Parents who used to cosleep - help!

[InfertilitySWS]

My 19 month old co-slept between the ages of 6 month old and 16 month old. For the past few months we’ve got him to sleep in our bed then successfully transferred him to the cot, but he wakes up through the night every night now, which he never did in our bed. It’s also getting harder to get him to sleep in our bed and nighttime’s are becoming a pain in the backside.

We can’t have him in the bed all night because since my section I have a dodgy back, and now he’s bigger I end up in contorted positions leading me to wake multiple times and not being able to get back to sleep because I have no room! Also, we’re hoping to have another baby next year so we’d like him to ideally be in his cot in his own room by then.

When he sleeps at the grandparents he sleeps through in the cot. It’s like he knows if he’s there he gets put in to go to sleep, he has his bottle and lies down and sleeps. If he does wake, they shush him and he goes back down. For us, if we try to put him in his cot, he screams, hence we get him to sleep then move him. Similarly, if he wakes in the night there’s no way he’s going back to sleep in there.

Anyone have advice that does include CIO?

I moved mine into their own bed and room which I could feed and military roll out off with white noise playing. Hope this helps ☺️

We’ve talked about this! What did you have, bed wise? I have visions of him climbing over whatever he’s in and falling on the floor and we aren’t there.

Also, I said we could have a baby gate on the door but my husband says he wouldn’t trust it and thinks we need to fully close the door, which I’m not comfortable with 😑

We have white noise every night, to the point that even if he’s not there I have to have rain sounds on now 😳

I think I’m maybe overprotective now that I write this out 🤣

We also have a bed on the floor in his room. A double! With my son, once we started doing this he was fine no issues. Lay with him until he is asleep, he sleeps through, happy days.
With my daughter, she would wake and be upset that we were gone. So although I was happy to lie with her to sleep, I explained to her that if she woke in the night she could look at her lights/give teddy a cuddle/check the night light and go back to sleep. Or if she needs me she can come get me. To start with this would be once a night, it's now not so often.
She's 4 now and mostly sleeps through. I have. O idea if she wakes up and goes back to sleep herself though!

I also never fully close their doors. They know they can come get me if they need me. Feeling safe and secure results in better sleep in my opinion! Rather than them being worried or anxious that if they need you, you won't come or they can't get out. But all kids are different and this is what works for us.

Thank you for this! We have a low bed because of him at the moment, so would make sense to have a floor bed in his room.

I think my husband is worried he will somehow get out the gate and fall down the stairs or something, but yeah I’m not comfortable with fully shutting him out, especially when as far as he remembers he’s always been in our bed.

I just wish he was at an age where we could explain things to him, he’s still a bit too little to understand if we tell him what to do if he wakes and that we’ll always be there if he needs us x

My son used to go berserk when he woke in the night and I put him back in his cot. It was awful and I was getting barely any sleep at one point as once he woke that was it, he wouldn’t go back down (to the point of being sick)

I ended up getting a sleep consultant in who showed a ‘gentle’ way to sleep train him. I’ve put gentle in inverted commas as it was still horrible, he cried, he was sick, but it only took one night.

I really did not want to go down the route of a floor bed to be honest. And you’d probably have the same dodgy back issues on the floor as in an actual bed.

@InfertilitySWS one huge mistake I made with ds was assuming he understood a lot less than he did! I do know what you mean of course - you can’t reason with them as you can an older child - but they do understand lie down, mummy will come back

I took the side off the cot (in her room, cot at lowest height) and slept on a mattress on the floor next to her bed, then gradually moved the mattress away from her bed and then left the room when she was asleep. It took a few weeks but worked well.

@InfertilitySWS we did this both of mine when they were 12 -18 months. They understand lots so don't feel like they need to be older for you to just say 'mummy will always come if you need me'. If anything it'll be worse/harder when they understand more as they can argue with you!
My son has a bed on the floor just because we bought one for guests - my daughter went into a normal single bed at 18m which I would like with in until she was asleep.
Hopefully he'll fall asleep, you leave and he wakes up in the morning!