An elbow in the ribs? A foot to the head? Is dad sleeping on the floor? Has your child become reigning ruler of your bed?
It happens so easily. You had a colicky baby, a baby who would only sleep on your chest. The only way you could get some sleep was to curl up with your baby and sleep together. It wasn’t what you had planned. It wasn’t what you had envisioned. But co-sleeping has become your normal.
It doesn’t have to be.
And moving your child to their own crib doesn’t have to be a difficult and traumatic ordeal. It can be rewarding for everyone, simple and peaceful.
First,
What are your reasons for wanting change? It’s important to know what your drivers are. Change is difficult. Being aware and mindful of your reasons for change can help to keep you motivated.
Reasons for transitioning from Co-Sleeping to Crib Sleeping
· Parents are not getting any sleep
· Baby is not sleeping as well as they used too
· Dad is sleeping on the floor or another room
· A new baby is on the way
· Safety – Easy for babies and toddlers to roll off the bed
· Your baby wants play-time not sleep time
· Sex
· Your child is excited about their new big bed
· Upcoming surgery
· You are just ready
Whatever your reasons, keep in mind the outcome you want and need. Enough room to sleep, sex with your partner in your bed, space for sleep, and it is exciting time of independence for your child. This picture of your ultimate desired sleeping situation will help you to stay consistent as well. More than anything it is really important to stay consistent with your baby. Otherwise, you’ll end up confusing everyone.
I recently went on holiday with my twin boys to KL for a week. There was only 1 bed and we shared. The boys usually sleep in their own cot. We only co-sleep on holidays when there is limited sleeping space. It always starts the same.
The First Night
This is so nice. All these lovely cuddles and snuggles with my boys. Why don’t we do this more?
Second Night
Hmmm, I’m not feeling so comfortable. Shit one of the boys just fell out of the bed. Oh my goodness I need to sleep.
Third Night
I’m so tired!! Ok, now I remember why we don’t co-sleep
Fourth Night
Foot in the face, and pushed to the edge of the bed. Still no sleep. Uggg this is the worst.
Home
So happy to have my own bed back.
Before You Start the Transition
1. Bedtime Routine
Make sure you have a consistent bedtime routine already in place. A positive and consistent bedtime routine is important. According to a study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090501090916.htm) “Results indicate that the establishment of a nightly bedtime routine produced significant reductions in problematic sleep behaviors for infants and toddlers” Routine and consistency help children to feel safe and reduce stress. Having s familiar bedtime routine will help when changing your child’s sleep environment. Make sure you have a consistent rouinte going well for a few weeks. Use a sticker chart to really make the bedtime routine a positive and fun experience. A bedtime routine is also an important time to spend some time and really connect with your child. Put the phone down, turn the TV off, and connect with your child. Talk with them while you put on their pj’s, laugh with them while they get toothpaste everywhere, sing songs and read books together, have a snuggle in their bed and listen to a podcast. Make your routine unique to your family.
2. Talk about the Change
For toddlers talk to them about the change before you make the move. Suddenly changing the rules on your child with little or no indication can be confusing and frustrating. Even though your toddler may not have great language skills they will still be able to understand what you’re saying. Make sure to talk about the move to their bedroom as an exciting new step in their life.
3. Exciting Room
Revamp your child’s room. Create some excitement for your child’s new sleep environment. You could paint the walls a new color, put in new curtains, put a new soft toy on their bed, or get some new bedding, even just moving the furniture around and putting some shelves up. The point is to make your child happy and excited to be in their room. Glow in the dark stars that stick the ceilng are also a great idea.
4. Day Sleep Needs
Make sure that your child is getting all the day sleep that they need. If they are not getting enough naps during the day it could cause problems for bedtime. Also if your child is sleeping for too long or too late in the day, they may have trouble going to bed. Making sure that every other area of your child’s life is running smoothly will help during this time of change.
5. Age-appropriate Bedtime
Making sure you’ll child’s bedtime is at an appropriate time will help to make bedtime a breeze. Between 6:30 and 7pm is usually a great time for bed. Or between 4 to 5.5 hours since they woke from thier last night. Having the right bedtime help to prevent overtired and work with your child natural body rhythms.
6. The Best Environment For Sleep
Setting up a great environment for sleep is a wonderful way to help your child find it easier to fall asleep. A good environment for sleep is dark, the darker the better. Darkness reduces stimulation for your child, stops them from getting distracted by all the wonderful things to see in their room. Darkness also helps to stimulate the production of melatonin which is a sleep hormone that occurs in the body. Use black-out curtains to get a really nice dark room. A cool temperature is also conducive to quality sleep. A cool temperature indicats to your child’s brain that it is time to sleep and also helps in the production of melatonin. Lastly, white noise is a great tool to help your baby fall asleep and stay asleep.
7. Extra Special Play Time
This can be an important element, especially with other children. Find 10 Minutes of your day, and have some extra special one on one time with your child. This can help your child to feel acknowledged, special and valued. This can really help with a bedroom transition particularly if there is another sibling on the way. We went to avoid the child feeling as if they are being pushed out of your bed. Extra Special Time can help them to feel Extra Special.
8. Attention Needs
Making sure your child attention needs are being met is really important for a smooth bedtime and sleeping arrangement transition. We’re busy, we work, the days go by too fast sometimes. This is when it is really important to implement the ‘Extra Special Time’ to help your child feel extra special and meet their needs. It really can be as simple as 10mintues in the morning making a card for their grandma, or 10 minutes throwing a ball before getting in the car.
How to Transition your Baby to a Crib – A Gradual Approach Start In Child’s Room
You can use this method with children from 6 months of age. It is also a really great method for toddlers and older children. There are other sleep training methods, however, I believe that a gradual method is a nice way to transition away from co-sleeping.
Phase 1 – This phase usually takes 3 nights to complete, but it can take as many nights as you need. Lay a mattress by your child’s cot or bed. Stay with your child until they fall asleep. You can choose to either sleep the whole night on the mattress or head to your own bed. If your child wakes during night, go back to the mattress and stay with your child until they fall asleep. During this phase, you can offer as much comfort to your child as they require. You can speak softly to them, you can stroke or touch them, you can offer any comfort. However, try to keep your child in the crib. You can pick them for a cuddle if needed, but try to keep the settling in cot. As the night’s progress try to fade out how much you are physically settling your child to sleep. This will make it easier to move to the next stage.
Phase 2 – When your child is able to fall asleep with minimal hands-on setting you can begin phase 2. Move the mattress halfway to the door of your child’s room. Read your books, say your goodnights, have lots of kisses and cuddled, and move to the mattress. Let your child know you will just be on the mattress. Do your best to only offer verbal comfort. Do not let your child fall asleep with you on the mattress. The idea is to support your child with your presence, but for them to fall asleep on their own. This phase generally takes 3 nights to complete but can take longer if needed.
Phase 3 – Move the mattress to the doorway. You might want to change to a chair at this point. Again only offer verbal comfort from this position. If your child wakes during the night take up the same position. This stage usually takes 3 nights to complete.
Phase 4 – Move to just outside the door. Your child can hear you, but not see you. At this point, you may be able to say goodnight and leave your child to fall to sleep. Pop-ins are also great at this stage. I love Pop-Ins. They are a wonderful way to provide comfort but allow your child to fall asleep independently. Tell your child you are going to the bathroom and that you will come back and check on them. Leave the room for 5 minutes and then return to check on them. It’s really important that you come back when say you are going to. It builds trust and helps your child to feel safe. Next say, “I’m going to wash the dishes, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Head out of the room and pop back in for another check and another reason to leave the room. Each time that you leave the room you should be gone for a progressively longer period of time. The idea is that your child will fall asleep at one of the points when you are not in the room.
Silent Returns – This is a great strategy to help your child learn to stay in bed. To help your child learn to stay in bed you need to show them that you are committed to the outcome as well. The first time your child gets out of bed you can say “Come on sweetie, it’s time for bed.” After that, there is no morning talking. Each time they get out of bed you calmly guide them back to bed without saying a word. You repeat as many returns as are needed. It might only take a few returns for your child to realize that you are serious about this staying in bed business. It might take lots and lots of returns on the first night.
The important thing is not to say anything. When your child is constantly popping out of bed they are testing your limits and seeking attention. By returning them back to bed as many times as needed you are enforcing the limits you have set. By not talking you are not providing any attention either positive or negative to your child. Bedtime is not playtime, it’s time to get quiet and rest. Interesting, children are not concerned with the type of attention they are receiving. When mum and get cross, frustrated and yell to go to bed it still meets a child’s attention needs. They just learn how to get negative attention. No talking provides a calm clear limit, and it does not meet attention needs in a negative way.
The idea behind a gradual method is to help ease your child into their new sleep environment. Over a period of 10 days to 2 weeks you slowly reduce your involvement and they slowly increase their indepdence.
Helpful Tips and Tricks
1. Commit to Consistency
It’s really important that once you decide that you want to make the change that you commit to your decision. It can get really confusing for your baby if some night they are allowed to co-sleep and some nights they are not. Children thrive on routine and consistency. They love to know what to expect and when. It helps them to feel safe.
2. It’s Ok if they don’t fall asleep right away
If your child is hanging out in bed talking, chatting, or singing for a little while don’t worry. We can’t force our children to go to sleep. We can set up the best environment for sleep, we can set up good day time habits, and encourage sleep. But, at the end of the day, they will fall asleep when they are ready.
3. Give your Child a Lovey
If you haven’t already take your child shopping and let them choose a toy that would like to have at bedtime. A lovely is a wonderful comfort item that your child can cuddle and snuggle up to at night. This comfort item can provide a lot of security for your child when you are not able to be around.
5. Just aim for Bedtime
Tackling naps and bedtime might just be too much for everyone. And, that’s ok. While a consistent approach across the board will mean faster progress, sometimes you just need to go at your own pace. To begin with just aim for bedtime in the crib first. Once bedtime is going well, you can then work on naps.
6. The Sleep Fairy
I love the sleep fairy, I use it with nearly all my toddler clients. They love it too. This is a wonderful and sweet way to encourage your child to stay in their bed all night. For younger children tell them a story about the sleep fairy before bed. Tell them that the sleep fairy is a little fairy who loves to see girls and boys sleeping all night long in their bed. When she visits she often brings a little present, but only if they stay in bed all night long. Before you go to bed sprinkle glitter on your child’s bed and leave a little chocolate or toy for them to find when they wake up.
With older children, you can write a letter to the Sleep Fairy and tell the fairy how well your child has been sleeping in their won bed. Leave the letter by the bed. In the morning your child will find glitter, a little chocolate, or toy and, a letter reply. The Sleep Fairy and your child might even be pen pals.
7. Professional Help
If the move from bed-sharing to separate rooms seems important but impossible it is a great idea to hire a sleep consultant. A sleep consultant can take into account your family lifestyle, values and parenting styles. They can help you adapt methods to suit you. They can also help out with any question you might have along the way, and most importantly help make sure you are implementing your sleep training methods correctly. Generally sleep training methods don’t work, when they haven’t been implemented properly. In the middle of the night when your foggy with sleep or you haven’t slept in what feels like a year instigating change on your own can be difficult.
Moving your child from your bed to their own can be easy. Have firmly in your mind the reasons you are ready for change. Make a plan. Stay consistent. Give your child even more affection and attention during this time of transition. Then enjoy the new-found freedom of a childless bed.
