just after some advice from all of you lovely ladies
DS was a fantastic sleeper until we moved interstate. we could put him down in his cot and walk out of his room and he would fall asleep himself (after rocking him to sleep every sleep time until he was 14 months old). since we have moved we have had to sit with him until he goes to sleep. not a big deal. we are now just outside his room and getting closer to not being there.
anyway since we moved we converted his cot to a toddler bed. every now and then he would get up during the night and come down to us. climb into bed, go back to sleep and after an hour or so i would put him back into his bed where he would stay until morning. anyway the last week or so he has been coming into us about 1030pm, i put him back into his bed an hour later, then a couple of hours after that he is back with us. DH doesnt want him to think he can keep doing it and wants him to get used to sleeping in his own bed.
anyway we ordered a new bed for him but its still a couple of weeks away. i think he will be better once he gets his new bed and mattress.
i have spoken to some friends of ours and they think i should either give him phernergan for a few nights, or either put a door handle cover on the inside or use a baby gate and just let him scream himself to sleep whether its in bed or on the floor. DH and I are not sure about those.
We go through this every few months, and it is hard not to fall back into full time co-sleeping, especially in the colder months. Now DS is here, bedsharing with DD doesn't really work for us and so we have had to work on it more.
We found that rather than letting dd fall asleep in our bed and then move her, it was more successful to take her back to bed and resettle her there. Especially when we did it quickly, the resettling took less time than if she woke up more and got upset. after 2 or 3 nights of doing this every time, she seemed to settle back into her bed or at least accept that we were going back there if she woke.
I think having special things in her bed has also helped, her teddy and Har-per, torch etc
At bedtime, we talk about what she can do if she wakes up too. i don't always know what she takes in but figure if i repeat it enough one day she will understand.
Interesting suggestions from your friends.... anyway given you and you DH are not sure about those suggestions then I wouldn't do it. You need to find something that you are comfortable with and intend on seeing through otherwise you won't be consistent and will give up. What I would do is to put your DS to bed with his usual bedtime routine (whatever that is). Tell him it is time to go to sleep and you will see him in the morning. If he gets up, I would take him back to his bed straight away and tell him it is time to go to sleep and that you will see him in the morning. You will just have to continue to do this until he stays in his bed. He may protest and you will need to gauge whether or not you let him cry a little or go straight in and be with him. It is really tough and I actually just stopped bothering taking our DD back to her bed b/c none of us was getting any sleep, so she comes into our bed from around midnight and we all sleep together.
Is he cold or too hot - is that why he is waking?
yep DH and I are not comfortable with either of their suggestions. it didnt feel right to us to either drug him up or let him kick and scream himself to sleep!
we have ducted gas heating in our house but cant use it overngiht as its so loud it would wake DS up. we just got an column heater and started using that in DS's room to warm his room up a bit. we thought it might be the mattress on the toddler bed making him uncomfortable so i put a blanket between the sheet and mattress last night to see if that helped. he still came into us but managed to sleep for 5 hours between being put back to bed and coming back into us.
You are very good not just to go with it. That's what we would do as I value my sleep too much!!!
However the times that we've tried to encourage sleeping in his own bed, we've found that taking him straight back in before he got settled in our bed was the way to go. Otherwise I've found that if he falls asleep with us then wakes up in his own bed, he gets a fright and it's a bit confusing.
Also some type of night light or music thing works well.
I've experienced this with all of my kids and I can tell you for sure that they WILL grow out of it! Some take a little longer than others but seeing as we don't have a 10.5 or a 9yo in our bed ever, there is some merit to that theory lol.
I still get Sir 5 and Lady 3 sometimes come to me during the night. Sometimes both of them together which can get squashy lol. I welcome them with a cuddle and take them back to bed when they are asleep. If I go back to sleep and they spend the night with us so be it
how to stop him coming into our bed
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