Moving our DS into his own room at night..Advice please

[joymaker]

Hi All,

DP and I are now thinking of moving DS 15.5 months into his own room at night. DS has been using said room as a playroom only (we have been co-sleeping) We intend on moving most of the toys/books out but also want to leave it looking as familiar and as welcoming as possible.

Do you have any hints, tips, advice -maybe what we could afford to leave in there but what definately not to. I fear I might be overlooking something glaringly obvious.

We plan to make it a gradual process and as pleasant as possible (DP and I might move into the room for a short time on a sofabed) but we have vowed that on starting this process we won't stop as we feel he is ready, so we want to be well prepared!

Thanks in advance

You'll probably get a few answers from each extreme. I co-slept with DD2 up to when she was about 15 months old. We moved house and I just stuck her travelcot into her bedroom the night of the move, popped her down... and she slept through until 8am

I actually didn't think to do anything else actually. My advice would be absolutely do it now, while you can still use a cot (have you a travel cot if you don't have a permanent cot?), and leave the bed part until later.

I am a late switcher into beds for my children. DD1 and DD2 were both practically three, and we only had to do it then because of potty training. By then, you can argue reason with them and insist they stay in bed and go to sleep. Black-out blinds help as when you put them down for bed, it's too dark to see properly to play/mess around in the room anyway.

Does that help at all???

What does he sleep in at the moment? Is it something that can be moved into the new room?
Ds was used to sleeping in my study and didn't get his own room until just after 2nd birthday - we let him run around in it as soon as the paint was dry, told him it was his room, put the cot in, put him in it for a nap, and at bedtime he was quite happy to sleep in his own room.

If he's used to sleeping in your bed maybe put him in a cot in your room first?
Not sure why you're moving the toys/books out of his bedroom - can't you leave as many as possible in there?

killercat and notcitrus thank you for your replies (and encouragement!)

I had just assumed wrongly? that taking most of the toys and books out of the room would be less of a distraction, focusing him on the task at hand (namely sleeping). Glad to hear this may not be necessary and will use the brill idea of blackout blinds for this instead, less hassle for us in moving everything too

We bought a cot for DS originally, but as he's used to a large sized bed I don't thnk he'll take smoothly to a tranfering to a cot so was thinking of just placing the matress from the cot on the floor next to the sofabed initially then after a while to a bed.