sleep

[last]

my son is 8 months old and shares our bed. He sleeps in his cot until we come to bed and then wakes up, has a breast feed and then stays in with us. He has never slept alone. My husband wants him to learn to sleep by himself. I think that we should move him to his own room as he will be bewildered by staying in our room and not being allowed in the bed. How do I do this?? Do I do it cold turkey and also stop the 11.00 pm feed (when he seems to drink a lot) as this is his sign that he joins us? Or keep it up?? How do I settle him?? How much should we go in?? Should we stay in this room with him??

This is a difficult one and I don't really know the answer. I don't think you should stop everything all at once but I do feel that your husband is probably right and he should go in his own room. Maybe try giving him a feed and then putting him in his own room and stay with him till he settles ? Maybe then you can gradually ease out and then stay in the room but not so near him nearer to the door each day until eventually he doesn't need you there anymore. On the other hand, (sorry to contradict myself ) I don't think he probably needs a feed at 11 if he is having enough to eat and drink during the day that's probably just habit. I dropped dd's feed by giving her the dummy at that time instead. You could also try giving him water ? If he learns to stop waking for that feed then your problems will be solved. Maybe can you leave him to cry for a little while ?

Sorry to be confusing with two opinions ! Not much help I know. I guess you just have to go with your own instincts and do it however you feel best. But I think that your dh is right, he does need to learn to sleep by himself.

Maybe if you put him in his own room in the same cot he sleeps in currently, he won't wake at 11pm (presumably you wake him when you go to bed) and that will be your problem solved. My ds didn't even appear to notice when we put his cot in another room. If he does wake, then I'd personally feed him and soothe him to sleep then go back. I think it's a lot to change all at once, but often these things are easier than you'd imagine once you make a start on them. Good luck.

We had dd in our room until she was about your ds's age. We were v worried about the move to her own room but the three of us all seem to be benefitting. One thing I was glad of was that dd had been taking her daytime naps in her own room for a while so I knew she was familiar with sleeping in that room. You could maybe try that for a bit? Though I can well believe Aloha's child didn't appear to notice any difference. Also, you know your ds can go to sleep in his cot as he does at least start off there.

Re dropping the 11pm feed, I remember being worried about this one and in fact after a few nights of receiving a cuddle rather than a feed, she then slept through. Again, like Aloha, I would say maybe he won't even wake if you are not disturbing him coming to bed. You ask about settling him, hopefully like my dd, you could give your ds a cuddle and let him go back to sleep on you and then put him back in the cot and then if he wakes and gets upset, rub his back etc and see if he will go off. Personally I would stay with him for maybe a couple of weeks at this 11pm time if he needs it, to get back to sleep.

Having been through both these worries, I now think that they often loom up as scary things but in fact if like you, you give it some thought, once you then actually DO it, it turns out much better than you thought. Did with me anyway.

Good luck Last, let us know how you get on.

Thank you all. The advice about soothing him rather than feeding him is what I want to do in theory but us being in the room seems to agigate him. When we went through the saga of getting him to sleep in the evening in his cot (rather than on our bed and waking up for a snack every 45 minutes) we had weeks of walking him round or rubbing, him furious and then when I had run out of options I left him to cry. After the first few nights of him crying upstairs and me crying downstairs it suddenly worked and even when the crying was bad the longest it lasted was 30 minutes unlike the hours when we carried him around or stayed with him. I do not know wheater all the soothing made a difference and so those final nights when I left him he was half way there or if i had just left him orginally it would all have been much quikcer. What does anybody think of the 'Ferber' method? Still can not work out how much to soothe/stay with him when we move him as he gets so angry if we are with him but not giving him what he wants and he knows we could give but I also do not want him to feel abandoned.

Thank you all. The advice about soothing him rather than feeding him is what I want to do in theory but us being in the room seems to agigate him. When we went through the saga of getting him to sleep in the evening in his cot (rather than on our bed and waking up for a snack every 45 minutes) we had weeks of walking him round or rubbing, him furious and then when I had run out of options I left him to cry. After the first few nights of him crying upstairs and me crying downstairs it suddenly worked and even when the crying was bad the longest it lasted was 30 minutes unlike the hours when we carried him around or stayed with him. I do not know wheater all the soothing made a difference and so those final nights when I left him he was half way there or if i had just left him orginally it would all have been much quikcer. What does anybody think of the 'Ferber' method? Still can not work out how much to soothe/stay with him when we move him as he gets so angry if we are with him but not giving him what he wants and he knows we could give but I also do not want him to feel abandoned.

Why not just try moving him and see how it goes rather than worrying about it. If it's a disaster you don't have to continue, but I have a hunch it will be fine and you might both sleep better without hearing each other's 'noises'. We certainly all did. When he cried in the night after being settled for a while I was pretty brisk with ds. Went in, popped in dummy, checked he wasn't wet, petted him a bit, a few soothing words and then back out. Would rather repeat that than stay for ages, which sometimes, I think, kept him awake and didn't give him the chance to go off, which he was clearly tired enough to want.

When my DS was approaching 6 months I put his travel cot up in his room and put him down for naps in there so that he got used to the room. This also meant he got used to the travel cot as we were going on holiday. We had the travel cot in with us on holiday and then on our return his cot went straight into his room.

Looking back I think this was all a bit unnecessary and I was being a bit over-sensitive. Like Aloha's son I don't think he even noticed! But it certainly helped us to sleep without his stirrings, snoring, sighs etc.