transitioning to crib (long)

gusabbey

i never made a conscious decision to raise my children ap style. with ds2, i just have been following his cues, and as it turns out, he likes to bf, he'd rather be worn, and he loves to bed share. ds1 was similar, and actually still bed shares. the only difference is that ds2 keeps me up all.night.long.

he is 12 months. this past weekend, he and i went OOT with my mom and shared a hotel room. she said she didnt sleep a wink, because he was literally up every hour give or take. i can half sleep through some of the night time wakings, but i am one tired mama.

the kicker though is that i dont think he necessarily waking up. but rather readjusting. when i hear him squirm, it wakes me up and i shove my boob in his mouth. i think it might be time to move him to his crib. im terrified of this. im sure he will be fine, but i will be traumatized. any advice on how to ease into this? TIA!

musicalmama5

I can't speak from past experience, but what I do with my DS in hopes of making this transition easier in the future is I have him start the night in his room on a crib mattress on the floor. I lay with him and nurse til he's asleep, then slowly sneak away. (I also do this because the way our house is laid out, if he started the night in my bed, I wouldn't be able to bang around in the kitchen after he's gone to bed, which would suck)

It's possible that if he is truly still asleep and just moving around in his sleep, he might surprise you and sleep a good bit on his own.

Emerald27

We just transitioned DS out of our bed, but instead of putting him in a crib, we put a twin mattress on the floor next to our bed. I can still nurse him to sleep right there (and his bed has some of my smell on it from laying with him), and hop up into my bed.

He loves it! We have cool dinosaur blankets and a train pillow and he is so happy. The bedroom sounds are the same, and if he needs me, I'm right there.

A crib might be tough because of having to lower him into it. The falling sensation might wake him. Also, he's old enough now that he would be potentially transitioning to a toddler bed soon. Just my $0.02. Good luck!

ncbelle

You have a couple of options.  One, if you like bed sharing otherwise, just stop offering him the breast every time he squirms - it could be that that small change alone would make a difference.

I agree that to me it makes more sense to skip the crib if you've never used it and just go to a toddler bed or floor bed or his own bed with bed rails - one less transition down the road.  The advantage to giving him a regular bed is that you can continue to lay with him as he goes to sleep if you want or even sleep with him some if he wakes in the night.

Or if you do move to the crib, start him there and then bedshare the second half of the night if you want.

gusabbey

Great advice! Am I naive to think that he is too young to be in a bed by himself? He can definitely climb out of a bed, but iI guess he ccan't open the door to the room. The bed we sleep in now is a full size bed and it actually comes with a built in bed rail. The bed is in the corner of the room, so the only side that's not covered is the bottom.

this bed is actually intended for ds1, but he, at four years old, has never slept in it. He and dh sleep in the master bedroom. Do you think it would be a good idea to leave ds2 in this room and me sleep in another room? And then once we get all settled, move ds1 into the room that was intended for ds2?

this is some crazy stuff here...and im an overthinker. But i do think nursing him to sleep in the bed we use right now is a fantastic idea.

thank you all!

JJ_13

I don't have a ton to add to this post but I would 1) keep him in the same room he's been in all along - I wouldn't try to chagne rooms on him at this point and 2) I personally would not leave an 11 month old alone in a full size bed all night. That just seems a little young to me. I would transition to a crib, but maybe others here have more insight on that.

 

ETA: I totally agree that lying with him at first would be a nice transition (as NCBelle said) - and maybe if you put the full size mattress on teh floor it would be okay... I just wouldn't be comfortable with the idea of my 11 month old beign able to crawl around the room at night... Ugh. Sorry, I know, not very helpful.