How to help an 18month toddler to sleep in her room after co-sleeping

[businka17]

Hello dear parents, my dd is almost 18 months and she has always been co-sleeping with me and my dh. I had a c-section with her and she is our first baby so it worked out perfectly fine for the three of us to co-sleep. She would always fall asleep in her cot and then she would sleep with us from about 5am. She has never been the best sleeper - she was not sleeping through the night until she was 9,5 months old and she sleeps much better in our bed so at least all three of us get a descent sleep. I managed to teach her to sleep in her room from about 10 months but then she had her immunisations done and felt poorly and was teething so we started taking her to our bed again. But now she is starting a nursery in a few weeks and I would love her to learn how to sleep in her own room and how to settle herself to sleep. She relies on me or my dh to rock her till she falls asleep. She falls asleep in her room but wakes up at 4-5am so we take her to our room (when she is teething she wakes up even earlier at 1-2am and would not fall asleep unless we take her to the big bed). We have a very good bedtime routine: bath, book, milk, cleaning teeth, song and rocking. She has a soft bunny but she ignores it, she prefers me or dh to rock her and she loves touching my ears and face etc - I think it helps her to settle. She also has a good 2 hour day nap and a good routine. I cannot bear the thought of controlled crying but I want to teach her to sleep in her room entire night. I would be happy to hear any advice and perhaps some methods that worked for you? I tried putting her to bed when she is sleepy but awake and it didn’t work, she just went histerical. I know she is only waking up at night so we take her to the big bed and she falls asleep immediately in our bed. Thank you in advance and I thank you for taking time to read this long post.

Watching with interest as I am in exact same boat now with same age child - even down to the needing to be rocked to sleep. But be prepared, I think there's only one solution and that's to begin the long, hard process of sleep training! Good luck x

Thank you for your reply NeedAWine! I read so many articles on sleep training that can probably repeat it by heart haha just don’t know how to implement it in my situation. I think it’s just easier said than done and I will have to find a solution that works for my baby. For now I will try and be more persistent at night and rock her to sleep but not taking to my bed, I hope it works, we will see. And then maybe gradually she won’t be waking up so many times as she wouldn’t be waiting for someone to pick her up and take to another bed...Is there anything you tried recently that showed some result? Thank you so much for your support and I hope you find a solution too xx 💐

Hi. DD was a nightmare at getting to sleep when she was younger. I used to nurse her to sleep but then when I got pregnant my supply decreased and this didn’t work as well. I would spend 20 minutes in the evening at least nursing her then she would still cry hysterically when I put her down. DH would then go in and rock her to sleep. I was suffering in the first trimester, working full time and exhausted. I took the difficult decision to sleep train her to put herself to sleep.

I thought it would be awful but it really wasn’t. The first night I nursed her like usual then put her down and she was awake. We waited 5 minutes of her crying then DH went to her and told her we loved her etc. and lay her back down. We agreed we would go in after 5 minutes and then after 6 lots of 5 minutes we would get her out of the cot and stop. She was asleep after the 5th. The next evening we did the same but it took 3 x 5 minutes. The next evening she was asleep within 5 minutes.

A week or so later we did controlled crying if she woke up at night. This was a little harder as she still slept in our room so we did 4 minute intervals. She only woke up a few times.

We have a bedtime routine of bath and 2 books each. No milk. She goes in her cot awake and sleeps for 12 hours until I go in and wake her. At the weekend she wakes up naturally after almost 13 hours of sleep. Naps are close to 3 hours. In the last 6 months she’s woken up less than 10 times during the night and all but 1 of those were when we were on holiday.

I was against sleep training and thought it would be awful but the reality for us was that it really helped DD to be a great sleeper. I think getting a decent amount of sleep is probably quite important for a toddler. It was only a few nights which is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

It's definitely a vicious circle because I think half our problem is he's over tired as he doesn't sleep enough but being over tired makes him very hard to get to sleep.
We haven't tried for a long time as we just wanted everyone to sleep no matter where that was lol, but after Christmas we are gonna do it! We've decided as well to put his cot into toddler bed, I know in theory he's too young for this but as he's been in bed with me for so long now I think trying to get him into another bed would make him feel much more comfortable than a cot now.

Hi, thank you for your advice, I definitely think we need to start sleep training, appreciate your advice on the plan. We will try controlled crying and like you said above if it doesn’t work after some amount of time we can always stop but it’s worth trying. We tried cc yesterday evening and dd was so upset and crying lots but we only did one interval of 5 mins then I walked in again and offers her some water, she refused. I then picked her up - I gave in too early 😢 My dh and I just need to do it! I am sure it will work! Thank you 💐

Hi, yes, a bigger bed might work. My dd had a small cot and then we got her a bigger one and she sleeps better in it. She got used to a large bed so a bigger cot gives her more space to move. Good luck trying sleep training after Christmas, I do hope it works! :) I will try with dd tonight, fingers crossed 🤞🏻

Does she have to go to sleep in her cot? We put DS onto a mattress on the floor in his room to transition from cosleeping to sleeping on his own. You can just lie with her if she wants it but then escape once she's asleep.

Otherwise my DD went straight into a full size single at 16mo - plenty of room to cosleep in that and then escape again.

Hi, thank you for sharing your idea. She would probably love it falling asleep with me on a mattress but would very likely wake up during the night if I wasn’t there. Did yours wake up at night and you had to go a lay down with them again? I tried controlled crying yesterday and it was awful. Dd was still crying after 40 mins (I walked in her room about 5 times during this period - started with 2 mins, then 5, two times 7 mins and then 10 or so, spending 2-4 mins every time I walked in, didn’t pick her up, but gave her a hug and calmed her down). In the end she vomited and I gave her a bath, some water and hundreds of hugs and kisses, I felt so bad I was crying in the end. I never let her cry for more than 2 mins ever. I guess it was still worth trying but I think this method is not for us. Neither me or dd can stand it. I will try and do more gentle methods and even if it takes ages we will do it. Will think about the mattress option, many thanks! How long did it actually take you to teach them to sleep in their room on a mattress without waking up for you at night? And did they sleep in a cot afterwards or in a single bed and were fine?

DS was textbook really - woke up twice the first night and I lay with him, second night he woke up once and then third night he slept through! I'm not saying that's been it but if he's been ill or teething etc, he's woken up but I just lie with him, he goes to sleep and I can leave.

I would never have done controlled crying myself, it's really tough. Mine coslept from birth and were BF in bed so gently breaking cosleeping was the way to go for us.

Good luck with it!