wakes every night around 12-2am and transfers in with us, we don't offer feeds only cuddles, i would be seriously working on ending that perhaps have a water bottle at hand they soon change their mind about that & soon our 2 year old will be having a visit from the dummy fairy leave the dummies out for a trade of something very fairyish.... maybe that would work for a bottle too?

[Cherished]

Hi hon. Up until a week and a half ago I was co-sleeping with DS who still woke up every night. I would lay down with him in a double bed in his room and then go to bed in our room, when DS woke up I would just go down to him and jump in his bed until the morning. We decided to get him a toddler bed to see how he would go. I think it's been really successful. There has been a couple of nights that I would consider he has slept through the night (4am, 4:45 and 5am) which prior to the toddler bed were unheard of. He has started getting up during the middle of the night (early morning) and jumping in our bed, 3 times so far, which is just lovely He snuggles up and sleeps for longer in the morning in with us. Normally he would wake up between 5 & 6 and I would consider 7am a huge sleep in but now we are getting out of bed around 7am which is awesome. It's still taking him a while to drift off to sleep in his bed. He has milk on the couch next to his bed first and then lays down while my hand is still on him and goes to sleep, prior to that we would be fully snuggled up in bed together. It's a transition, hoping he will end up drifting off with me just sitting there and finally just go to sleep without me needing to be there at all. I'm also trying to wean, have got milk down to just sleep times now which is also maybe why he is sleeping better.

[onthefly]

We basically do it when they're sleeping through and showing signs of being able to sleep independently. DS was about 2, DD we plan to move soon - she's getting there.

[BhoysGirl]

I like how the responses in this thread show how normal co-sleeping is, but how unique to each family the set-up is.

My 5yo still co-sleeps, he sleeps all night without stirring pretty much. Over the last couple of months he's wanted to try sleeping in his own bed, but everytime he has woken 2-3 times in the night & needed help settling, and ended up coming back to snuggle with me.
My nearly 3 DS2 is still really insistent on feeding overnight, which I'm trying to stop, but he's not even close to wanting to sleep in his own space. I'm trying hard to stop the overnight feeds, but it's a comfort feed thing, so replacing it with water isn't going to work (even if I could turn BM into water).

I don't let outside pressure get to me too much - afterall, our family sleeping arrangements don't impact any body else in the slightest, so I'm going to do what works for us, not what someone else tells me I "should" be doing. I'm quietly confident that they will eventually want their own bed, and it will be well before they're grown-up. And in the meantime, I'm enjoying the cuddles, and knowing that I'm giving them the security & comfort that they obviously need.