toddler adoption/ orphanage adoption question

jillianmb · May 2012

If you adopted a toddler from an orphanage, what was your sleeping arrangement like overseas in your hotel and when you got home? Did he/she sleep in a crib? Bed? With you? In your room? With you in his/her room? Curious to hear your stories and any advice! Thanks.

miss1180 · May 2012

we're adopting a toddler from Korea. he's 18 months old now, and ill probably be 22 months or so when he comes home.

Hes not in an orphanage- hes in foster home. i'm not 100% sure what his sleeping arrangements are with his foster family... but i think they sleep on a mattress together on the floor.

we'll really only have him in Korea for a couple nights before we head home... so i'm think while we're there, anything goes!! if he wants to sleep with us, thats fine- if he seems like he wants his own space, we'll figure something out (ask hotel for a rollaway bed??) just anything to get through the couple nights!

we don't want to "cosleep" like he's probably been doing in Korea... but when he FIRST comes home, i think we'll put the mattress from our Fouton on his bedroom floor. then one of us can sleep with him on that. we'll probably just do that for maybe the first week or 2 until he gets settled in a little bit

for after that, we bought a convertible crib. (less than $200 from Target) we plan to start off with it as a crib and then turn it into a toddler bed if he tries to climb out or really hates it. :-) we'll keep it as a toddler bed for a couple years, and then probably once he turns 4 1/2 or 5 we'll get him a nice twin bed.

its such a guessing game :-) but i feel like this way, we're pretty prepared for anything really.

Robby6 · May 2012

ds came home at twenty three months. we slept in the same room for the trip to bring him home. at home he slept in a crib in his room and dh and i took turns sleeping in his room all night on a single bed for about a month. the next month we would sleep in bhis room until he fell asleep and then sneak out. month three we would lay in the bed for ten or fifteen minutes right after he went in the crib. so the whole process took about three months. it might seem excessive but i really think it helped with bonding and him not feeling scared and alone. ds transitioned out of the crib at thirty months. sorry for lack of formatting, on my phone.

septemberdreams · May 2012

We adopted a 26 month old boy. While oversees, he slept in a crib in the same room. For home we had a bought a regular bed and put a guard rail up. We were glad, especially since he climbed out of the crib.

The first few nights we were home, DH slept on the floor, after that he was on his own and was fine. Sleep has never been an issue for us. He's always gone willingly, no delay tactics, etc.

SoSweet06 · May 2012

Our son was 5, so not exactly a toddler--but he had the same sleeping arrangements as the toddlers. We didn't think he would tolerate sleeping in the same bed since he had never had that experience, but he LOVED sleeping with us. The first night, he was so happy we were staying in the room with him, he crawled back and forth between us giving kisses and cuddling (He is not an overly affectionate kid, so it was out of character.)

My advice is wait and see what works--I wanted everything planned down to every single minute detail before we traveled, but soooo much of the "plan" changed after we met our son We stayed in an apartment, so we could have had him sleep in the other room or on the couch if necessary but he ended up sleeping with us the entire stay (but happily transitioned to his own bed once we were home).

penguincrazy · May 2012

We don't know anything about our son, or his sleeping arrangements yet, but we're planning on either co-sleeping or having one parent sleep in his room for a while after we return home since he will likely have NO idea what to do with that much alone-time. I'd love to cosleep for a while to fascilitate bonding, but we're very much go-with-what-works oriented (especially about sleep).

jillianmb · May 2012

Thanks ladies, this is helpful!

toddler adoption/ orphanage adoption question

Re: toddler adoption/ orphanage adoption question

Choose Another Board

Search Boards