Ending cosleeping, need help please

emmavenus77

We coslept/bedshared with our daughter until she was 11 months old.  Then we transitioned her to her crib with the Sleep Easy Solution, it took weeks, it was very difficult on all of us.  She was fine for several months, close to a year, then her brother was born last December.  

My toddler witnessed me in the throes of labor and was pretty traumatized (I went from 0 to transition in 10 minutes or less).  After I came home from the hospital, she was very clingy, needy and she refused to sleep in her bed and has been in our room since. 

Now my infant is almost 6 months old and my toddler is almost three.  She won't go to sleep unless I'm in bed with her and if she wakes up and I'm not there, she cries.  I'm getting really tired and frustrated.  She's worse than the infant.  

Sorry for the long post, but does anyone have any suggestions on moving her to her room? We're going to change her crib to a toddler bed but want to minimize the crying.  I'd appreciate any pointers, experiences etc.  

Thank you!  

TiffanyBerry

I would be careful to separate the three issues you describe here - sleeping if your room, needing you in bed with her to fall asleep, and crying when you're not there when she wakes up. These are each individually big changes for her, and if she takes to changes with difficulty, I'd do them one at a time, with plenty of time in between.

I might move her to another room, but continue to to stay with her for a while. Then work on being able to leave (in increments - over weeks or months, depending on your kid).  

cyprissa

We had similar issues and at 14 months we moved him to a queen size futon. The futon was very low to the ground. I started the process by breaking our nursing to sleep habit using the Pantley Pull Off, but I would still lay down with him to go to sleep. Then I started the sleep lady shuffle to get out of the bed. It took me about 2 months to get him sleep reliably in his own room in a bed but the key was consistency..if I went back on the method and let him come to bed with me, the process just went backwards. There wasn't a lot of crying. We had some when I told him no, he couldn't come to mamas bed but that is to be expected. 

danigirl7181

We switched DD to a twin bed from bed sharing in January. One of us would sleep with her for the first couple nights, then we got a cot and slept next to the bed. We moved the cot further away every couple days. It worked great. She would still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. All we did was tuck her back in and give her a kiss. 

She is back in our bed, but that's only because I'm in her bed because I am so uncomfortable sleeping with anyone. We will do the same thing as above when we transition again. 

BelhurstBride

TiffanyBerry:

I would be careful to separate the three issues you describe here - sleeping if your room, needing you in bed with her to fall asleep, and crying when you're not there when she wakes up. These are each individually big changes for her, and if she takes to changes with difficulty, I'd do them one at a time, with plenty of time in between.

I might move her to another room, but continue to to stay with her for a while. Then work on being able to leave (in increments - over weeks or months, depending on your kid).  

I was going to suggest something similar.

We started by having DH be a more active participant at bedtime; eventually he took over.

When we transitioned her out of the crib we made a huge deal out of having her help to pick everything out. She was just shy of three and suddenly obsessed with being a "big girl" so referring to it as her big girl room helped.

Sometime between 32 months and now she's done a 180 and suddenly STTN, in her own bed, by herself and either comes to get us or calls for us when she wakes. I don't know what magically made that happen, but we got there.