Tuesday
Nov242009
Would you satisfy my curiosity? Transition from crib to big kid bed
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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"):
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:
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.
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.
Reader Comments (90)
Thanks Missy.
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!
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.
Would you satisfy my curiosity? Transition from crib to big kid bed | PhD in Parenting...
Everyone tells people who 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 having a parent in...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 :)
Thanks, it's nice to know a baby can be taught that at an early age.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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 :P )
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.
[...] by woowoomama the other day i took a moment to read annie over at PhD in Parenting’s post in which she asked crib using parents to tell her what the transition to a bed was like for them [...]
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?
Any advice for co-sleeping on separate mattresses next to each other on the floor with a very mobile almost 9mo old who wakes 5+ times a night and needs help back down?? Sometimes 20 minutes of laying on hands.
I realize this chain is kind of old at this point, but perhaps I'll get some help anyway. I love the idea of co-sleeping, but I'm having trouble with the reality. I wonder if my ideas, expectations & parenting methods are in conflict with each other...My almost 9mo old sleeps on a mattress right next to us on the floor. Ever since she learned to roll over and sit up she starting doing so in her sleep & crying. I, of course, helped her lay back down each time. I hoped it would be just a phase w/ the new skill, but months later it's still happening. She wakes 5+ times through the night. I feed her 2x as close to a schedule as I can manage, hoping that she'll get that clocked into her system. So the idea of transitioning to a crib at this point seems like a lot more hassle at night, but I wonder if that's a necessary step...?
When you transitioned your babies/toddlers from a co-sleeping arrangement (i.e. immediate access/close proximity to mommy and/or daddy all night) to their own space
1. were they still feeding at night?
2. were they sleeping (I mean really sleeping) for the majority of the night?
3. did they go through a period of crying at the beginning of the transition?
By helping her lay back down each time I worry that I've set her up to need my help & also I worry that "parenting" all the way to sleep is partly why she wakes up more. For those with the experience of staying with baby until they're asleep, did you find that you came across the "wake up on the kitchen floor" idea w/ sleep association & that your babies would wake often needing your help...until a certain age/point? Perhaps if you slept with your babies you were in physical contact with them all night and that kept them asleep...?
I've tried snuggling with my baby &/or laying closer, but she stirs so much & doesn't seem to get better sleep and I can't really sleep because I feel like I can't move so as not to wake her!
Also, when laying her down for the night I feel like I don't have any choice BUT to stay with her until she's asleep because she just crawls to the door and tries to open it. That has lead to a couple of nights of trying to "let her fall asleep on her own," (she's not crying during this process), which ends up with us laying her back down 12+ times and eventually staying with her and "parenting" her down only to have her wake, sit up & cry for help.
I really like the philosophy behind attachment parenting and co-sleeping, as I said, but I feel like I might have misconceptions about the reality. With my current arrangement do you (whoever) think it's reasonable to expect my baby to sleep for most of the night and wake only 2-3 times, or is that unrealistic? Any advice, tips, etc. on how you've handled this situation? The only thing I've come across is Sear's suggestion to "play dead." Her response is to crawl off the bed, or pull on my hair/face, or cry, none of which is bearable for long.
Anybody relate? What have you done in a similar situation? Thanks for any response you can offer.