Ideas on H/t Change from Co-sleeping to Crib

My sister and brother in-law did the same thing with their kids...all THREE of them. their oldest is 4 and they JUST got him out of their bed about a month ago...they were going to try to get all of them out at the same time but she doesnt want the all crying for her at once( I would have never put my kids in bed with me anyway, I think it is just the parents being lazy and not wanting to get out of bed to deal with their kids) Anway, my other sister in law let her son sleep with her and when she was ready to put him in his bed she just put him in there and he was fine....so I guess it just depends on the kids, rather or not it is going to be an easy transition. The only thing I an tell people is, start them off in THEIR OWN BED and dont be lazy, get up and go to them so you dont make it harder on yourself later. I have 2 kids that have slept in their own beds in their own rooms. It took a few weeks for them to sleep through the night but by the time they were 2 weeks old it was routine. They are 7 and 9 now. No one is scared of the dark, or afraid of monsters.
just my thoughts on the whole thing. Good luck to your friend.

N.,
I can't help but laugh, my daughter will be 17 next month and she still likes to sleep with me! While married, (been divorced for 2 years now) my husband, her dad HATED her in bed with us.
I tried all sorts of things to get her to sleep in her own bed and the thing that worked best was letting her sleep with the family dog. She and the dog would sleep together until midnight or so and then she would come climb into bed with me for the rest of the night. At least that way my spouse got what he wanted and I'm sure you know what I'm referring to and my daughter got the security she was needing as well. I breast fed her until she was almost three and was working full time so I got my sleep and my milk was stimulated during the night as well.
Some of the things I tried that failed were: a special routine, lying down with her until she fell asleep, a night light, no night light, door open, door closed, having one of her brothers try putting her to bed. The bottom line was she just wanted to be next to me. She never tried to get in the middle. Even now as old as she is she will get in the same sleeping position as she did as a toddler and curl up next to me and go to sleep. I have to say, I love it. Other than that she is a very secure and independent young lady and we fight like a normal mother-daughter should at this age.

J.

Have them try using a shirt or nightgown that smells like mom(obviously unwashed) and tuck it under the mattress..the aroma makes him think mom is in the room and usually works pretty well..it worked for me when my son wouldn't take a bottle for anyone but me(i breastfed at first) the doctor told me to use the dirty clothing bit with dad or someone else so he thought i was feeding him or at least nearby..

There is no "easy" way. You just have to brave it out, listen to the crying, put the child back in it's own bed and put on some soft music, maybe put a heating pad, hot water bottle, etc in with them and check on them periodically to make sure they are just frustrated with the situation and nothing more serious is wrong.
I am so glad I put my children in their own bed from the start and only allowed co-sleeping on special occasions! I have seen to many families go thru this and it isn't a battle I think should have to fought!

When I wanted to get my daughter used to her crib I started with daytime naps, I would put her down and get in the shower so I couldn't cave into the crying. I knew she was safe, and once she got used to the crib, nighttime was no big deal. Gotta be strong! I'm not a fan of co-sleeping b/c of my experience as an ER nurse and the accidents that can happen in an instant to infants, but I did keep the pack-n-play in our room for the first few months which made middle of the night feedings easier. Anyway, hope this helps! =-)

Wow. All these responses about ignoring a baby's cries are freaking me out. Instinctively, we want to help when we hear our babies cry. We have instincts for a reason, and they shouldn't be ignored. Babies need their mommies. They are beautiful, needy little human beings. They are not accessories, as some people treat them.

Yeah...CIO is a heartless way to "transition" a baby.

Co-sleeping didn't work for us, so what I have to say is just what I've heard from friends. Start with naps and give him just a couple minutes of alone time (he'll probably cry pretty quickly) and then go to him. Pat his back, if that doesn't help, pick him up. But, as soon a he's calmed, leave again. It will take some work and going back and forth, but it will work out eventually.

Can you put him in his bed once he's asleep in your bed? That's a way to transition at night. Also, having dad go to him first can work better, especially if he's breastfeeding all the time. If you go, he'll just want to nurse back to sleep over and over which then you have to try and break as well.

My approach with my 6-month-old (because I am, as someone said "lazy" and don't like to get up at night, because getting enough sleep allows me to be loving, relaxed Mama rather than weepy, wits'-end, tempted-to-shake-the-baby Mama) is to rock/nurse him to sleep, then put him down in the crib once he's out. When he wakes up in the middle of the night I go get him, bring him to our bed, and nurse him back to sleep. We think this is a decent compromise between having some adult time alone in our bed (if you know what I mean) and fulfilling our sweet pea's need to be close to mom & dad at night. This might work for your friend, at least as a first step. As he gets older he will be able to sleep longer and finally spend the whole night in his own bed. Personally I think it's important to make it as easy on the child as possible and give them a lot of nice falling-asleep experiences (whatever amount of "indulgence" that takes) so that they consistently feel relaxed & safe enough to eventually go to sleep with less help.
By the way, when we first started to use the crib (when he was about 4 months old) I actually found it easier to put him in it at night than for naps--he sleeps deeper at night, I think, and isn't as likely to startle and wake up and be upset that he's no longer in Mom's arms. We still do a lot of napping together, but he sleeps in his crib (the first half of) every night now.

Decorate the room really neat and make a big deal out of it. Play and read in the little boys room. The more fun it is might help though I would not have had my child sleeping in our room. He needs to be aware of mommy and daddy needing their space. You could also use music to help him sleep. How about a favorite stuffed toy. Sometimes hanging a musical toy on the crib is neat.

J. R.

I have some really good books that could be added to your sons room. I sell Usborne books. They are for birth to teenage years. We have trucks and dinosaur books, touchy-feely books, jigsaw books. Just a variety.

Check my website out ubah.com/T2267.

If you order off anything it would come directly to your home. Feel free to pass my sight on . I do home shows and you can get free books based on the sales.

I'm sure there are loads of ideas and books out there on this subject, so I will stick to my personal experience. Between wanting to nurse and be close to me, GERD (acid reflux condition), and teething, I found the transition impossible. When she was old enough we put our child in a single bed next to our bed, and when she woke up she could easily crawl in with us. She is 4 and only recently started sleeping in her own room. Part of the key was painting it pink, but mostly she was just ready in the natural course of development toward greater independence. Each child is different, and some things just can't, and shouldn't, be rushed. You can't make a baby sleep--period. And forcing the situation through the "cry it out" method is potentially damaging and traumatizing. One book that may be helpful is The No-Cry Sleep Solution. Good suggestions, but in our case just didn't work. Reading all of Dr. Sears's books, on the other hand, was always helpful and reassuring. Good luck!

I think it all depends on the child and the child's age. The older the child, the harder it is to get him/her to transition and sleep on his/her own. We're dealing with that currently with my 2-year-old. He never slept in his crib. He seemed to truly hate it. We tried to let him cry it out, but he's the type of kid who just doesn't wear down from that sort of thing. He just kept crying! My husband's career at the time (he was a medical resident) just couldn't allow something like that because he needed his sleep when he was home at night. When we moved, we started transitioning our son to a toddler bed in our room. That took a couple of months, and he still would climb into bed with us in the early morning or the middle of the night. When we moved his bed to his room, he'd wake up in the middle of the night and come to our bed. I have an air mattress on the floor of his room where I sleep sometimes to help him through his transition. We're still working on it, and I think it's just going to take time and patience. I'm sure he'll eventually get the idea that it's okay to sleep on his own. Good luck to your friend!

First off, I don't think crying it out (at any age) is acceptable. It can lead to brain damage, among other things. Isn't a mother's (or parent's) first instinct when their child is crying to go and comfort them? It is not natural to ignore those cries. It's also showing the child that mommy (or daddy) isn't going to be there when they are needed. You have to build trust with a child, and building their trust requires you to meet their needs. If they are crying, there is a need that has to be met. A 12 month old is still a baby, and does not understand why it was ok for him to sleep with mommy and daddy, but all of a sudden it is not. They do not understand when you say "no" and they do not understand when you try to explain it to them. They're just not capable at that age.
Second, people treat co-sleeping like it's a doom for failure to get a child to sleep on their own or to get their child to have independence. Well, ironically our children are dependent on us... so why try to push independence on them at such a young age? Yes, this little boy likes the comfort of his mother. What is so wrong with that? It seems like many would rather a child cry, than to have comfort. There is something seriously wrong with that.
Does the mother want this little boy to sleep on his own because it's inconvenient for her to? If so, she should have thought about that before she had him. There are a lot of inconvenient things in life, but when it comes to our children, we need to suck it up and get over it. They're our children, they need us, their needs are different than ours and they are more important than ours.
She's going to push this child away to sleep on his own, when he really wants to cuddle up with mommy... and then in 3 years she's going to complain that her baby isn't a baby anymore and oh how she misses cuddling with him. He won't want to sleep in her arms forever. He will move on when he's ready. She needs to let him be, take care of his needs, and not let him cry because his needs aren't being met.