Despite all of my worries and fears, Rosie has taken to her new sleeping regimen like a champ. A very, very sleepy champ.
_[Editor’s note: We realize this post gives a lot of detail about a process many of you may never need to implement. But as we were working through the process of transitioning our baby from co-sleeping to her own crib, we found that there was precious little information available. We’re trying to fill that gap a little.]_
It took us a little while to create a “plan”:/news/2008/rosies-big-transition/ to get Rosie accustomed to sleeping in her crib. But after piecing together advice from friends, tips from books, and some ideas from the internet, we implemented these steps, in this order:
# Put Rosie in her crib for naps as much as possible (starting around age 3½ months). Put her down when sleepy, 1-2 hours after waking. Let her cry for up to 20 minutes to go to sleep at naptimes.
# Continue to co-sleep at night with Rosie in bed. Mama tries to roll over with her back to Rosie to reduce the number of nighttime nursings.
# Try to put Rosie in the bedside co-sleeper in the middle of the night. See how that goes.
# Set up a room for Rosie. We gave her our room — just for the time being! Someday she’ll move in with Lucy. (See photo, above, as Lucy helped Papa dismantle the grownups’ bed.)
# Once Rosie is used to being put in the bedside co-sleeper in the middle of the night, move the whole operation into Rosie’s room, near her crib — co-sleeper, Mama, and all. (We have a daybed set up here, too, which made it easy to use the co-sleeper there.) Mama starts off the night sleeping in Rosie’s room, then at some point steals away to her own bed at night. (See photo, below.)
# After a few nights of this, try putting Rosie down in the co-sleeper and leaving at the beginning of the night.
# After a few nights of this, put Rosie down in her crib at the beginning of the night.
This whole process went quite smoothly, and much more quickly than I had anticipated — only one or two nights needed for each step. Rosie has amazed us by regularly taking a long nap (often three hours or more) almost every day. We think part of her napping ease may be that she is sleeping on her belly (even though we put her down on her back, but our pediatrician says this is fine). At some point, we also began a regular bedtime routine (bath, pajamas, nursing, and a song) which has probably helped the whole process.
One challenge has been a bit of confusion on Rosie’s part regarding when we were putting her down for bedtime and when we intended for her to take a nap. Sometimes Rosie would cry after being asleep for only about 45 minutes at night. We had “this challenge”:/news/2006/lucys-troublesome-habit/ with Lucy, too, so it wasn’t too surprising to us. After determining that she wasn’t actually hungry at this point, we decided to employ a “cry-it-out” policy (as we did with “Lucy”:/news/2006/taking-the-plunge/). Rosie is still working her way through this bump, but she is doing great — waking up at this point only once every few days, and crying (usually not very hard) for only 10-20 minutes before falling asleep again.
It was hard to decide to let Rosie cry, just as it was hard with Lucy. But when Rosie was sleepy and nothing else was working, the choice became clear. I was comforted, too, by advice “Deborah”:http://www.xanga.com/tomaid gave me when we let Lucy cry herself to sleep two years ago: we can just try it for a week or so, and if it doesn’t improve, we can always change the policy. (But both times it _has_ improved quickly!)
So, at this point, Rosie is generally going to bed somewhere between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm each night, getting up for two feedings, and waking up around 7:30 am. Ideally, we’d get that down to one feeding, but I’m pretty happy with the progress we’ve made! Jon and I even went on a date the other night to celebrate. I think Rosie is enjoying the new regime, too — she’s been getting lots more sleep and seems able to stay up a little longer between naps. A girl’s got to have lots of rest to keep on “growing like she is”:/news/2008/our-big-dumpling!
Is Rosie’s foot hanging out of the crib in that picture? Very cute!
Hooray for the happy sleeping family!
Yes, that is her foot. She’s a major-league wiggler, and manages to work her way into (and usually out of) all kinds of odd spots.
Sharp eyes, Lindsay! Yup, Rosie loves to stick her feet through the slats and then complain about it. :) I’ve been putting her in a sleep-sack and then helps reduce the foot-stuck-syndrome during sleepy-time. But she can do it all she wants during play-time!
Great post – we went through a similar process with Ren, unfortunately, he is still in our room (he is 16 months)!! I’m trying to get some advice on how to now transition him to Noah’s room!! If you hear of any good tips on this let me know!
Glad things are going well! I was so lucky that Mo wasn’t difficult to transition, but Kaia on the otherhand… well she still is in our bed more than she isn’t. Any tips on how to (legally) keep a 5 year old in her own bed? They keep saying to just keep putting her back in, but first I don’t wake up until 4 in the morning and find her next to me, and second try hauling a 5 year old up 2 flights of stairs. I can barely do it wide awake, let alone when I’m half asleep!
I love that Lucy is helping with the bed! She’s just so cute!
Thanks for the talk about potty training a couple of days ago! Like I keep saying – I’m sure glad that you’re going through these things just before we are so we can learn from your experiences! I’m sure I’ll be refering to this entry when it’s our turn in the winter! Your family is doing a great job of growing and learning as the Lord leads. :)
Ooh, and can I ask – did you buy Rosie her own crib and Lu is still in hers? Also are the girls sharing dresser space or do they have their own? We’re figuring out the funiture sitch right now. Thanks!
Hooray! I’m glad to hear it all went so smoothly – nice to know that not every transition in life has to be difficult. We got breathable crib bumpers (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2266849) for our crib because Ella also liked to get legs/arms stuck out of the crib and then it would interrupt her sleep.
Jolinta, in response to your furniture question:
Lucy is still in her crib. Rosie was either in our bed or the co-sleeper for so long that we didn’t have a second crib. Recently, we borrowed a crib from some friends (the one you see in the photo) — we didn’t want to buy another one because we anticipate moving Lucy into a big bed in a few months.
We set up a diaper changing station in the dining room (we do clear it off and change the tablecloth before eating there :) and we have a small dresser in the dining room where we are storing Rosie’s clothes for now. Eventually the girls will share a room, dresser space, etc., but we didn’t have space or money for lots of extra furniture that will only be used for a year or so. Currently, I’m all excited about selling things (like the co-sleeper) on craigslist so we can get some space back in our basement!
I was thinking about your eventually transferring Lucy-who-has-my-birthday into a bed and thought I would tell you what we did…I’m always curious what other people do…
We transferred Marie out of the crib right around her second birthday (may have even been a month before). We went straight into a big-girl bed (no toddler bed, I didn’t want to buy one) with no railings or anything and she learned right away to sleep in it. We also made a really big deal out of it so she would feel like it was special. The best part about it was that because it was a big bed with no stool to get out with (we helped her in) it took her 8 months(!) to figure out how to get out on her own!! : ) I hope when your time comes to transfer Lucy it goes as well!
This is a great post. My daughter is 7.5 months and we are starting the transition now and I plan to go through the steps you went through. I have one question, what did you do if she cried for more than 20-minutes during naptime? Did you give in a hold her at that point?
Hi LaSandra,
I think you are right, I did go in and pick Rosie up if she cried for more than 20 minutes at naptimes. Since she was only about 3 months old at the time of this transition, and since she had generally been napping in a baby carrier before this, I didn’t want to totally abandon that option. But I think she only did that a couple of times.
Later, once she got used to life a little more, we followed the “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” theory — he says to let them cry up to an hour at naptimes. Recently, if Rosie has trouble at naptime, I’ll let her fuss for about 20-30 minutes, then go check on her. (Rosie is a year old now.) Often I discover that she has pooped, and this is what’s causing the fuss, so I change her. Then I put her down again, and she hollers like made for about 5 minutes, then goes to sleep.
Good luck with the transition to crib! Your baby is super-adorable!
We have been having our daughter co-sleep in our bed (she’s 18 months now) because she still breastfeeds at night. We want to transition her to her day bed but so far no luck. We thought changing the crib to the day bed would work but she still cries and can now just hop off and come back to our room. Any ideas since crying-it-out doesn’t work because she can get out of the bed?
Hi Tarah,
That’s a tough one! I’m no expert, but I can give you my two cents. Have you tried putting her back in the crib, or is she able to climb out of it? I’ve heard that crib tents work well for many children, preventing climb-outs. In our family, the only thing that really worked well with children under 2 was cry-it-out. Hard to do, but the most painful part passes soon enough, and it helped them get the sleep they need.
If the crib is tough because of nursing at night, I would say this is the place where you’ll need to make a decision. Our pediatrician said that children don’t actually *need* food during the night after 12 months. I totally understand if you want to nurse her at night for comfort, but this might undermine your hopes of getting her into her own sleeping space.
You’re the mama, and you know your child best. I’m sure you’ll make a great decision!
blessings,
ann