a little much?

lbarrera86 · January 2012

This week, we will try to transition ds2 to his room for the very first time. It has been a storage room for toys and since ds3 will be here next month, we want to try to have ds2 get used to his room. We are having a hard time because we have bedshared since he was about 4months (thanks to dh) and that is the only place ds2 is comfortable sleeping in. I am able to carry him to his crib sometimes (if he's in a deep sleep) but will wake up 1-4 hours later and cry until I pick him up and put him back on our bed. He has hated his crib since he was 4 mos.

Anyway, ds2 doesn't fall asleep unless I'm in the bed with him. I can't be doing this when ds3 is here (plus, i'll be having a c/s, and dh works nights). So with that said, dh and I are thinking of sleep training him via CIO (please no flames as I am starting to not become comfortable with this again the closer it gets). The thing is, dh wants to try to do that in his room when we transition him there. However, we're not sure if we are going to transition him in his crib or in a twin sized mattress on the floor.

Now is that too much for him to CIO along with the transition since it will be a new environment for him or should we do things slowly? Do you guys suggest that we sleep a couple nights in his room first and then CIO?

tokenhoser · January 2012

If his room is safe and you think it would help, you could gate the door and go straight to a floor bed.

I don't think it's fair to go straight from cosleeping to cry it out. It won't be a quick fix for you - it will take (in my experience with my baby) a few weeks. We're still in the midst of Ferber hell. I know all the stories of "and in one night, he STTN!" make it tempting, but that's really not how it works with older babies/toddlers most of the time.

You could look at the Sleep Lady Shuffle. The No Cry Sleep Solution also has an "emergency" plan at the very end that is less extreme than Ferber/Weisbluth.

That said... like I said, we're doing Ferber right now. We did some no-cry techniques first to decrease my baby's night feeding. At the end of the day... it's what we needed to do and I was ready to do it consistently. Don't start if you're going to quit.

nosoup4u · January 2012

I would think it'd be too much to everything at once. And I think CIO is just harder when the kid can get up off the bed, so it's sort of dependent on having them in a crib.

Have you read "Good Night, Sleep Tight" by Kim West? She has some strategies that are more gentle than straight CIO (but they still transition to sleeping by themselves), it might be worth looking into. Good luck!

Sinafey · January 2012

I agree with PP's, it'd be best to minimize the transitions you're doing all at once. We transitioned DD into her crib from bedsharing around 15 months. First I started a new, longer sleep routine that she loved (reading several books, singing and snuggling together) so that she'd look forward to spending time in her room. After that was established I put her in the crib for her naps for a week, then for overnight. We did end up doing modified Ferber to break some sleep associations, but we spent a lot of time talking about it during the day and at that age she seemed to kind of "get it". Everything went far better than expected.

I'd personally try first to reintroduce the crib in a positive way, since a toddler bed introduces new challenges. Maybe a new sheet with his favorite animal on it, and a new teddy or boring toy that he can only have while in it?

TiffanyBerry · January 2012

I would move him to a mattress on the floor - in his room - now. And rather than bringing him into bed with you when he wakes in the middle of the night, go in and lay with him. (If you don't want him in your bed in general to sleep, do NOT bring him into your bed EVER to sleep. BE REALLY CONSISTENT!!) Give that a good while (4-6 weeks? maybe longer), THEN work on not having to lay back down with him when he wakes in the night.

Seems like it's the crib he doesn't like, so I wouldn't force that if you're thinking about it going away in the not too distant future anyway.

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