In light of the massive crib recall, there were a lot of concerned parents on twitter today wondering where their baby should sleep while they wait who knows how long for the repair kit to make their crib safe again.
As a non-crib user, I threw out a few suggestions to people (not intended as prescriptive, but more as “thinking outside the crib”):
- I said that if they are considering co-sleeping, they should read up about co-sleeping safety first to ensure that they are creating the safest sleep environment possible.
- I also suggested that for babies over 12 months, parents may want to consider transitioning them to a big kid bed.
On the second point, I had a number of people respond that they need their baby contained or that their baby would just get up out of bed if they did that. As someone who parents my children to sleep stays with my children while they fall asleep, this was foreign to me.
But it got me wondering:
- How do parents transition their kids from the confined space of a crib to a big kid bed?
- Is it a difficult transition?
- When and how does this happen?
Everyone tells people who parent to sleep start out staying with their kids while they fall asleep that their kids will never learn to go to sleep on their own. I won’t pretend that it is easy. But to me, it seems like it would be easier to go from being parented to sleep to not being parented to sleep having a parent in the room to not having a parent in the room than it would to go from being confined to sleep to not being confined to sleep.
Educate me.
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Both my kids are great sleepers, at night and during the day. I transitioned my first son to a regular bed when he was two and a half. We never had a problem with it. Until then, he just really seemed to enjoy his crib. We only moved him over to get the crib ready for the baby. My kids both snuggle around in their beds quietly a bit before sleeping. The 12-month-old would definitely wander around and play, and I wouldn’t feel at all safe with him doing that for probably another 8-12 months.
I’m actually not familiar with the term parenting to sleep.
@Maria: “Parenting to sleep” means that the parents stay with the child until they fall asleep. Sometimes involves nursing, sometimes rocking, sometimes lying in bed with them, sometimes just sitting in their room. There are lots of variations, but the idea is that the parent is present while the child goes to sleep.
Ah thank you for clarifying.
The phrasing of that seems imply that not being present as a child falls asleep is failing to parent them. That makes me kind of sad.
Maria, it’s a term from the Dr. Sears books. In my opinion, it has just referred to meeting your child’s needs as they go to bed/fall asleep. Staying with them until they’re asleep would only be something you would do if they can’t/won’t fall asleep on their own. (my take.)
@Boy Crazy: My interpretation of the term would be that when your child can/does fall asleep on their own, they have outgrown parenting to sleep. It happens earlier with some kids and later with others.
@Maria: Not at all. Assuming the child does go to sleep fairly happily, I don’t think it is failing to parent them. I think they have just outgrown the need for parental presence at bedtime.
I have to say I find the term kind of offensive, honestly. Although really there’s plenty of much worse things to worry about, so it’s not like I’m really worked up about it.
Neither of my kids has wanted a parent around while they went to sleep. little weirdos. #2, at 5 months old, started just FREAKING out in the evenings when I was trying to nurse her to sleep, and after about week I was so frustrated I put her in the crib (which hadn’t been used all that much before then) and walked out to collect myself and figure out what to do, and 30 seconds later she was asleep and she slept through the night. Apparently she prefers just being left the heck alone!
I’ve been pretty lucky with sleep stuff.
We have always parented to sleep. M went to a big boy bed (toddler bed) when he was about 1.5 or 2 I think. For a long time he still nursed to sleep. If he woke in the night I would snuggle on the floor next to him and hold his hand. Once he weaned, we moved to doing books before bed. I would then lay down beside his bed for a little while and then leave while he was awake. Then we got to where I would just read the book, tuck him in and leave. He was putting himself to sleep. A couple months ago he started to not be able to put himself to sleep alone anymore (this past year has had a lot of changes and such). So, now, after books, I tuck him in and then sit in the rocker in his room and use this time for my blogging. I leave after he is asleep. He will get comfortable enough to go to sleep on his own one day. If he wakes in the middle of the night now, I gently walk him back to bed and tuck him in and leave, or invite him into our bed if it is near morning. This happens every night as some point.
Letting him cry alone in his own room has never been an option for us. I won’t lie, there were some really hard times for a while here and there. Nights where I couldn’t leave the room because he seemed to have a sensor on me. Now, I know that he needed me closer and I should have just co-slept more. But, we were learning.
We transitioned my older daughter to a big girl bed when she was 22mo. It was out of necessity since her sister was due to arrive in 2 months and I’d be needing the crib (well, as it turned out not right away as I ended up co-sleepng with my youngest for about 6 months). She could easily climb in and out of her crib so it made sense to put her in a big girl bed (safer too).
We also moved her into a new bedroom and I think that helped her feel like this was a super special thing. I’d heard horror stories about transitioning to the bed but she was fabulous. Once we put her to bed and read her to sleep she stayed put. If she happened to wake in the middle of the night she didn’t climb out of bed and explore.
Now at 3 1/2 she goes to sleep on her own. My husband reads books to her and once I put her sister to bed I go and lie down with her for 5-10 min. I always leave before she has fallen asleep and she never gets out of bed. We’ve been lucky.
I’m still waiting to see how my younger one will deal with the transitioning but I think I have a few months before that happens. We’ll probably consider it once she can climb out of the crib on her own
We also parent to sleep, so I have no clue either. We are currently suffering a crib setback in that our 15 month old recently decided he is having no part of sleeping in his own room anymore. He will only co-sleep with us and otherwise screams until we relent. I can’t do “cry it out” as he just wins. Believe me my current record is him screaming for 3 hours and I will never try again. He was so upset and shaking it just isn’t worth it. He sleeps like a charm if he is in bed with us, but I dread the transition to a big kid bed. Hoping it just comes natural! Maybe we will get a gift on that one, since nothing else with sleep has ever come easily with this one.
Simone:
I think the transition from co-sleeping to crib is probably more different than the transition from co-sleeping to big kid bed. You can get a big enough big kid bed that you can lie down with him.
All three of my boys slept with us as babies. The first two, we were able to put down in our bed early in the night and we would join them. Our third was mobile really young, and our bed was up on a frame instead of a mattress on the floor like before, so he goes down in a crib, then joins us when he wakes at midnight. For the first two, we moved them to their own mattress on the floor (in a room across the hall) when they were just over 1. We laid with them until they were asleep until they were about 2 years old, then they would lay in bed and go to sleep while listening to music. Our third is almost one, and he will stay in the crib/our bed. He sucks his thumb to sleep, so we put him in the crib as he’s fading into sleep. If he wakes, we’ll keep bringing him in with us because we finally have a king size bed and there’s plenty of room.
Well, as someone who HAS to let her kid go to sleep by himself… I can’t imagine doing it the other way! Even when he was quite small he would “talk” himself to sleep. Some days it can take over an hour. If we are with him he is just distracted.
The transition from crib to big kid bed wasn’t that hard actually, he continues to talk himself to sleep and only many months later has he discovered that he can “stall” by getting up. However, he hates to have his door closed all the way so if he keeps getting up we just say “if you get up again we will close the door” and the threat of that is usually sufficient to keep him in bed.
He moved to a big kid bed at 2 when he figured out how to climb out of his crib. He’s now 2 and 9 months.
I transitioned my daughter at 14 months into a toddler bed. I did it early because she had never liked the cot anyway, and I figured she might get a better night sleep. The first night in the toddler bed was the first night she slept through. When she was getting used to it she did fall out a couple of times in the first week but as it was a toddler bed and low to the floor it was more of a shock than anything else.
For the first couple of months she didn’t work out that she could get out of bed and I was dreading when she worked out that she could. In the end it wasn’t that bad. At first she thought the whole getting out of bed thing was a bit of a game and would run down the hallway giggling like a mad thing and I would try my best not to laugh (and fail miserably). But it didn’t take long for her to get the idea that it was time for bed as long as I was consistent with putting her back in. Although I didn’t actually have to put her back in – she would back down the hallway (also giggling) and climb back into bed on her own.
She doesn’t wake up much in the middle of the night unless she’s teething or had a bad dream etc and when she does, she knows where I am and she just comes into our room to get in the big bed. And when that happens she just sleeps with us for the rest of the night and I don’t bother trying to put her back in her own bed. I enjoy a snuggle or two.
@zoey:
That whole up-down, up-down thing is why I couldn’t imagine getting an older child to sleep on his own while you are also trying to nurse a younger one to sleep. I did try it a few times with my son, but he always ended up waking up the baby while I was nursing her to sleep because he would keep getting up and coming to us or calling us from his room.
Instead, on the nights when I am alone with both of them, we all lie down together and I put both kids to bed at the same time. When Emma was younger, I would then move her to another bed after they were both asleep because I didn’t want to leave Julian alone in bed with her for safety reasons.
That`s exactly what I did
Agreed – there’s no way I’d want to be doing the whole going to bed dance if I was trying to get a little baby off to sleep as well! But I’m glad that I persisted because now when #2 arrives (we’re trying to get pregnant) I know that my daughter will go off to sleep without a fuss.
I coslept with my boys for 6 months, using the Arm’s Reach cosleeper. With both boys I nursed for 2 years or more so we did use nursing at bedtime to help them get to sleep. I transitioned them to the crib gradually, just for part of the night at first. This was primarily for safety reasons, once they were sitting up to get them into a crib before they would be pulling up or crawling. I did not want to go to bed early with the baby but did not want to leave them alone in the cosleeper once they were mobile. Also, at that point I would notice that they would wake up when I had to get up to the bathroom but would sleep longer in the crib since I wasn’t disturbing them. And I was just so tired.
For my first child it was more difficult. I found I had to transition him from breast to pacifier before placing him in the crib. They both used the crib until at least age 3. I didn’t really have any problems transitioning them to beds. For my older one I used a visual timer and told him to get up when the timer lights were all off. It uses 3 colored lights so if he wakes up early he knew whether or not it was almost time to get up by what color light was on. For my younger son, I ended up keeping him in the crib a little longer. Once he went to a toddler bed, he was sleeping through the night quite well so he would just get up and crawl into bed with me in the morning. Oh, and when my younger son weaned himself, we replaced the bedtime nursing with reading a story in the rocker. He didn’t fall asleep, I think I told him it was time to “go see bunny.” He sucked his thumb, too, so he sort of had a built in comfort system. Now he is 5 and I just need to tuck him in and give lots of hugs and kisses. They are both good about not getting me up too early which is great because Mommy is a night owl. I don’t put them to bed super early though, usually between 8:30 and 9.
We just went through this a few months ago with my son. He is 21 months now, was about 18 months when we moved him out of his crib. I was afraid that it would be a nightmare, but it actually has not been that bad at all.
As a baby he spent the first 3 months in a moses basket beside my bed. After that we moved him to his own room, but on a Montessori-style floor bed. We baby-proofed his room, put a baby gate across the door, and he slept on a thin (2in) twin-sized mattress placed on the floor. This worked out really well for several months, and I think we would’ve stuck to it except that right at 7 months old we moved internationally and he spent about 2 months sleeping in a pack-n-play (since couldn’t babyproof). Those 2 months combined with his new-found mobility meant he was having a really hard time transitioning back to the freedom of the mattress… but I now wonder if he would’ve adjusted if I’d had more patience and tried to do what we did these past few months. At the time I was stressed and overwhelmed with the move and putting him in a confined crib/playpen (where he went to sleep easily, quickly, and entirely without help) just seemed a lot easier than dealing with a child who cried and constantly crawled off the bed to attempt pulling up *yet again.* So at 9/10 months old we got him an Ikea crib– I really liked it b/c it was very low to the ground, and one of my biggest apprehensions about cribs is kids climbing out and falling onto the floor (am amazed people treat that as a “routine” occurence, I mean REALLY? Isn’t it shocking and scary as hell???).
Over this past summer I started wondering about moving him back to a big bed for a number of reasons– 1) he was getting better at climbing and I worried about him climbing out 9and the Ikea crib rails came up much higher than most cribs do– we tried putting him in a crib at my mom’s at 17 months and there was just no way- he would’ve climbed out so easily, the rails barely came up to his chest), 2) he seemed so grown up to me, walking and starting to talk, etc, that it seemed odd to keep him in a “baby” bed.
His crib had the option to take off one of the side rails, so that’s what we did at first. After 2-3 weeks of that, we took apart the entire crib and put him back on the mattress he’d slept on as a baby. With both of these transitions he at first had trouble staying in bed, but one of us would sit next to him and that way he’d stay put. At first we had to sit with him for up to an hour or sometimes more, but after a week or so it got to be only 15-20 minutes. We started slowly sitting further and further away, and now about 80-90% of the time we just go through the bedtime routine and then he goes to sleep on his own without me needing to stay, without a fuss. It’s pretty wonderful.
We’ve tried to keep his room as safe as possible (knowing him and his abilities), and we still keep a baby-gate across his doorway so he can’t get out and wander about without us knowing it. So far this set-up has worked really well. Even better, he recently figured out how to turn on his light in his room and has started playing quietly for a few minutes in the morning before needing to wake us. That alone I think is a very nice perk of being in a bed without the confinement of a crib. ; ) It’s also really nice that I can lay down next to him at night if he really needs comforting, whereas in the crib that was really difficult/uncomfortable. I still can’t ever seem to fall asleep or have any sort of quality sleep if I’m laying next to him, but at least I’m more comfortable while awake in the middle of the night.
**If you don’t mind me hijacking your comment section for a minute (um… too late?) I have a question I’ve always wondered about co-sleeping: what do you do when your kiddo becomes mobile? Meaning, how do you make sure they don’t roll/crawl off the bed and fall to the floor? (something my kamikazi baby seemed intent on doing while awake and playing on our bed) Do you lower your mattress to the floor? Do you go to bed when they do (night & naps)? Install safety rails on all sides? Thanks. =)
Marcy:
We have used bedrails and a Snug Tuck pillow (links to both in the co-sleeping safety post that I linked to in this post). That works to keep kids from rolling off the bed. It doesn’t work obviously if they are trying to climb out on purpose. We haven’t ever had that problem, but most people who do put the mattress on the floor I think.
Mattress on the floor. Simple solution, and makes for a fun soft play area during the day, too. We also have a twin mattress on the floor where DS sleeps, as he needs his space. Combined together, our bedroom is mostly mattress! It works really well.
Hi there, I have to comment… as soon as we saw the recall on the news my husband said to me: and “they” are always on about the dangers of co-sleeping!!! We have a family bed, two futons very close to the floor, we love that as soon as our kids wake up they can get up and take themselves off to play… Our house is safe for them to play in while I live along side them all day… and sometimes I do leave the room and answer the phone or they wander off when I am cooking… I don’t watch them every second of every day… Our house has to be safe enough for them when I am not watching them every second… There are some spots that I wouldn’t like a climbing toddler to be and we just close those doors – but that would be during the day as well!!! If we had stairs for instance we would pop a gate there but that would be day and night… I guess there is no difference in our parenting during the day or night… you have to be sure they are safe wether you are awake or asleep… When our first child was an infant we attended a first aid course and there advice about baby-proofing a house was quite simple: Imagine of your front door blew shut and you were locked out and your toddler within (horrifying but possible) then what would you change?…
se7en:
I agree. When there is a death in a crib, it has to be related to that particular crib or something the parents put in the crib or something like that. But when a baby dies in the parents bed, it is because “co-sleeping is dangerous”. Period.
I ranted and raved about that in these posts:
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2008/06/05/faulty-logic-from-the-ontario-coroner-regarding-bed-sharing/
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/06/01/88-deaths-per-100000-population/
I had Frac when Fric was 13 months old. He was a big baby and in a few short months he no longer fit in the cradle we had and it wasn’t feasible for us to co-sleep in our situation. So my husband and I had to make a tough choice, which basically involved kicking our sixteen month old daughter out of her crib. We went with a mattress on the floor because I was concerned with her falling out of a bed and we couldn’t afford to buy a toddler bed and then upgrade to a regular size bed.
The mattress on the floor worked, she loved it and yes, she did get out of bed. And I chased her back into bed. After a few nights of this she learned to stay in her bed and go to sleep.
It wasn’t a big deal and no one was scarred in the process. Except for maybe the family cat because Fric was no longer imprisoned in her crib and could chase him around freely.
With my oldest we co-slept with a convertible crib – one of the ones that goes from crib to toddler bed to full-sized bed. For the first year it was in a side-car position on my side of the bed and once she was mobile we dropped it down to the toddler bed level so she was sleeping lower than us and I could block her from climbing out without waking me with my body. That was a new parent worry I left behind in her babyhood.
Some time after a year we pushed the crib (now a toddler bed) against the wall on my side of the room and there was about 3 feet between the edge of her bed and my bed. I did a lot of laying down with her in that little bed. She slept with us that way until she was probably 2.5 yo at which point we got out the big kid bed and I again did a lot of sleeping with her in that room on the big kid bed. We began with me sleeping the whole night there and then transitioned to me leaving when she fell asleep and returning for good if she woke up and wanted company to get back to sleep.
During this all she would return to our bed in the am to take her Papi’s place as he left for work.
When our second came we became a family bed family as our oldest returned to the bed. I was not willing to try to tell her that the baby could sleep with us but she could not. All the “fun” was being had in our bed (which was by now of the king-sized variety plus that side-car crib). Some people might see that as a “regression”. We saw it as a natural reaction to the situation. Who wants to be left out of things?
The kids slept with us in the bed and crib side-car for the next two years. We then moved and took the opportunity to set up the master bedroom with a comfy roll-away bed for the oldest on one side of the room and the toddler bed set up for our younger on my side of the room. They slept like that for many months and then transitioned together to their own room with their twin beds pushed together. My youngest has always co-slept with somebody. I did not end up sleeping with my youngest in that room and simply welcomed her into our bed if she woke and came looking for me.
At this point we sometimes play musical beds with a youngster asking to sleep with a parent or the parents. My husband is pretty tied to the master bedroom bed so unless both girls want to sleep with me he takes that bed with one kid and I hit the queen-sized bed in the guest bedroom with whomever is my buddy that night.
Our crib was recalled right after my 2nd child was born, it was also a drop-side crib, and I was so mad! Now we have a convertable crib. When my son was about 2-ish we started transitioning him to a “big boy” bed. I started by keeping the crib in his room and set up a mattress on the floor (a new one, not the crib one). I put fun sheets on it with graphics he would like. We talked a lot about big boy beds and then he had a choice of where he wanted to sleep. The first two nights he opted for his crib. I affirmed that choice .. then he chose the bed on the floor… and finally after about 2 weeks he was solidly in his bed and we removed the crib. After a few months we added the boxspring under the mattress, and finally, about a year later we put it up on a bedframe (he was finally tall enough to crawl up on his own).
When my crib was recalled, it took a long time to get all the details worked out for reimbursement. So I had to charge a new crib to my credit card so I could get it without having to wait so many weeks. However, I used a pack-n-play (portable crib) for the first few nights until I could get the new crib in the house.
Hope this helps –
Missy
Thanks Missy.
We moved my son to a toddler bed when he was 2 1/2. We waited until he started to wake in the night an climb out of his crib which is obviously a safety hazard. Once we moved him to his toddler bed he still got out of bed and wandered around but no more than he did when he was climbing out of his crib. He was just in a get out of bed and run around phase. He turned 3 two days ago and seems to be fine now. If my daughter’s crib was recalled (which it wasn’t) I would have to buy another crib. She 13 months now and I wouldn’t feel safe with her being in something that wasn’t contained. We actually tried to co-sleep with her but she didn’t like it. She would wake in the night every hour or so. After four months we moved her to her own crib where she slept through the night from the very first time. She’s a great little sleeper…but she still needs a crib because she rolls around.
We coslept in a family bed until just recently (son is 2.5 yrs). When our son was two, we introduced a toddler bed to our room, he liked to lay in it at first, but would sleep with us. About a month ago, he started wanting to go to sleep in his bed. I lay in our bed until he falls asleep in his. For a couple weeks, he’d crawl back in to bed with us in the middle of the night, but I think the last two weeks he’s spent the whole night in his bed.
We just let him do it at his own pace, gave him the opportunity, and he did it on his own. It was really, surprisingly easy, in fact. The next step will be moving him to his own room, I imagine he’ll jump back into our bed for a little while when that happens, which is fine. But we’re looking for a new place, so we’re delaying that step until after we move.
My first child slept in a crib, for a variety of reasons. Mostly because she naturally just slept long stretches at night on her own. However, I always nursed her to sleep, and when she woke up I often brought her into bed with me. When she was 18 months old she was waking a lot, and having her in a queen size bed with two adults was not working, so we bought her a double bed and I joined her in it when she needed me.
The thing is, that my daughter always woke up screaming. If she was in bed with me, if she was in her crib, or if she was in her own bed. So waking up and wandering around was never an issue with her. Even now, at 4 1/2, she will come and loudly protest to me if she happens to wake before I do. My son, on the other hand, might do that. He is 15 months right now and primarily co-sleeping, and even still he tries to climb over me and out of my bed. He just wakes up and goes exploring. So, I might be a little bit more hesitant to put him in a ‘big kid bed’ in a room by himself, at least at this point. Luckily, we got a king sized bed between the kidlets, so it’s less of an issue.
My big girl was in a cot in our bedroom, about 21 months we were all waking each other up so she went into her own bed. She loved it and slept much better, but my husband still puts her to sleep each night with a story then sitting with her. We figure we’ll be reading to them for several more years, so what’s the difference? They won’t be going to bed alone until they ask us to get out!
Baby girl is on a mattress next to our bed. She’s a very challenging non-sleeper who is slowly getting better. We’re actually thinking about giving them the queensize mattress she’s on now in a few months time and having them co-sleep together. Baby girl will sleep better with someone else, and as long as it doesn’t disturb big girl it would be easier than getting two beds in.
I’m not going to speak about “ideal situations” because to each her own. But “parenting my kid to sleep” sucked the lifeblood out of me. I did it with my first and I vowed never to do it again. And in my own experience, it made the transition for them to sleep without me ridiculously hard. I wished over and over that I had never done that in the first place.
It’s not always possible – particularly if you’re alone and your spouse is traveling a lot and/or you have other children. In fact, it can be down right impossible.
I think that certainly ANYTHING can work if you try hard enough, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason for people to decide to give up the crib and put them in a toddler bed. It can be stressful, tiring, and emotionally draining. I personally can’t advocate that.
Motherhood Uncensored:
I’m not advocating anything in particular. I was just throwing out options for people to consider in case they hadn’t thought of it. Then when people told me they could not transition their child out of a crib now, I became curious about how the transition from crib to big kid bed happens (because obviously it has to at some point). I was wondering if it always has to be “stressful, tiring and emotionally draining” or if some parents out there have found a great transition strategy to make it easy.
It can be challenging with a spouse who travels, as mine does. When my second was quite small, he went to sleep before his big brother (then 3), so I’d nurse him to sleep, then put my oldest to bed. Sometimes the oldest would get antsy, and come in, and wake up baby. Frustrating! But, we got through it. Or, sometimes he’d fall asleep in his own room waiting for me. Good in that I know he CAN go to sleep on his own, sad because I’d wanted to read to him and cuddle him to sleep. Now that they are older, and going to sleep at roughly the same time, I give the older one the option to stay with us while I nurse his brother, and they sleep the night together (I join them when the 2 year old calls for me), or he can play or read quietly and wait for me (often falling asleep in the process). It is easier when my DH is home, but it can be done on my own!
To be perfectly honest, I really think part of why transitioning my son to a bed this fall was so (relatively) easy was because as a baby we let him “cry it out” to learn how to fall asleep on his own, and so after the slight disruption of being in a different surface, he went back to going to sleep on his own easily and quickly (in the end we only had to stay with him till he fell asleep for a few weeks or maybe a month or so, and now he goes to sleep all on his own again)
I know CIO is not a popular subject here and that many parents strongly disagree with the practice. However, it helped save my sanity at the time we did it and has made life incredibly, vastly, amazingly simpler ever since, including with this transition. Since we’re bringing up strategies that other parents might not have thought of and may work for them, I thought I’d throw that out there.
@Marcy: I’m not a fan of CIO and I didn’t really want this to become a discussion about that. I think regardless of HOW you got your child to go to sleep in their crib, if they ARE going to sleep in there, but you feel you NEED to contain them in a crib in order to keep them from getting up, then obviously some sort of transition strategy is required when moving to a big kid bed and I was just wondering what transition strategies people used.
From what my experience has shown me, I agree. Our daughter never went from “confined in a crib” to on her own in a toddler bed. We stopped putting her to sleep in a crib around 6-9 months when her teething pains worsened and she just wouldn’t stop crying. She was so upset I wondered if she might vomit and that’s when I said enough is enough. The doctor and many others had said to do the 5, 10, 15 minute CIO routine, but that just wasn’t working. We put her in bed with us and didn’t dread nighttime anymore. My husband built her a little toddler bed a month or two after her first birthday, placed it right at the foot of our bed, and we put her in it whenever we could. Sometimes she was asleep already, sometimes she was just sleepy and would stay there. It took a little convincing at first, as she preferred our bed to hers, but before long she was fine with sleeping in there. The only time she won’t do it now (at 2.5 years) is if she’s had a nightmare or sometimes if she wakes up and is cold, or something like that. I think cosleeping *helped* her develop good sleep habits. I don’t think it’s a good idea to rely on the confines of a crib to get a child to sleep. Eventually, the child will be big enough to climb out, and where does that leave you?
So, I know that doesn’t really answer your question, but I thought I’d share anyway!
Jenny:
“Eventually, the child will be big enough to climb out, and where does that leave you?”
Exactly what I was thinking.
If I could redo one single choice I’ve made as a parent it would be the “parenting your kid to sleep thing” which – well, I’ve never heard that expression, but it sounds like a positive way of spinning “destroying your life.”
Only now is my 4 year old ready to sleep on her own because of it, and frankly, those years (YEARS) of having to lie in bed with her for up to 3 hours a night to get her to sleep were a low point in my life and fairly well documented on my blog. I did do it differently with my second daughter which worked just fine – from crib to her bed (or really, mattress on the floor). Until now. Now she wants to be in my bed anyway. And once again, I’m sleep deprived (as is she) and not so happy.
I guess it proves we all think we have the right answer until a different kind of kid comes along and challenges everything we think we know about parenting.
I don’t think I have THE right answer. I have the right answer for our family.
Oh when I said “we” I really meant we! Not some passive-aggressive we=you thing.
But when you write that you suggest that 12 month olds transition into a bed, I would imagine that’s challenging for the majority of 12 month olds. I could be wrong though. I often am!
Thanks for clarifying. I did misread that. Not that it was directed at me specifically, but that it was directed at all parents in general, i.e. “we all”.
I can’t speak for all 12 month olds. We did transition our 12 month old from our bed to his own bed (a double bed with a bedrail). The bedrail on one side and the wall on the other side ensured for the most part that he didn’t fall out. Theoretically I guess he could have fallen off of the end of the bed, but (a) he didn’t and (b) the bed was low enough to the ground that he wouldn’t have hurt himself seriously.
I was just throwing it out there as an option for people who may not have thought of it, in case it was something that would work for them and that would allow them to get past their worry about the safety of their crib.
Also – I just have to say this because well, I do. But I don’t that “parenting to sleep” expression at all. It seems to imply that everyone else is not parenting, or somehow less of a parent.
Okay. Phew.
I unfortunately did CIO with my son at 7 wks, and then, due to acid reflux issues, again at 4 mos, so he has gone to sleep on his own since then. (I hadn’t heard of attachment parenting at that point, and thought that CIO was what you were supposed to do, so I did, though I hated it – expecting again in 3 wks & hoping to try Dr. Karp’s self-soothing methods, but rock/nurse to sleep if all else fails). Anyhow…
My son is 23 months, and just had a very easy transition from crib to toddler bed. He doesn’t always stay in his bed at bedtime, but we just shut his door (which he asks us to do, he doesn’t mind), or we put a gate in his doorway so he can’t come into our room in the night. And he goes to sleep on his own within about a half hour (often on the floor, he’ll wake up & switch between the floor & the bed during the night, it’s so funny). If getting out of the bed is a problem, and your child is not falling asleep, I would make it a discipline issue, tell them they will be disciplined if they get out of their bed.
As far as parenting to sleep, it would be easier in a big kid bed than a toddler bed- you could lay next to your child as they’re falling asleep if they need you to. But it would be possible in a toddler bed, too.
Carrie:
That is exactly the reason we never got toddler kids for our kids. Because we knew we would lie down with them.
But what I am curious about is how kids who go to sleep on their own in a crib (but need to be contained to do so) end up transitioning to staying put in a big kid bed. Do their parents end up having to stay with them for a period of time or is there some other trick?
we had to stay with my oldest in her room until she fell asleep both when she was still in the crib and when she first moved to a big bed. So I guess I was “parenting to sleep” all that time and never really realized it
At a certain point we just started leaving her awake and letting her go to sleep on her own. She sucks her thumb so she had a method of self comforting. Perhaps that helped.
I decided i didn’t want to parent to sleep my second. I wanted to have some time to myself in the evenings again not to mention time to talk to my husband so I rock/nurse her for about 20-30 mn then lay her down in her crib. Some nights she just lies there and goes to sleep, most nights she rolls over and crawls around in her bed, chatting to her bunny and turtle before going to sleep on her own.
DD slept in our bed until she was 18 months. It was by far the best solution for us – I couldn’t imagine getting out of bed to nurse her. At 18 months, we put a double futon on the floor in her room, and she slept there. At first I slept with her, then as she got older, I started lying with her until she fell asleep, then getting up and doing my own thing, going to sleep in my own bed until she called for me. Gradually she called for me later and later. I could just get up, stumble to her room, lie next to her and fall back to sleep.
She’s 4 now. About half the week she’ll sleep 12 hours and I’ll wake up in my own bed; the rest of the time I stumble in to her room if she has a bad dream. It has worked exceptionally well. She’s still on the futon on the floor – we would like to get her a twin bed to make more room in her room, but on the other hand we’re loathe to mess with a good thing.
We’re not even putting the crib up for our new arrival – unless s/he turns out not to enjoy co-sleeping, we’ll probably just get rid of the crib.
I’m not sure I really like the “parenting to sleep” term either, even though I fit the definition. I understand the thinking behind it, but I find it a pretty exlusionary term.
We co-slept with both kids. We transitioned both of them to their own beds with no problem at all (Julian at 1 year, Emma at 2.5 years). However, we do still stay with them while they fall asleep (I think that could be changed with my 5 year old, but I’m not the one who puts him to bed so it is not my choice) and we do still go to them at night if they need us, which can result in one of us staying with them or just tucking them back in and then returning to our own bed.
I had a pediatrician tell me that if I dont sleep train my 4 month old son he would “never learn to sleep on his own.” I had to contain my laughter as she said this, picturing a sleepless nation, grown-ups away from their parents not able to sleep because no one “trained” them at 4 months. Ridiculous. I changed pediatricians and carried on co-sleeping.
Here’s how we transitioned: Around 20 months I got tired of being woken up to nurse. So I told my son “from now on, we don’t nurse at night, only in the morning on the couch.” He was old enough to understand and since the reward of nursing was just delayed he was OK with it. He was also OK with moving out of our bed and into a big boy bed since the milk bar was closed.
The cutest part of all? Every morning when I woke up there was my little angel sitting patiently waiting on the couch for his nursing.
Eilat: Wow! What a patient child you have.
Ack!!!
Sorry…didn’t mean to create a controversy. I thought the term “parenting to sleep” was a commonly accepted term for staying with your children while they fall asleep. That wasn’t what the post was supposed to be about, so I’m sorry that it ended up being a big point of focus. I’ve edited the post to remove the offensive term.
The point of the post is not to tell anyone how to get their children to go to sleep or to pretend that my way is the only or even the best way. Most people I know whose children do go to sleep on their own are fiercely proud of their independent children.
The reason I wrote the post was that the discussions on twitter sparked my curiosity yesterday. Because we don’t use a crib, I had never really thought about how the transition from a crib to another bed would happen. When people said that they needed the crib to keep their child contained, I started to wonder when/how they wean their child off of that need. I wasn’t asking to judge. I was asking to learn.
Sorry if I offended anyone.
Well, you didn’t offend me, although i have to admit I’d never heard of that expression before.
Anyway, we had our kids in our beds, or in bassinets right beside the bed, for the first 5 months or so, when they got too active to be safe and large to fit. Mostly due to kicking and squirming and rolling. sounds odd, but my kids are all extremely hyperactive, excellent climbers and love to get into things.
They ended up in cribs until about 18 months when they climbed out jumped on the floor, and walked down the hall and yelled at us. We didn’t dare put them back, took down the crib, put the crib mattress on the floor and just lay down to sleep with them.
We never did CIO, I’ve always nursed them to sleep or rocked them or whatever, but the problem came when they would wake up in the middle of the night and wander around, or get into trouble. It really was unsafe. At one point we had gates on their doors and had completely baby proofed their rooms, but then they threw tantrums. So finally I just stayed up most of the night, and every time one kid got up, he’d find me sitting at the door, quietly refusing to let him out, and telling him to go back to bed, even if he screamed and hit me and freaked, and after a few days it worked and he decided to stay in bed. (They were each over 2 and I never left them alone, so I don’t count it as CIO, and although i know some people do if there is any crying.)
Our toddler is nursed, cuddled, read or walked to sleep most nights. She is a sleep-resister, like one of her siblings and myself: our brains have a hard time shutting down.
My older children were “parented” to sleep for years. It ended so gradually, I don’t remember when I stopped laying down with them until they were asleep or almost asleep. May have been 10 or 11 for one and 8 or 9 for the other (who preferred morning cuddles to nighttime ones.) At sleepovers or camps, they went to sleep on their own. We still read to 11 and almost-14 most nights, although now in the living room, and then stop in to tuck them in and chat about their day. I hear more worries, hopes and dreams at bedtime than any other time.
Forgot to add, my children both moved out of our room at 3 of their own volition, but continued to come in to our bed at some point for many years, usually when they had to get up to pee. When I was in a house with stairs, I gated the top of the stairs so no one could fall down the stairs at night stumbling from one room to the other.
I’m curious about the containment issue as well. Since we share the bed with our baby, 8 months old now, we don’t even own a crib. I plan to sleep with her as long as we are all happy, but I’m wondering what will happen when she becomes more mobile. Currently, she only rolls around a little and bed rails keep her contained, but I’m not sure what we will do when she starts pulling herself up.
Does anyone know how young a child can be taught to safely climb out of bed? I’ve heard of some parents teaching toddlers to safely go up and down stairs instead of relying on gates. We have a platform that is very low to the floor.
Olivia,
My babies could climb in and out of bed safely before one. I taught them to slide down backwards, feet first.
Thanks, it’s nice to know a baby can be taught that at an early age.
Olivia:
I think you can teach them to get up and down safely, but you also need to consider rolling while they are sleeping.
So far she doesn’t roll much when sleeping, even when she is alone. However, we do have bed rails and use a monitor to listen for when she first wakes up.
Be careful with bed rails and make sure they don’t come away from the mattress creating a gap.
Be careful with bed rails and make sure they don’t come away from the mattress creating a gap.
Mine haven’t rolled off the bed, thankfully. Although one rolled out of her big bed once she was 7 or 8.
Our daughter and I started sleeping on her double bed just short of her being 9 months. It took a few weeks of showing her how to get up and down her bed and she is a pro at it now, so much so that this is how she tries to get off everything (and everyone!) – she backs up.
She can still roll over in her sleep, but we have a couple of pillows on one side, and my body on the other.
Oliva, I was worried about this too our 15 month old was pretty wiggly in bed during the 8-12 month stage. She sleeps in our bed–it is pretty high with a boxspring and all. We have the bed pushed up against the wall and the crib (why did we get one?) serves some usefulness by blocking the other side of the bed. We have a soft chair (the kind that folds out into a twin mattress) that we put on the floor at the base of the crib–so it is in the one little corner she can get out on. It provides a “step” and we have taught her to back herself down onto it to get out of the bed. I haven’t ever known her to do it without us there though, she generally sit up in bed and says “mom” and waits for me to come get her.
That’s awesome to hear. I think I will start working on creating a step for her. At 8 months, my daughter tends to either “yell” for us when she wakes or I look in on her and find her laying still and playing with her hands or small toy.
With our first, Emilia, it was easy. She didn’t like sleeping with us (seriously) and she moved happily from crib to bed at 15 months (she moved from our bed to bassinet beside bed at about 3 weeks, and then bassinet to crib at 5 months – during which transition we slept on mattress on floor because I was anxious about not having her next to me.) It was, one night crib, next night bed (which had been the room with her the whole time, as a daybed), no issues at all.
With Jasper, well… totally different story. He prefers to sleep with us, which we embraced until it became impossible for me to sleep, once he developed a pretty intense clinging/hair-grabbing/night-kicking habit. We transitioned him to crib, and that worked okay in some respects – we put him in awake, he drops off to sleep on his own (there have been some stretches of time where it’s been more difficult, but basically this is how it goes) – but he wakes in the night and MUST come sleep with us. We’ve tried putting him in big boy bed, thinking maybe he’d sleep longer there, but noooo… he just gets out. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. And if one of us stays with him, he still tries to get out. So into the crib he goes, later to awaken, etc, etc…
It’s exhausting – EX.HAUS.TING. – and we’re at a loss. It’s going to have to happen somehow, but at the moment we’re just crossing our fingers that there’ll be some organic solution that will just magically appear.
Yeah.
We never had a crib and I’m so glad. We co-slept thru a variety of mattresses and low level sleep arrangements (all done after rigorous consultation of co-sleeping manuals since I was concerned for the safety angle). Wee Guy would fall no further than his own body width (apart from one incident when he backed off a regular height bed with no ill effect). I cannot imagine him being out of the same room at night in the early years and even now (he’s 6.5y) we have a camp bed set up in our room so he can wander in at night for company. He transitioned himself into his own room/regular-sized bed at 2.5y and was going to sleep by himself after the usual bedtime routine. Our house has therefore always been safe for him to wander around while we slept – it’s all been the least stressful way to parent and get some sleep.
Good point about the child-proofing, when we originally moved DS1 to a mattress, we’d lock the bathroom door at night, just in case he wandered. He never did, always made a beeline for my side of the bed
With our first, I was dedicated to keeping him in his crib, because I’d been told if we let him in our bed he’d never leave etc., etc., I was worried about safety, etc., etc.,…BUT I did still “parent him to sleep”, I either rocked him or nursed him at bedtime and every.single.time. he woke up (which was a lot) in the night. It is possible to parent to sleep while using a crib!
It was around 17 months when every time I tried to put him (asleep) in his crib and he kept waking and I’d have to start all over again that in desperation, I pulled his crib mattress out on the floor and slept with him. It dawned on me that being consistent with the crib didn’t mean he’d ever sleep well in it! So, we got a double mattress, put it on his floor, I’d nurse him there, get back up, and in the night he was welcome to join us in our room. He wasn’t attached to his crib (clearly) so he didn’t miss it when it was gone. So transition was not an issue here, in fact we realized we should have done it a lot sooner! It didn’t keep him from waking up, and yes, he got out of bed (gasp!) but *I* got to stay toasty while he came to me (no more crying for me, he just showed up) and we all got back to sleep quicker. Even after he weaned, we’d stay with him at bedtime, it was much easier than the up and down the hall to get him to stay in bed routine I’d heard about from others! (DH still stays with him at 5, it’s their special time.) He was (and still is) welcome in our room at any time, sometimes he shows up, sometimes he doesn’t.
With DS2, I figured I’d co-sleep from the start, maybe use the crib for naps. He was in a co-sleeper for a bit (because his brother was still joining us, we didn’t want him to feel replaced, and there just wasn’t enough room for us all) and actually slept really well there–I discovered accidentally that if I put him down after nursing, still sleepy, for HIM, it actually worked! He went to sleep no problem. This worked for a few months, then it didn’t, and that was OK, I just nursed him to sleep. He grew out of the co-sleeper though, so was then in a crib next to our bed, or in our bed if his brother wasn’t there. Then in a crib in his room, mainly because when we were all together in our room, no one slept well. Again, I was still responding to every wake up.
At around 15 months, we got him a double mattress. He didn’t miss the crib either so again it was no biggie. I would nurse him to sleep (still do), except that instead of him joining us in the night, I join him. We’re totally fine with staying with them, bed-hopping etc., though if they were (or when they are) happy to go to sleep on their own, we’d go with that too.
It’s easy for me to say that yeah, if I had a one-year-old and a recalled crib, I’d just put them in a bed too, because that is more or less what we did. But my kids never really slept well in a crib (or elsewhere LOL). If I had a child that did well with solitary/crib sleeping, maybe I would be less likely to want to mess with something that was working?
We had the crib side-cared for about a year. At that point Claudia wanted to sleep next to daddy and was pushing ME into the crib. So I took the crib out and placed a single mattress in her room and her crib mattress next to our bed. She will be 2.5 in December. She is parented to sleep and is still nursing quite a bit at night, so a toddler bed was a no-go, as I needed to lay down in bed. Most nights she is asleep within the hour and I move back to bed with DH. She’ll give me a good 3-5 hour stretch and ask to nurse, at which point I just stay in bed with her. We taught her how to climb down from our bed when she was 10months, but she prefers to call for me to pick her up.
Our house is mildly baby-proofed, just the cabinets under the sinks are locked, everything else she was taught not to touch through re-direction, so even if she did wandered through the house I would be ok with it.
If you ask Claudia, she has a room and daddy has a room, but mami does not, I guess since I do the bed hopping at night
We moved our twins to two trundle beds when they were about 2. The trundle bed goes under the real bed, but we decided to use them first. There is no risk of falling down since the trundle bed is not raised above the floor.
Our daughter moved to a toddler bed at 2, just before her brother arrived. The kids sleep in the same room and there isn’t room for a larger bed, otherwise I would have got one so that I could lie with if she needed it (she occasionaly comes to our bed but sleeps well alone). For the first few weeks we started with just naps in the “big girl bed”. She was old enough to understand that she was supposed to stay there, and did for the most part. In fact it too a couple of days before she realized that she autually could get out by herself, she had gone to bed, then half an hour later she appeared in the the living room and announced with a nig grin “I’m up!”! She got the choice for a while of the bed or the crib, and though she would occasionally get up and come to us at night if she needs something (and still does) it was a very easy transition. Her brother is almost 2 now, still in his (storkcraft droop side) crib, so we will transition him to a bed soon too.
(Our base position, just to be clear, was that we coslept from birth until 4-6 months with each child, then they went into a cot at that time).
We moved our firstborn from cot to bed (regular bed with siderail) at 2.5 years, at her own vociferous insistence (“I am big girl, Mummy. I want big girl bed!!”) She never had any problems with the transition, but then she was clearly ready. We put her to bed the same way we had done in the cot – stories & songs on the rocking chair in the room with a parent until sleepy, lifted into bed, parent sat on rocker holding her hand until she was lightly asleep, then left the room. We did it this way from 16 months (when she weaned herself and therefore no longer breastfed to sleep) until about 3.5 years old. From then until now (she’s now 6.5) we kept the stories & songs routine but we leave after a kiss & cuddle. She is fine with that.
My secondborn was, if anything, even keener, also moving from a cot to a bed at 2.5 but in her case, into a bed in her sister’s room. Oh, the excitement!! When they started room-sharing, we combined their bedtime stories and songs into a shared experience, as the 2.5 year old was still taking a nap whereas the then-4year old wasn’t, so they both went to bed at 7:30pm. 30 minutes of stories, cuddles, songs and chat with a parent (7pm to 7:30pm), then parent comes out, they chat to each other if they feel inclined then drift off to sleep. Rarely any difficulties with it, if there are we go back in until they are comfortable. They are now 6.5 and almost 5.
My third child is 9 months old and is either breastfed or rocked to sleep in the rocker, then goes into a cot. She is an impossible co-sleeper – she wakes every 45 minutes if next to me and wants to play (not good when I have to function the next day!!) She does feed at least once, usually twice, overnight and I often bring her into bed to lie down & feed, especially if I am tired. But she is such a wriggly worm I cannot imagine her being safe in any bed, mine or her own, for some time to come.
I have always parented to sleep. I am a proud co-sleeping parent of 8 years. Our first son slept with us for years. The transition to his toddler bed was easy although even then we laid/sat with him until he was sound asleep. Now with our newest little guy (now 12 months), he is snuggled in our bed and we plan to keep him there. He breastfeeds to sleep and throughout the night so this is the easiest way for us to sleep.
We own a crib — we received a “coupon” for a free crib due to a previous recall on a crib that my in laws bought my first son. We took the offer for the crib because it transitions into a toddler bed & have no moving parts. My youngest has not used it even once. I plan to use it for a toddler bed one day.
Wait until your child wants to sleep in a big bed and then let them. My older daughter was about 3 when she went from the cot to the big bed, but for about two months in between she slept in our room on a mattress on the floor to get used to the freedom of not being a cot and also so she wouldn’t be scared about it.
When we moved to Ottawa last year my son was just over a year old.
It seemed like the perfect time to transition from co-sleeping/crib to a big boy bed.
We had no issues with him getting out of bed and he transitioned very smoothly, but now that he’s older and we’ve moved into a new home he’s discovered how much “fun” it is to get out of bed and asked to be tucked back in 30 – 60,000 times a night!
Yeah, fun..
Something that I’ve found that helps is letting him pick a toy to take to bed with him at night.
If he isn’t completely tired out yet he quietly plays in bed with it after I’ve tucked him in, but most of the time I tuck him in and “tuck his toy in” and he’s satisfied with that, happily falling asleep.
At a certain point in the night, usually before we head to bed ourselves, we put the baby gate up in his doorway (safety issue – he can open the front and garage door and tends to let himself in and out of the house and the “safety locks” on each of the doors ceases to lock the handle if you pull hard enough on it, and you don’t have to pull all that hard — but that’s a whole other issue altogether.) because we don’t want him wandering around the house and letting himself outside in the middle of the night, which I think has sort of sleep trained him in a way.
Before the gate is up he tends to wander in and out of bed, asking to be tucked in, asking to watch the hockey game, asking me to play with him — asking, basically, whatever is on his mind and not going to sleep. Once the gate is up, if he is still awake, he opens the door, crosses his arms and rests them on the gate, kind of looks around and then decides it’s time for sleep, closes the door and climbs into his bed. (I can see him do this from my room)
I think the key to our success was routine and familiarity.
)
And not being too strict. If there is a night where he can’t settle down by himself we happily let him jump into bed with us until he’s asleep and then move him into his own bed. (Plus I love cuddling with him
He’s too much of an active sleeper to stay with us all night anymore but being flexible with our sleep “rules” makes our bedtime routine a happy one.
The other thing I let him do is take a cup of water to bed with him.
He rarely ever drinks anything out of it but he gets very upset if it isn’t there.
I think it’s a comfort thing for him.
Being an almost full-time co-sleeper it was a really hard decision for me to make but I think in our case it was just the right time.
We have parented all our kids to sleep. My five year old easily falls asleep on her own now, content and confident that we are there for her. Our almost three year old, still needs me to cuddle with him at nap time, something I cherish knowing it will not be long before he is too busy to cuddle. At night we snuggle, talk and then leave to let him fall asleep, unless he states otherwise. Our third, being an infant is cuddled up in our bed to sleep as her siblings were before her.
Our kids did sleep in a crib around 6 months up, then were transitioned to a bed just after the one year point. When they could easily climb out of bed and into it. Granted their bed (that just keeps getting passed down to the next kid) is very low to the floor. The transition from crib to bed was easy. We snuggled, nursed and read stories. In fact I find it easier than when they are in the crib and you have to bend over the bars to snuggle them.
The thought of containing them against their will does sit well with me and the style of parenting we choose. If they need me, they should be free to be able to come to me. We always made sure their rooms were safe and it is so sweet to see your toddler all snuggled up in a pile of books that they snuck into bed!
It works for our family. Every family is unique and needs to find the best path for them.
(I haven’t read all the comments yet, so please excuse me if I’m repeating others.)
We transitioned my now-5-year-old from a crib to a “big-girl bed” when she was 2. It was a very smooth transition; she did not get out of bed (and we never stayed in the room with her — although now occasionally my husband will fall asleep with her at night; it’s so cute). When she did have some nightmares later, around 3.5 years old, we took her into our bed sometimes, but we also found ways to help the nightmares stop (or become manageable for her).
We waited a little longer with Kate (2.5), but I think that was due to my feeling of “she’s my baby!” than anything else. Again, we didn’t have any problems. We make sure the children are gated into their room to prevent them from wandering down the stairs, but for the most part they sleep so well and soundly at night, this isn’t an issue. Kate, too, had nightmares for awhile that necessitated comforting her by letting her into our bed, but that was a short phase. (Although it seemed long!)
All-in-all, our transitions into regular beds were very smooth. We got the girls excited to be sleeping in “big-girl” beds; they share a room now, too. I was worried about that transition, too, and it’s had its hiccups, but for the most part, we’ve been very lucky I think.
We tried to have realistic expectations and back-up plans. Our expectations were wildly exceeded, which was nice!
ciao,
rpm
It is nice when our expectations are exceeded! I was shocked when my my son learned to read in a week and was able to ride a bike without ever using training wheels. But on other things, we are using back-up plan after back-up plan! Each kid is unique and they never fail to surprise.
We moved my son to a full sized bed shortly after he turned 2, because we needed the crib for our second. I wish we had left him in the crib later, because it turned out that the baby didn’t sleep in the crib regularly until she was 8 weeks old. Before that, she either slept in a Moses basket or in bed with me. My son was a great sleeper until we moved him to the bed, and then his sleep issues started. He is 5 now and still not a great sleeper. When he was younger, we did stay with him until he fell asleep and it was a nightmare. One of us would almost always fall asleep before he did, my husband and I were missing out on time together, or whichever one of us was putting him to bed would then wake up and not be tired enough to go to sleep at our usual time. So staying with him until he falls asleep now is not an option.
My daughter is 3 and still in a crib, has not attempted to climb out of it, and is a great sleeper, does not need to be parented to sleep. While she has slept in a big bed before and did great in it, because the kids share a room, she’ll be in the crib for awhile longer because of the containment issue.
Also, having done both, the transition from crib to big bed was done easily, while transition to having a parent in the room to being alone in the room was much harder.
I was very fortunate to be able to purchase a co-bed before my first was born, although she didn’t really spend that much time in it. We did set up a crib in her room initially, but she rarely slept in it. When we felt she was ready to sleep in her own room (believe me when I say she was a very independant child), we set up a mattress on the floor for her to sleep on. We child-proofed the room, put a gate up and put pillows on the floor all round the bed in case she fell out. When she was older, we put the box-spring under the mattress, then the bed frame when she was big enough to climb in by herself. It was all so natural, there was no problems. We did the same for our second child. Now that they are 6 and 8 they end up in our bed most nights at some point. We were feeling really crowded until we bought a king-sized bed. Now there is room for everyone.
My little girl moved to her toddler bed (from mine) a bit before this baby was born. She’s 2 now, and we’ve recently been introducing her to the idea of her own room. Which she loves – she’ll go in there and climb up on the bed and lie down and push me out. Doesn’t go to sleep in there though. The transition to her toddler bed from my bed, which is right next to it, was not one she wanted to willingly undertake until her little brother was born – then she stopped fighting with us about it. Now she’ll either start out the night in her room and come to mine later, or just go to sleep in my room in her little bed. Works for us!
Both of my kids transitioned to cribless just before their 2nd birthday. With the first one my husband was really sick (hemmoragic dengue…we live in the tropics) and I was afraid I wouldn’t hear my 23 month old if he got up in the night. And we were still nursing. So I moved him to a twin bed next to our king, in our room. He did fine and we kept that arrangement for at least 6 months. Before that he had been in a crib in our room until he was about 20 months. Then we moved to a new house and started him off in his own room.
My younger child slept in my room in a crib until he was about 14 months, then we moved to a new house and the boys shared a room with twin beds. He only fell out once. He is 27 months now, the older one is 5.
Posted my story at http://goodenoughmummy.typepad.com/good_enough_mum/2009/12/buh-beh.html (can’t figure out how to get it to track back, though – maybe that only works for blogs using the same blogging software?)
Ack! Sorry for broken link & thanks for the heads up, Annie – that should have been http://goodenoughmummy.typepad.com/good_enough_mum/2009/11/buh-beh.html.
Anyway, I’m curious as to how it works the other way round. How do you manage the potential getting/falling-out-of-bed problems in children who aren’t in cribs for their first couple of years?
Our daughter never really slept in a crib, and at 9 months after running out of room in our Queen size bed, we bought her a double bed. This bed is in her room and she and I sleep in there.
We taught her how to get out of bed by turning herself around and stepping down. At almost 12 months, she is a pro at getting down her bed and other surfaces.
In the first month I put pillows around her after she fell asleep and she never rolled off – in the last 3 months, she has rolled off once and that was after I was in bed and got out to go pee in the middle of the night.
Her mattress is right on the floor, next year we’re going to get her a bed frame.
My son was probably three and a half before I transitioned him, mostly because he had zero interest in potty training, and what is the point of transitioning a child out of a crib who is still in diapers? Once he was making some progress on the potty, we brought the toddler bed in and he never looked back. He was just ready.
I’ve had to chase him back into his own bed plenty of times, because he likes to go visit his sister in the next room and those two could keep each other up giggling ALL night long. But I never sat in his room till he fell asleep. Just a reminder is enough to send him scampering back to his room.
On the whole, easy peasy. Now he’s in a twin bed, no prob.
Child #2 (age 3.5) is still in her crib, but the rail is always down and she can get in and out easily. She is very reliable about staying in her bed until morning. I’ll probably move her into the toddler bed once Child #4 is too big for his bassinette and needs a crib.
Child #3 is not quite two, and unless he turns out to be the potty-training wizard that his older sibs weren’t, I’ll probably wait till he’s closer to 3 to move him out, as well. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?