Baby won’t go into his own room

[Hannah2025]

Hiya, just looking for some advice! My boy is coming up to the 6 month stage. He's always been in the next to me crib since we brought him home and he’s been a pretty great sleeper since around 7w old. He’s now got to the point where he is going 22:30-08:00 without waking in the night for a bottle (has his final feed at 22:00). We’ve travelled a fair bit with him already, as my family live up north (we’re London based) and we’ve been on some getaways together, so he’s slept in his travel cot in different environments in the same room as us no bother. He’s also been for sleepovers at his grandparents a couple of times and slept through like normal.

We decided to try transition him into his big cot as he is waking us up in the night with his sleep noises and thumping his legs down in the next to me crib which is clearly too small for him now! He also has an owlet sock and owlet cam so I am comfortable putting him in his own room just before that 6m mark.

I put him down in his room at his usual time after his usual routine, but after around an hour he woke up really upset. I tried to calm him down and put him back after he settled, but around 20 mins later he was awake and upset again so I brought him back into our room.

I initially thought maybe the big cot was one step too far seeing as he isn’t 6 months just yet (only 2 weeks out) so I tried him the next night in his travel cot which he’s always loved. Once again he woke up really upset so I brought him back to his next to me.

Since then I’ve given up as I don’t want to try and fix what isn’t broken when it comes to sleep. That being said, now I really don’t know what to do as he clearly doesn’t want to be away from us in his own room! Most of my other mum friends haven’t had this issue and their little ones have gone down just fine in their own room.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so how did you get your baby used to their own room? We are starting morning naps in there now and hoping it’ll help, but as we get closer to the 6m mark and he gets bigger and bigger in the next to me crib I’m starting to worry a bit that it’s going to be a lot tougher than we expected! Any tips are appreciated xx

Have you tried sleeping with his sheet before you put it on his bed? Maybe he's missing the smell of you.

I haven’t but this is a great idea, I will try this! Thank you xx

He's just waking up because it's different. You could try a bit of a transition period where you put him to bed for the first part of the night in his cot or travel cot in his room and then if he wakes after you have gone to bed, transfer him to the next2me for the rest of the night, then start making this change later and later. This takes longer but it is easier on you.

Or you can just brace yourselves for a couple of rough nights and keep resettling him even if he wakes up after 20 minutes. Just go in and calm/soothe him as you usually would and then put him down when asleep. At some point he will stay asleep for longer, but don't give in and bring him to your room or you're just extending the process.

Try a Ewan the dream sheep. It makes soothing noises for baby that mimics mams heart beat and breathing etc. Both my DS still sleep with it. It only plays the sound for about 20 minutes and then cuts off so it's not on all night. It has a cry sensor so once he starts crying it will automatically come on and settle him. Works amazing. He probably just misses all of your noises sharing a room.

Have you tried putting the cot in your room for a bit? Ours went from a Moses basket straight to the cot/toddler bed (it was in our room to begin with, luckily we have quite a big room). When we moved the cot bed to their room there weren’t any issues and we all slept so much better!

I feel your pain with all the grunting and moving at night, had the best night sleep when they finally went into their own room!!

Initially my plan was to stay up until midnight and if he wouldn’t settle before then then I’d bring him in with us again but sadly both times he woke up and was very upset so it was a fail! I think we might just have to grit our teeth and power through like you said. I was even wondering whether to put a blow up bed in there and sleep in his room to see how he gets on, but I also don’t want to form any bad habits and him to rely on that!

Oooo this is so interesting! I have just had a look into Ewan and he looks fab. Do you think it would work introducing him to it this late on? A lot of the reviews are from parents of newborns / older children who have had it since newborn, but I love the fact that it turns on and soothes when he wakes up. He does have a white noise machine - do you think Ewan is worth getting/changing him on to instead of the white noise machine?

We haven’t as our room isn’t big enough for his cot sadly. But I could do this with the travel cot and see how he gets on. Its like sleeping in a nightclub! His dad also has restless legs so between baby boy and my husband I get absolutely no sleep lol! I’ve been in the spare room for the last 3 weeks!

Mine always had it from birth, but my friend introduced it around 4/5 months I think because of the separation anxiety her baby had, she said it definitely helped when on the heartbeat noise.
I've never used a sound machine so I don't know about that, does he normally have that on all night?

We started with naps. So my DS had his naps in the new room for a few days, then we moved him at night time too.

I would sleep in his room with him for a little while. Bad habits re sleep don't really exist, everyone ends up in their own beds eventually. You do what you need to do to encourage sleep!

DD1 we subscribed to the bad habits thought process and had a year of the shittest sleep known to man.

DD2 sleep has gone like this:
0-3 months - downstairs, either on one of us or in her bassinet depending if she'd go down (we split the nights so one of us was always awake, although DH would nap on the sofa).
3-6 months - next to me, with the side down.
6-7 months - cot in her bedroom, with one of us sleeping in her room too (had enough space for a bed)
7-10 months - co-sleeping in double bed in her room as she's a wiggler and the cot was too small (she'd wake herself up banging on the sides)
10-11 months - starting by herself in the double bed but with one of us eventually moving through at 1/2am after a wake up.
11-12 months (now) - sleeping by herself in the double bed with no wake ups.