Move to own room- advice please!

[LittleMissPear]

I currently have a 6 month old DS who is still in his crib in my room. He generally goes down about 7 in his crib, but will wake regularly throughout the night and we end up co-sleeping by about midnight. He also feeds to sleep.

I would like to move him into his own room soon but his current sleep is so bad that I think I might just end up spending all night walking backward and forwards between rooms.

So my question is this: would it be better to make a concerted effort at sleep training so that he stays in his crib all night and then move to his own room, or go for the whole hog and move to his own room and sleep train at the same time?

No idea! I have a 9 month old with the same issue though.

Hiya, I think you heed to do it all at once. I think it would be unfair and confusing for him and difficult for you to sleep train on two different occasions. X

6 months is still very little for any harsh sleep training involving too much distress

I have never moved my children out of my room until they are sleeping well, because I am too damn lazy to be prepared to walk to another room to settle the baby.

However if you think your sons sleep issues are directly related to the fact that he is next to you in bed (so wants to be in bed with you) then maybe it would be useful to move him to break the cycle.

It will be hard, hard work though.

That's the thing isn't it FATE. I moved DD1 at 7 months, and went back and forth multiple times every bloody night until we did CC at 11 months patting, and ssshing and assorted things. We kept DD2 in until she slept through, but that was 22 months (actually, she was sleeping until 5am when we moved her. Moving did tide her through that early stirring).

I suspect either of those scenarios is what the OP is keen to avoid (and why I'm paralysed with indecision myself).

OP - A crib is a little on the small size for an average 6 month old. My DD (4 1/5 months) likes to sleep crucifix style for example - arms out wide. There would never be enough room in a crib and this would cause her to wake up.

Is it possible your DS would sleep better in a big cot with more room to move and stretch?

Penguin - Each parent needs to decide which is the lesser of the evils for themselves. Own room but parent get ups, your room for longer, or distressed crying with sleep training.

Wow, what sympathy!

?

Sorry OP, I don't want to derail your thread.

I think the thing is, there is no answer.

Some babies will sleep better once in their own room, and sleep training will be more manageable (PUPD, CC, CIO, whatever).

Some babies will sleep just as badly, and it will become incredibly hard work to deal with the because you have to walk from room to room.

Some babies will sleep better if you night wean them, and you can then decide where they sleep.

The difficulty is that you can't tell in advance.

Do you have the option of a bed in his room, so that if the move is difficult, you have somewhere to crash? I spend a lot of time on the tiny bit of floor in DD1's room, and it wasn't great.

It's so difficult to know if you're disturbing them or not isn't it? I wouldn't bother sleep training in your room, i would move him into his cot in his room and see how it goes.

DD went into her room about 10mo. Then when she woke up, we still brought her in with us. As she's got older, she has steadily slept for longer in her own room.

Initially we had the futon on her bedroom floor so i could sleep in there and she was reassured she wasn't alone.

Thanks all for your ideas. It is so hard to know when to make the move.
You are probably right that the crib is starting to get too small for DS, he is small for his age (following 2nd percentile) but this is one of the reasons we are thinking of moving him.
I think it makes sense to move him and not confuse him by trying to get him sleeping better in his crib first, I do have a sofa bed in his room that I can use to crash on.
He feeds a lot during the night, I think that he uses it as a crutch for falling asleep, would it be sensible to try and break this association before moving him? How would I go about night weaning?

Have you tried a dummy?

Sometimes babies don't take to a dummy well at first and spit it out. They take some perseverance to be accepted by the baby. So don't give up if he doesn't like it at first.

But dummies are absolute godsends as sleep aids.

I have a 6 mth old who still wakes in the night a lot. We never co-slept but we took the decision to move him to his own room a couple of weeks ago regardless of the sleeping issues cos we just wanted our room back! He's slept no better, no worse, but for us it feels like progress as we'll probably need to resort to some kind of sleep training soon and that will be easier when he's in his own room. I would just do it and then think of the sleep training later, one step at a time.

My 6.5 month dd was like yours 3 weeks ago. We did very gentle sleep traing with no crying and moved her at the same time. She's now sleeping through or waking for one feed a night. I would never have believed this was possible a month ago!

A few things I think helped:

Cut evening feeds after bedtime. Just resettled her if she woke before 1am. Then same until 6.30am.
Stopped getting her out of the cot and slowly reduced the amount of settling.
Daytime nap routine.

She also stopped teething and started solids around then so that may have helped. Who knows!

Fingers crossed for you. It's so hard without sleep.

7mo old DS has just gone in his own room and his sleep is no better and no worse too (ie still terrible).

I felt guilty about moving him away from is but i think the only one suffering is me having to get up for the many many night feeds. DH thinks it is 'great progress' though. might be less keen if he were the one with boobs

OP - sleep deprivation is the pits. I feel your pain. We were in a similar position. We moved DD out into her own room and I think she was more comfortable with more room to stretch out and roll onto her side. She was clearly too big and mobile for the bedside crib. Her sleep was terrible, just terrible so we are sleep training now.

Dorothea - your sleep training approach sounds similar to mine. I am fascinated to know how you did this with no crying?

I meant to say, DD is 7.5 months now and eats 3 meals a day so I was happy to sleep train at this point and believed she could do without night feeds.