How long did you co-sleep?

Im just after a little bit of advice. I didnt co sleep with my first little man. I co slept with my 2nd until 12 months old and my 3rd little man is 13 months and flat out REFUSES to sleep in the cot. Ive tried putting him in it and he just wakes up and screams hysterically. If I put him in my bed he just take a deep breath and goes straight to sleep. My hubby and I are a bit over the kicks in the head and the disturbed sleep every night as Joshie seems to be a bit of a restless sleeper. :rolleyes:

I was just interested in knowing how long people have co slept with their little ones for and how did you make the change to a bed/cot?.

Would I be better off having a single bed in my room with a bed rail?. Maybe he feels a bit clostrophbic in a cot with all the bars and he isnt used to that?.

Some advice would be wonderful :)

DS hasn't always co slept with us. He did for the first 2 weeks of his life as it was the only way he would sleep at night. He has slept in our bed on and off over the years, but now at age 2 and a half, he co sleeps again as its the only way he will sleep through the night and we'd rather he slept with us than get bugger all sleep

We co slept till she was 8 months, and only really stopped because she'd learnt to crawl by then and oulw wake up and craawl all through the bed and climb on my face.

Could you maybe try putting a mattress on the floor for him? or a bed with a rail?

When our babies were newborn they mainly slept in cradles (small cots) beside my side of the bed... and co-slept in with me when I BF them or if they needed "warming up" in winter.

By the time my first two children reached about 3yo they developed preferences for their own space...actually my older DS developed this earlier... probably by about 2yo... and to this day (he is now 5yo) he has been an excellent sleeper... demanding to go to bed at 7pm and that's the last you see of him until the morning. I accredit this to co-sleeping when he was a baby. We didn't co-sleep as much with our first child and she was forever coming into our bedroom in the middle of the night until she was about 4yo. I really think co-sleeping makes them feel more secure from an early age. I wish i had given my first child that security instead of subscribing to the SIDS propaganda (back in 1994 when she was a baby co-sleeping wasn't endorsed at all)... I really think she would have grown up more secure like my boys.

ATM we have just transferred our youngest from his cot into a big bed. He has adapted very well.... DH organised all this when I was on holidays with my middle child.... by the time I got back our youngest was sleeping in the big bed. I thought there would have been more roaming at night but there hasn't been... pleasantly surprised.

If I was you I'd try setting up a temporary extra bed in your room.... maybe a futon roll on the floor next to your main bed. Maybe start the night sleeping down there with your child... then, when he is asleep, pop back up into your bed and see how he goes. We did this for a while in summer when it was just too hot for us all to co-sleep.

ETA: My post reads as a bit confusing LOL we actually do a combination of co-sleeping and cot sleeping... whatever they seem to need until they develop a preference for their own space. Usually each night starts off in their cot and I brought them in when they woke up for the first time... usually at about 2/3am and then we would co-sleep from that point onward.

DD is still going strong at 2.5, goes down in her bed and climbs in sometime during the night, and DS4 wanders in occasionally.

I llurrrrve it - but its alot easier for me, Dp sleeps on the couch and has done so since DS was a few months old ! Tee Hee! It's not for everyone though :lol:

one of my girlfriends had the same trouble with her little man so they started sleeping on the cot mattress on the floor they did this for a few weeks and he then moved into a "big Boy" bed and pretty much sleeps through. He was about the same age as your baby when he started refusing the cot. Good luck

My DD is 14 months and i'm still co-sleeping with her. I think the problem is that bubies just love sleeping with us so much that whenever we move them out, they have trouble adjusting and just don't understand, or see why they have to. It's horrible when it impedes on your own sleep! I empathize! I have no advice, I tried to move DD out of my bed and it wasn't worth the trouble LOL!

We co-slept with DS1 in our bed for 2 years. He would not sleep unless being held in my arms.

When he was 2 we got a cute bed and put it next to ours in our bedroom, we made a huge fuss about how cool it was and explained that there wasn't enough room in the big bed for all to be comfortable so he'd sleep there. I still held him, he climbed out a bit for a few days but eventually thought it was cool. Then we started explaining that we'd move it in to his room and we had to do that quickly because the newborn in our room kept waking him up. So we moved the bed and he was a little confused the first couple of nights but i just went in and lay with him until he fell back to sleep. So then he was fine with it... most nights he wakes up once and walks to our room, i just walk back with him, give him a breastfeed and come back to our bed.

SO basically we skipped the cot stage altogether, which worked for us.

DS co-slept until about 10m, when he started to demand to sleep alone. If he's teething or really ill he still comes in with me, last month was the last time we slept together. (TBH, he kicks me and DH out the bed so we're quite happy he doesn't co-sleep much LOL.)

wow. Sorry to thread hijack but what does it mean your 10 mth old wanted to sleep on their own? (I'm wondering about my own...?)
How did you end up moving them/transitioning to the cot?

MummaBear, I love your post! Firstly, I can relate!! I have posted MANY TIMES asking for advice on cot sleeping and co-sleeping!

I hope my advice helps you.

My DD co-slept with us until 2 weeks ago. She is now 10 months old.

We were not getting any sleep because of the kicks in the head and feet in our mouths (heehee) so we decided to buy a toddler bed. She hated her cot and what a waste of $500 that was! She never went in it!! She loves her new toddler bed. It is in her own room.

Last week she was fine, I slept in there on a mattress just to do the re-settling process if she woke up. She would settle really quickly. She finds it better on her tummy to sleep and I have an angel care movement monitor for ease of mind.

This week I planned to move back into my own bed but she has been sick with a cold/ear infection so I'm still in there, although I have not once taken her into my bed and she's doing great.

Our DD wouldn't even go in her cot for day sleeps! She would only go in our bed or sleep on me on the lounge. And that was becoming tiring! I would worry she would fall out of my bed all the time and my bum got so sore sitting for an hour or so on the lounge!

She now goes in her toddler bed fine now through day and night. She will wake at night twice but re-settle quickly. I have no hesitation to bring her in with us if she won't settle though, don't like controlled crying.

I really hope this has helped you. Maybe try her in a toddler bed. I am sure DD just likes the extra room. Someone mentioned to me that when I stirred through the night, it would wake her up and that's why she was so unsettled sleeping in our bed, but who knows.

One more thing, I've started a dreamfeed too again, I had cut it out for a month or so but finding it makes her sleep better. That's an individual thing though and entirely up to Mumma...she seems to love a late bottle when she's half asleep.

Good luck with everything, let me know how you go.

Hugs to you xxxx

We got DS a race car bed when he was about 13 mths & it had become difficult for me to feed him to sleep and then put him in the cot. He hated the cot since he started childcare at 11mths and would only sleep there if he wasn't awake when he was put in it.

Now he's welcome to come into our room if he wakes but he mostly sleeps all night in his bed. We lie down with him in his bed while he goes to sleep (in theory - tonight I was there an hour and DH has been in there about 20mins so far...)

I stopped feeding DS at night when he stopped feeding to sleep. Two weeks later when he woke up, I picked him up, my bed, pat to sleep - no dice. Screamed at me instead. So I put him in his bed and patted - back to sleep. Happened a few times. Now he screams blue murder if I get in his bed or try to put him in mine - or he assumes it’s playtime. Not good. When he’s really in pain he snuggles into me and goes back to sleep (I have to pick him up and cuddle him because he’s so upset) so I take him to bed with me and we sleep fine for the rest of the night. But that’s not common; he prefers to be on his own now usually.

DS always started the night in his bed, alone, just so DH and I could get some us-time before we went to bed and he’s so wriggly he would have fallen out of our bed if we’d put him to bed there.

Transitioning. For the first 6m DS was in a moses basket in our room. Then we went on holiday to my mum’s house, cot in our room. Then when we went home we figured we’ve got him in a cot (he was going to sleep in our arms at that point), keep it up. So DS and I moved into the Nursery and DH moved back into our room. When he stopped co-sleeping I started sleeping in the sitting room with the monitor, then after Christmas (we were at my mum’s again and so DH and I had to sleep together due to space) I moved back into our bedroom.

DS has a cot-bed and we’ll be taking the bars down… maybe Easterish. When we KNOW he’s sleeping through properly (so maybe earlier) and so he can get out of bed in the morning and not wake us up. He’s trying to climb INTO bed at night now; he never tries to climb out! We don’t want to do it right now as when we visit Mum she has a cot so that won’t work, but it will have to be before Easter really because then he’ll be too big for her cot and so will be in a bed at her house, we want that OK and normal before we visit. So around his second birthday I suppose.

HTH!

My co-sleeping journey has been a fractured and strange one, but i've loved it and it works for us!

From birth DD theoretically slept in a cot, the foot of which was butted up against the side of my bed next to my pillow. In reality she had some of her day sleeps in there (some in the wrap on either mine or XP's chest), and was put in there "to bed" at 8pm every night. She woke for a feed at about 11-midnight and because i brought her into bed then to BF, she slept in with me until morning.

From about 3 months she began to be a bit wriggly if i kept her in bed after the 5am feed, so she slept in the cot from 8pm to mindnight, then in with me midnight to 5am then in the cot 5am to 8am then back in with me for a morning feed and cuddle....miss those days :)

At 4 months i left her dad and we moved to a new flat. She slept 8pm-5am (spontaneously began skipping the midnight feed) in her cot and then 5am to 9am (lazy mumma! :redface: ) in my bed.

At 6 months i moved her cot to her own room for personal reasons (i had a new DP who i didn't want spending too much time with her until i was more sure of our future, i almost never had him there when she was there, but i knew if i DID i felt it inappropriate for her to co-sleep with a man who wasn't her father, but equally i NEVER NEVER wanted her to feel that i'd kicked her out of the bed for the night to have him in it - in fact in the first year we were together, after which i began letting them spend more time together, she and he were there simultaneously only twice!) but i still brought her into bed with me 5am-9am every morning.

At 7 months i stopped BFing for a medical reason. I offered her a bottle of FF at 5am but she wasn't interested, so clearly she wanted the boobie/cuddles more than the milk. She began sleeping 8pm to 8am. Most nights she slept through, very occasionally she woke and i brought her in with me.

At 22months i put her into a big bed but left her cot up so she could go between (we'd had to take bars out of her cot at 14months when she learned to climb out - i just put a babygate over her doorway so she couldn't roam in the night) them. At 25 months i put the cot away for good.

She's 31months now. She's great :) Most nights she sleeps in her own room. Some nights she wakes and comes into my room. My rules are fair but firm - if she lies down with me and sleeps she can stay, if she messes about, chats, potters or otherwise disturbs my sleep and hers, she is put back to bed. Obviously if she's upset or ill or crying she can stay with me no matter how much it disturbs me! I never have nights of crying over this arrangement, she knows i mean business and seems cool with how things are.

Last night she came running in at almost-4am screaming "JAGGY NEEDLES! JAGGY NEEDLES!" at full volume. Uh-oh, i thought, bad dream. I sat up. I'd gone to bed at 9pm with a migraine, so i was a bit foggy. "QUICK MAMA!" she yelled "JAGGY NEEDLES! INNA KITCHEN!" By now i'm pretty confused. "Jaggy needles?" i ask. "NO" she replies. THe penny drops. "CHICKEN NOODLES!?" i demand. "Ok!" she replies and sprints off towards the kitchen. I call her back, "DD, it's FOUR AM, there are no chicken noodles and if there were you wouldn't be eating them at this hour. NOw get in bed and go to sleep!" She climbs in reluctantly. I snuggle her up against me. She nods off, muttering under her breath "wanna chicken noodles now mama, ok, oh fanks!"...LOL We woke this morning at 8am (blissfully late for her nowadays!) and bundled up together. Lovely.

Bx

Hoobley, LOL at the jaggy needles in the middle of the night.

I co-slept with DD full time until she was 6 months (in a sling during the day, until around 3 months) and crawled out of my bed giving herself a black eye. I felt soooo guilty. Bought a cot the same day.
For the next 6 months she slept in her bed until around midnight, then came in for a feed and slept with us til 8 or 9am. She also took her day sleeps in her cot. At around 9 months she started waking more and mor frequently so I decided to move the cot into her own room and settle her without a feed most times. She then slept in her cot until around 5 am (with a midnight snack) after which she came in with us until around 7:30am. We still do this just that she now has her snack some time between 12am and 3am and some nights she doesn't wake up at all, sleeping through from 7pm-6am, the sleeping with us until 7am. I loooove those nights.

I don't think there is a problem with co-sleeping, as long as it is working for you. I only tend to address a problem when it is just that: a problem. If it's just about other people not approving, they can kiss my behind.

You could try a single bed next to yours to get some extra space for your wriggly toddler. Or a mattress on the floor. Or why don't you put a mattress on the floor in his room, then lay down with him for a few days so he gets used to it. Maybe he doesn't mind it if he's not in baby jail??? It took DD a while to get used to her cot. She still doesn't like being in it when she's awake. But these days, if she's tired, she can go to sleep in it on her own. That doesn't mean that she'll always play along, though ;-)

Saša