Moving a bad sleeper into their own room- Does it work?

[Elopelo]

Have posted before about almost 17 month old DS and his sleep habits. Can be wide awake for hours and it's just getting worse. Currently been awake since 1.25am with no signs of settling down.

Wanted to ask for some advice/experience from posters who have moved a bad sleeper into their own room- does it work and how do you deal with wake ups in the night? I'm living with parents and they have kindly agreed for me to put DS into a box room that was previously used as storage. Planning to set up cot in the room tomorrow. Do I just begin with day time naps for a few days or go straight in with night time sleep there too? Will I actually notice a difference?

I'm at the end of my tether and feel like giving up. I just can't cope like this anymore. I feel like my health and wellbeing is suffering so badly. I know not all babies sleep through the night, I think I could cope with a few wake ups and quick settles. But when its like this for hours and hours with no let up in sight, I just feel like running away.

Someone please tell me that it wont be like this forever. I'm petrified DS will never get or give me a decent night's sleep.

What do you do when he wakes now op? We moved dd into her own room at 13mo and tried rocking or feeding for wake ups, it did our backs in and it was impossible to get her down asleep.

So we sleep trained and she slept through within a week. We did gradual retreat (where you sit by the bed). We're doing Ferber now with DS (where you go in to shush at increasing intervals).

If I were you, I'd sleep train using a method you're happy with. But it's not a magic bullet or something everyone's happy with.

Your sleep matters tho, exhaustion impacts on everything so to my mind a few nights of training is worth it. You'll get quite a few anti sleep training comments on here tho.

I second gradual retreat method- we did it with 14 month old DS and he was sleeping through within a couple of days! I never realised that me running into the room and getting him out of the cot when he cried was disturbing him more. If you're feeling you can't carry on it's time to start something.

Thank you for the replies

@corduroyal DS self settles at bedtime, has his bottle, into his cot and I can walk straight out the door without any problems. Barring teething or illness he can sleep for sometimes 3 or 4 hours straight so I know he can self settle, he just doesnt do it in the night. When he wakes up sometimes on a good night its just a case of putting his dummy back in, patting his bum for a bit, picking and rocking for a bit and he goes back to sleep. However in the last few months putting him back in his cot is not really working so out of desperation we bring him in our bed, we also have a single bed next to ours for him to sleep on but that doesnt work either. On a decent night he might wake up 3-5 times but settles quickly after being patted or rocked for a bit. On a terrible night on one of the wake ups he can be full of energy wants to bounce, jump, laugh anywhere from 2-4 hours straight! Last night he went to sleep after 4 and was up at 8! Amazingly he doesnt seem to be affected during the day and can't keep still, he is constantly on the move even when eating!

@kiwiblue Yes that's the feeling exactly that this isn't sustainable for any of us anymore. DH has to wake at 5.30am for work and I'm working part time as a teacher, it is so hard. But even when I wasn't working it was still terrible but at least I didnt have to worry about lesson plans and marking! I'm just not sure exactly which way to go. When he wakes up in the night, do I wait 5-10 minutes then go in and try to comfort him? I have noticed that when he sees me in the middle of the night it seems to set him off, I don't know if Cc would be better? A few months ago I would have been dead against cc but just feeling hopeless right now

@Elopelo sorry I missed your reply.

Our sleep consultant told us to wait 3 minutes at least before going in when he woke crying. We were totally amazed by how he started to self settle in that time, as we'd always rushed straight in. Definitely worth a try and what we also did was see if after 3 minutes the crying is worse or better, if it's better wait another minute or two and see, and he might settle in that time.
Good luck, I know it's hard, I'm having to do pick up put down with my 6 month old to teach her to self settle as she wasn't going in her cot at all all night. Stick with it!

Oh and also to say re going into own room, I've just done this with my 6 month old and I did naps in there for a week first before putting her in at night. They also recommend playing etc in there in the day time so they know their room is a nice place.

We've just moved our 6 month old into his own room. I was pretty nervous about it as he was waking several times a night and I thought my sleep could be disturbed even more with him in a different room. But, he's actually been better. He's settled himself a couple of times if I've just popped to the loo before going in to him and he's had a few longer stints, too... it's not immediately perfect, but I've a lot more hope we're going in the right direction now. I read from one sleep consultant to sort the night sleeps first if you can't face night and day all at once. For us day time sleeps in his own room seem to mean v short naps, so sometimes we are still letting him nap in the buggy... but again, I'm hopeful! Good luck

it didn't work for me, I still had to keep running in every time they woke up, but it helped me to sleep better as I wasn't hearing every sniffle noise etc

Hi all, thought I would give an update on DS who is 18 months old now. We are very very slowly trying to get him used to the spare room he has had some day time naps in there and have taken him in the room on certain nights when he wakes up and wants to start playing. He does usually settle quicker in that room, we are in the process of decorating the room and making it more child friendly.

Thanks all for your advice and support.

And apologies for not replying sooner!

Just saw this update- great news! Well done.