DS won't move from our bed to cot, has anyone tried moving baby to mattress on the floor in baby's room, so you can lie next to them to get them to sleep?

[SalBow]

Hello everyone, my ds is nearly 8 months and is still sleeping in bed with me. We've always had trouble with frequent waking and have never managed to get him into the cot. Feeling that the time has come to reclaim our bed (dh is in the spare room), I'm considering putting a single mattress on the floor in DS's as-yet unused bedroom, so that I can put him to bed in the same way, ie with me lying next to him, then rather than move him, I can get up and move back into my own bed. When he wakes up, I can go to him, then return to my bed. Are there any safety risks in this? Has anyone else had success with this method? Think I've read this suggestion in "The no cry sleep solution". Realise would have to baby-proof room and put stair gate on door etc. (Have spent months trying all the usual things to get him into cot, without success. Please, please just don't tell me that I need to teach him to go to sleep on his own! Have tried and he won't!)
Thanks in advance!

TBH I think it would be easier to go whole hog and put him straight into the cot, otherwise this could go on for months and you will still have the problem of putting him to sleep in his cot in a couple of months time

Thanks for your reply Dynamicnanny . I was actually thinking of the mattress as a long term solution. Ie, skipping the whole cot thing altogether.

Thats your descision to make But I think it will make life harder for you and also think of longterm implications like him staying with grandparents/family should you need a night away etc

I had a matress next to a cot so that I could put my hands through and sooth in the night, and dd went into a double bed at 18 months. TBH I wish I'd put her straight into a mattress as she never liked the cot.

I think thata mattress isn't a bad idea (cna you manage a double one for more space?), but work on the going to sleep by himself at the same time.

I don't think it'll be a problem when visiting as sharing a bed or a matress on the floor is oftn the easiest option.

Good Luck

Yes that's a good point, Dynamicnanny. I'm kind of desperate and trying to consider everything. I suppose I was thinking that if I could get him in his own room that he might gradually get used to me not being there when he wakes up. Also, I probably wake him accidentally while co-sleeping. The way things are now, I don't think having a night away is a remote possibility. I just can't face letting him cry it out in the cot. He gets hysterical within seconds

Thanks ninja. I appreciate your comments. I think we would be restricted to a single, but if the intention was for me to get up and go back to my bed as soon as he was asleep, I think there would probably be enough room. Yes, I think that he may then wake during the night and sometimes go back to sleep on his own. At the moment, I am there all the time, so I inevitably intervene when it probably isnt always necessary.

I ended up co-sleeping with DS until last week! He is one today, and as of Monday night he has been sleeping soundly all night in his cot. We have re-claimed our bed and we are all much happier. I did it by buying this book and it has revolutionised the way I think about his sleeping needs and habits!
When he was co-sleeping he was constantly waking up and crying, crawling around the bed, waking up hideously early (5.30 ish) for the day etc. It was a nightmare! Now he goes to bed at 6.30 settles within 15 minutes maximum and sleeps through until around 7am with maybe 2 small waking periods in the night of about 5-10 minutes each. I am a total convert to this book! Just wish I'd done it sooner...

RedFraggle, I'm soo happy to read your message, it gives me hope! How long did it take to change? I will definitely buy the book, have not heard of it before.
Thanks, and please tell me more...

salbow about 8m was when i thought it was time to do something as well. i took the side off the cot and tied it (cot not side) to our bed. then fed ds to sleep, shoved him into his bit and went back downstairs. a few weeks later just fed and in to cot. he wailed and screamed so got dh to do bedtimes, bouncy chair etc, for another few months - it was so his turn.

into own bed, own room at 2.

not sure about that book, look at the disclaimer the author has posted.

Salbow - we started on Monday of this week. I am so happy that he is finally sleeping. It was hard the first night as you do have to leave your child to cry, however after that first night that was it!
The book talks all about the biology of sleep, it is written by a GP who specialises in sleep training and has children of his own too. He makes a LOT of sense. I have to admit that leaving my DS to cry that first night was hard but the book explains why you should do it and gives guidance. So it is much better than me just saying "leave him to cry" Once he had gone quiet I went in to check on him and he was sleeping soundly. I thought he would hate me the next day or feel abandoned but instead he is so much happier as he is actually getting enough sleep for a change! He even naps better during the day. Turns out I have been sleep depriving him all this turn and this has the effect of making him "hyper-aware" so he then CANNOT settle.

This was the best £7 I have ever spent and I am still reading it to learn more about what I should be doing for my children in the future as their sleep needs change. I think it has given me a lot more confidence and my god I feel better having actually had a nights sleep for a change.

|Sorry - big ramble, but I still can't believe how easy it was...

i wouldn't say that screaming is a nono but i do think that an hour of it is a bit off. not to mention 3-4 hours which he is distancing himself from.

of course most children who are normally tired wouldn't last very long but still...

Mine never had cots. Went from a mixture of mases basket/our bed to a mixture of futon/our bed. Worked brilliantly for us. I don't understand why more people don't do it.

I can't find a disclaimer on the site any where Fishie. Can you link?

All I know is this worked where all else has failed (and it worked fast)

We didn't have to leave him that long. First night:
40 minutes when first put down on Monday,
wake up number 1 = 30 mins
wake up number 2 = 5 mins

Since then he has taken a maximum of 15 mins to settle initially and hasn't been awake for more than 5 mins in the night. He only wakes twice each night. (so far)

Thanks Fraggle and Fishie, I've always been quite sure that I wouldn't be able to leave him to cry. He's such a happy boy and has never really cried (except for if I put him down on his own to sleep!) so I panic at the sound of it and I think I'd find it hard to restrain myself! However, having said that, I do realise that there may well come a time where I might have to consider it. It looks worth a read, anyway, so I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on. Hope you have continuing success RedFraggle!

it is under 'product description' second para. is worrying!

i found getting dh to do bedtime for a while sorted it. for me if not for him haha. as babies grow they expend more energy so don't despair, it will get easier not harder.

Hi Seeker, thanks for your message. Can you tell me what age you started using the futon? (baby's age, not yours! ) Did you put the mattress straight on the floor? Did you find that your baby rolled out ever?

i co slept with my ds til he was 9 months then decided enough was enough as i would wake up in the night wiht him latched on doing nothing. i became a giant pacifier! so i just put him in his cot one night and let him cry it out. it took a couple of weeks for him to just grumble and now at 15 months he goes down so well, just pop him in and he lies in foetal position with bum in the air. he only cries when he is excited like when i have visitors round nad he wants lots of attention!

Ds is 17 months and has been sleeping in his own double bed since he was about 14 months. Prior to that he co-slept with us.

I lie with him to get him to sleep then I leave. When he's teething badly and wakes up frequently I can stay in his bed and don't have to keep going back and forth.

Works for us. Ds never has been a great sleeper (reflux baby, then bad teething pain) but it's improving.

I do think 8 months is a bit young for sleep training. We used the Dr. Jay Gordon approach, but he's against using it for babies that young.

I did this for the same reasons plus i was too pregnant to lift in and out of the cot. I put one of those long pillows beside the mattress. I have no regrets yet, my 1.4 year old sometimes takes himself to bed and raises himself in the morning. It took 2 nights, first night my husband slept next to him and basically spent the entire sleepless night lying him back down when he tried to crawl over to my husband but cried only a couple of times, the second night I spent half an hour lying him down as he was crying (but not a full on cry). Kept whispering good night as I did it and never left his side til he was soundly asleep. There are nights I have to go in and readjust his positioning but he doesn't wake, just stirs and my hearing is unbelievable. After holidaying in Japan where this is normal after cosleeping my husband asked why we didn't buy him a futon.

I'm with seeker - babyproof the room and give it a go! We put dd in a bed at 15mths, very tempted to avoid cot completely with this next baby...

Think it might depend how much your baby escapes (although dd was a very wriggly and active baby but learnt to sleep in a bed quickly - prob cos she slept with me on pillow, under duvet so early) AND also how much you want to be able to leave them. We have never left dd for a minute to cry so it wasn't an issue. I found it so much easier to settle dd in a bed rather than in her cot. Cot just didn't 'feel' right and so I probably got more stressed etc...

Read Deborah Jackson's 3 in a bed for reassurance that it's fine to do it your way too!!

Just re-reading other comments, we travel a lot and it's no drama at all, it's easy putting a mattress on any floor and you can still co-sleep when necessary. It's easier than cots etc. It's also great the first time they wake up and come in to see you!

Just stressing, we never left him to cry, we stayed and comforted him the entire time he was wriggly or crying, I think by memory at around 8 months my DS was always crawling around in his sleep which i've heard is normal, he had stopped by the time we put him on the mattress though so that might get you out of bed a few times short term.

SalBow - they started on the futon as soon as they were too big for moses baskets - about 3 months I suppose? We always used the futon for daytime sleeps, and they always started off the night on it, and came into our bed the first time they woke up for a feed, then stayed in our bed until morning.My reasoning for this was that it meant that they knew that the futon was their bed - but bringing them in with us as soon as they woke meant the greatest amount of sleep for the greatest number of people. It also meant that dp and I could have a couple of hours (if we were lucky) in our bed by ourselves before it became a family bed.

We just put the futon matress on the floor. The rolled off it a couple of time, but it's only a matter of inches and they didn't wake up!

SalBow just saw your post and in a very similar position. DS who's 8 months too had always slept with me until the last couple of nights, when he's finally been in his cot. I'm a really light sleeper so I think that we had probably been waking each other a lot. I had tried a mattress on the floor in his room but he was climbing all over me, so DH finally flipped and said that he was going to help out and it really worked.

It did mean that DS cried on Wednesday and Thursday night when he went into his cot, but DH sat right next to the cot and DS eventually went to sleep. I'm still on a mattress on the floor in the nursery so I fed DS when he woke up in the night.

DH is out tonight so I have had to do it my myself and it has been quite difficult with lots of tears, but I know that DS will sleep so I've stuck with it.

I think it did make a big difference with DH sitting with DS at the beginning, as first of all I couldn't have bared for DS to have cried so much and second I do think DS is more clingy with me than with DH so wouldn't have accepted me sitting there and not feeding him to sleep

HTH - I know how hard it is...