I love co-sleeping with my babies when they are newborn! I am very into long term nursing, breastfeeding for 2 years is my goal. With that, I found that co-sleeping worked best for me while nursing. That way we both can get sufficient sleep. So when the 2 year mark hits I start working on transitioning my toddler from co-sleeping to toddler bed or room.
A lot of people choose to put their babies straight into a crib and don’t have any issues with going to toddler beds. I think that is great, and I wish I could make that work for me. But if you’re like me and co-sleeping is what made sense for you, then maybe this info will help you too!
The starting point
If it is your first time on my page, you may not know but, we are a family of 8, living in a 3 bedroom house. So that means we have 3 girls in 1 room and 2 boys in the other room, leaving our littlest girl to bunk with us. While we were co-sleeping it was all fine but once we came to the point of moving her out of our bed I wasn’t sure how smooth it would be since her toddler bed is in our room.
I did my best to do everything I had done for my older kids when they transitioned. We got her the new bed with the new bedding that she would like, decorated her area and got her all excited about her bed.
To be honest, when we first started the transition she did not have a good routine. She pretty much just hung out with me and Trace until we were ready for bed. This was my first mistake and hurdle into getting her to transition to her own bed.
Routine and comfort
We started bath time at the same hour every night and started bedtime at 8:30. And since we were also weaning her from nursing at the same time, I needed Trace to be the one to rock her to sleep. Any time I try she just wanted to nurse, and I was not able to make any progress with her. When she woke in the night I could go to her bedside and hold her hand and let her know she was not alone. Sometimes having to sit there for a good 20 minutes. This is important for the separation anxiety that may occur as they transition to a separate bed.
After a few nights we came to the conclusion that she was waking too often for this to fully work. We knew she needed some way of getting back on track. I began looking into Melatonin for toddlers. I do NOT recommend you give your toddler Melatonin regularly. This can disrupt their normal production of the hormone. Some doctors say it can even cause behavioral changes. However using it 3 or 4 nights in a row just to get her on a new sleep schedule and help her sleep all night worked a miracle. This is the one we used for 2 years and up.
True Routine Emerges
We gave her the vitamin every night at 8 for 4 nights. Then straight to the bath as the directions say to give it about 30 minutes before bed time. She loves bath time and would spend at least 30 minutes in there playing. Sometimes Trace gets his legs in and plays with her making bath time even more special.
Then we get her out and apply lotions and brush teeth and she knows it is bed time. She only needed a few minutes of rocking in the chair before Trace could easily lay her down in her bed. And wow what a difference! Now she sleeps through the night more often. If she wakes in the night, Trace just tells her (in the dad voice) to go back to bed and she stays in her bed and goes back to sleep. Some times are faster than others but she knows not to get up and has really accepted her new routine from co-sleeping to toddler bed!
We made it!
In this instance it actually worked out great that she is still in our room. Being in her own bed in her own area, but still close to us has helped her I think. And helped us to transition from co-sleeping to toddler bed! With my older kids they had their own room to go into. That meant I spent a lot of time there getting them back to bed when they would wonder to my room. Of course I still would like to get her into her own room. Which will require a garage conversion, that could be happening in the next year. Fingers crossed!
Our daughter Teagan is not the most easy going baby. She is our free spirit, wild child. As the youngest of 6 kids she is the bossiest little toddler I have ever met. So the fact that these little tricks worked so well for her and so quickly was amazing to me. I thought I was going to be working on this transition of co-sleeping to toddler bed for months! But after the first week we have already been sleeping great, all three of us!
