8 Month Old Needs to Move from Family Bed to Crib - Please Help ASAP!

The trick is to be able to put her down AWAKE-but groggy. I made the mistake with my first of waiting until he was asleep to put him down. Unfortunately, with this method whenever they wake up they need US to get back to sleep because that is what they are used to. You can hopefully break her of this but it will take some willingness to let her cry. I will tell you that it is totally worth it because this inablity to self-soothe will stay with her for a long time....my son is still not great at getting to sleep and he is 11.

Do you let her sleep on her stomach. All my kids slept better this way and it avoided the whole waking p after 5 minutes.

You need to make a plan and stick to it.

So far as light sleeper goes, start making more noise when she is napping. Anyone can learn to block out noises and keep sleeping. I say this because one of my daughter's room mates in college was a "light sleeper". They kicker her out because they were sick of her screaming everyone should be quiet!! so she could sleep. Yes, if you don't teach them they never learn.

I think you will just have to let her cry it out. It's difficult for a few days, but worth it in the long run when you will all be sleeping much better. My older two kids were awesome sleepers, but my youngest is a terrible sleeper. It wasn't until he was 1.5 that we finally decided to do the cry it out. He cried when we put him to bed at bedtime, and would cry for a few minutes every time he'd wake in the night, but we held firm and he eventually learned to self soothe. If you don't do this, you'll continue to be getting up with her all night or she'll just have to be in your bed indefinitely. My sister had the family bed until her oldest was 10 years old because she never wanted to let her cry it out.

The answer to your question is "cry-it-out in the crib and sleep through the night".

Big sister will do fine, she's heard her cry and can tune the crying out. Don't be afraid your children will hear sounds when they're sleeping, they NEED to learn to block them out and sleep. Experts recommend you keep family sounds the same when you bring a newborn home, within reason of course, so they can adjust to you, not the other way around.

If you haven't already establish a bedtime routine that relaxes her and prepares her for sleep, quieting things down a bit and dimming lights. A bath, a rubdown with nighttime lotion, pj's and fresh diaper, a quiet song or short story as you nurse her, encouraging her to nurse fully, not snack. She should be at the point she gets all her nutrition through the day so she can sleep through the night and if you're feeding her a good meal she's not hungry when she cries, it's habit and not knowing self-soothing techniques. Keep the lights low and talk in soft whispers to set the mood for sleeping.

Lay her down groggy but awake, she needs to learn to self soothe. Keep a soft nightlight on if it's pitch black in her room, and to see by if you need to change her. Pat her a minute or so as you gently say "Good night, I love you." Then quietly leave and close the door. If she cries do not go in for at least 10 minutes, leaving the light off, speaking in a whispered "time to go to sleep" and leaving her in her bed, don't pick her up. Lay her down, pat her a few seconds and leave. If she cries again wait 15 minutes this time, adding 5 minutes between going to her each time. No more talking, walk in, no lights, lay her down, pat her or lightly rub her back or tummy until she's calm and leave. If you get to the point she needs a diaper change do it in her bed, don't take her out, no lights, no talking, just matter of fact, a few pats and leave. Your not giving in to her crying to get up consistently will teach her bed = sleeping. It may take a few nights or longer, much longer if you give in as she'll know she can win if she keeps crying, but if you stick to this she'll get it and you'll have her out of your bed :)
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Just saw this and thought I'd share:
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/8216-crying-8217-favor-k...

Can you invest in a screen? That way the baby will not see you if she wakes in the night. All babies wake in the night several times. It is getting them to soothe themselves back to sleep that is the problem. If baby sees you in bed, I wonder if you would think, "hmm, there is mom, why am I not in there with her?" That is why a screen separating her crib and vision from your bed would be helpful.

Cry it out in the crib and do not under any circumstances takes her in bed with you. Put her in her own room a Ross the house with a monitor. You will have a rough few nights but worth it.

I agree with making noises while she sleeps. i can walk in to the room and put clothes away quietly and mine wouldn't wake up.

place a blanket between you and the baby so that the blanket gets your scent, and so that once she is asleep, you can move her more easily without her feeling the temp change against her body and head.

What I didn't see is a reason for the sudden push to put her in a crib. If she's sleeping well in bed with you, and it's been working all these 8 months, if there isn't a must-do, compelling reason to move her, why do it? She's telling you that she's not ready for solitary sleep. Biologically it's not what we're designed to do. That recent cry-it-out study that says there isn't any difference was very poorly designed. The control group was not really a control group at all. They never asked any of them if they did any sleep training or how the families slept in their house. They just didn't train them in their sleep training method like the study group. The fact is that a child crying alone has skyrocketing cortisol levels - cortisol is very damaging to the body and mind. I'd never purposefully put my child through that. I do have a friend that around that age instead of transitioning her daughter to a crib, she used a mattress on the floor with a pretty canopy hanging over it. She would then be able to lay down with her daughter in her bed as necessary. Much smoother transition that way. Though the reason she did it was because her daughter slept better alone than in their bed, so there was almost no protest.