Compilation: Moving Beyond Co-sleeping

[obfclare]

Original Question:

I love co-sleeping with my sons (and my wife). It is a joyful experience to wake up and see my son sleeping next to us. Our older son is 3, and has been co-sleeping with us since he was born.



I hear stories of children moving to their own bed, but I see no signs of interest in him in doing so. Now, *I'm* not ready for this to happen yet, but I'd like to get some resources on getting our son to sleep in his own bed. I have few resources and those that I have are pretty vague on the subject.



Any suggestions beyond anecdotes?



Thanks for all the great answers!

Compilation:

we're guilty as charged too...I've actually managed to move our toddler into his own room - it took some doing, believe me. Where does he nap? Is he napping in his bed or yours? And if he's not showing signs, he probably won't - with my kids it was as long as we were fine they were fine. Let him nap in his room...put the cartoon sheets on his bed. You've got to entice him but not allow him to feel slighted because of the new baby.



And because of the new baby (congrats by the way)...it may be a good thing if your little man starts exercising some independence in the sleep department. I have 4 little ones and I would love to have them all cuddled up with me (sort of like Cheaper by the Dozen - great movie)...but them getting into their own beds is actually good for them....and for your marriage;)



I'm so glad to hear other families co-sleep with their babies/young children. My husband and I are doing the same thing -- we have our 14-month old son on our bed between us and three of us ALL enjoy it.



Ok, back to your question. A good friend of mine also co-slept with their 3.5-year-old son since birth. She started talking to her son about sleeping on his own when he turned 3, and gradually have him sleep in his own little "big boy's bed". She told me last night that he has been slept through the night on his bed for the past few nights. She just took him to his room, read him a few books, turned off the night and nighty-night. She said it seems that he's ready for it, and the transition wasn't bad at all. I guess by this age, you can start reasoning with them.



Another friend's son started sleeping on his own after 3, when his little brother was born. The process just happened naturally without any difficulties. So I think 3 might be the magic age when children want to be more independent.

---

First of all, congratulations. The baby is a cutie, and so is his brother.

Suggestions beyond anecdotes? Hmm. I don't know of a book, but I can give you some insight into the thought process that goes into sleeping separately from parents, and how you will want to communicate with him.

First, if you don't want to wait until he leaves, but wish to encourage him, you need to be completely ready. Sleeping alone taps into two basic fears we are predisposed to having, one is fear of dark, the other is fear of being alone. Both of those circumstances increase the likelihood of danger in the natural world, so they are useful, children who desire to sleep near their parents are less likely to be carried off by bears.

But of course in a secured home, the odds of bears roaming are pretty low. So while the child might feel wary, there isn’t any actual danger. It’s an irrational fear, in that it is based on no actual danger. (This is a little different in a situation where a child sleeps alone and then has nightmares, because an actual negative experience now gets put in the mix. But that is not yet your problem).

Kids are different in their likelihood for feeling wary, some are more sensitive to fears, others more sturdy, and of course experience plays a big role in coping with that wariness. Habituation plays a big role- if you experience repeatedly that something that makes you wary doesn’t hurt you, you get used to it. Most kids who sleep in their own rooms from infancy just habituate to the environment and feel quite comfortable in their cozy beds even alone and in the dark.

Your son of course doesn’t have that experience yet, so for him another piece is the fact that novelty can also increase anxiety. Even if it isn’t felt as fear, novelty at least is likely to produce excitement and some kids have a hard time sleeping when excited.

Now kids are new to the world, and have little perspective on what a lot of new stuff means, so they rely heavily on what is called social referencing, i.e., checking out the emotional response of others to figure out what a new thing might mean. This results in a tricky situation when it comes to children’s irrational fears. Sensitive parents tend to respond to children’s fears with empathy, and often come to help and protect the child. However, empathy means that the recipient of the emotion becomes aroused themselves, and that might send a signal that something bad is indeed going on.

If parents are very worried about a child’s night fears, the child cannot tell the difference between the parents’ anxiety about their emotional response, and the anxiety about the actual danger of the situation. So if you cry when you are alone at night, and your parents come rescue you, and stay with you until you are asleep, they might have just inadvertently given you the message that being alone at night is bad and they have to come protect you. But if your parents don’t come, then you feel abandoned. What the child really needs is a parent who does respond, recognizes and acknowledges the feeling, but who stays perfectly calm, giving a clear message that the fear is incorrect and misplaced. (That’s sympathy rather than empathy). I imagine you’ve read about the Ferber method, reassuring the child but leaving again, for increasing lengths of time, that works on this principle – responding with reassurance, but leaving again before the child goes back to sleep to fully make the statement that the room is safe or the parent wouldn’t leave the child behind.

It’s also an issue of trust. Children need to know that their parents know better and won’t expose them to real danger, even in situations that make them wary. A child who fully trust their parents knows that they are safe in their own room, or the parents wouldn’t have put them there. Trusting parents isn’t necessarily enough to cope with the emotional response to the darkness and aloneness, children need to habituate and/or be taught how to cope with the feelings, but if the parents are nervous, fearful, or angry at the time they put the child into the bed alone, the child might not feel that trust and that makes it worse.

That’s why you must be completely ready and at peace with this new milestone first if you want to help him, because it would be very difficult to hide your anxiety and doubt – children pick up on body language and voice tone very easily.

Coping can be taught. The best way to think about sleeping alone is that it is a skill that he needs to acquire, given our society (few of us sleep in the same room as our entire family for all of our lives), and also the benefit of having the ability to be alone without fear – that is a good and self-sufficient skill to have. Even if you don’t do it on a consistent basis, you might choose to teach your son to be able to sleep on his own if needed. Like if you chose to go on a trip with your wife. Your son might be with a caregiver who does not wish to share his bed, and if he doesn’t know how to sleep alone, it might be very stressful for him.

There are two basic approaches to teaching this skill, throw the child in the deep end and let them get used to it, or do it very gradually. Or a combination of small steps and little pushes. You could just put him in his own bed tomorrow, and he would get used to it in a few days or weeks, depending on his temperament. I sort of doubt that that is your style, and it wouldn’t be mine either. Your son is 3, so you can use a lot of verbal means to prepare and coach him.

You definitely want to talk about trust, and that you have decided it’s safe to be alone, and that he needs to believe you. You will also want to create a positive self-fulfilling prophecy setting up very positive expectations (sorry to slug all that jargon at you but it is a good description), telling him that you know he can learn to do this soon, even if it takes a little time. You might also want to tie it in with his self-esteem, since it is an issue of mastering a difficult skill, telling him that how proud he will be of himself when he learns how.

You could tie the new skill in with other privileges of being a big boy. If there is something else that he wants or wants to do that is associated with being big, (staying up later, getting a big boy bike, using a knife, doing other things by himself) you can tell him that to earn the right to do that, he will also have to show you that he can sleep alone.



For gradually building his sleeping alone skills, here are a few ideas. Odds are, he already has the skill to sleep alone, since it’s not likely that you go to bed exactly when he does. So if he can be in your bed for a while by himself, you can expand that. You could get him used to his own bed by letting him fall asleep there and then allowing him to come to your bed if he wakes up, for a prescribed amount of time (whether you set a date limit, or just tell him that this is only until he’s ready for the next step doesn’t matter, as long as he knows it’s a transition and not the long term goal). If he sleeps in your bed, you could put a matt on the floor in your room, first close to your bed, then gradually farther and farther towards his room, including in the hallway for a while (it’s odd but I know one family who literally moved the matt by a foot a day and it worked). The matt has the advantage that he will still hear you and feel near you if he wakes at night, but will get weaned from the skin contact he’s used to, which is part of his current sleep habit. You could also let him have your bed for a while but you leave to sleep elsewhere, so that he experiences sleeping alone all night in a familiar environment. Or if he’s in a big bed, you could go sleep with him for a transitional time, to get him used to the new room. Again, he would have to be clearly told it’s a transitional phase, so that he doesn’t come to expect that as the new habit. There are probably lots of other ways to do this, the ones I mention are just examples.



How gradually you need to proceed, and what would work, completely depends on your child and your situation. If he is a sturdy kid who is pretty tolerant of fears, and just is in your bed out of habit and because that’s a fun and cozy place to sleep, he might just go to his own bed cold turkey, if you can explain it to him as a big boy milestone and tie it in with rewards (even if the reward is just his own and your pride in his accomplishments). If the reason he sleeps with you is pronounced wariness, you might have to proceed more cautiously if you want to avoid stress. Frankly, you don’t have to avoid stress even then, you could just put him his room cold turkey anyway, because contrary to common belief, it is good for children to experience and master some stress in their lives. It does make them stronger if it isn’t chronic stress. So the crying it out technique in an otherwise loving and supportive home is not going to result in psychological damage. But I personally don’t choose to challenge my kids to cope on their own exactly when they are tired, that’s more a daytime thing for me.

---

My son was around 2.5 when we started the transition. He wanted to do it. We have a couch in our room and we made it is his bed for a while and then we went shopping and he picked out his big boy bed and the sheets and blankets and he moved into his room. He still falls asleep in my bed and then my husband carries him to his bed when he comes to bed later. We are now co-sleeping with the 18month old only. : ) He truly loves his room and his bed. My husband bought some Christmas lights to decorate and they are still up. He wants to keep them up.

So, that is his night-light. You have to get the lights that don't heat up though.

---

Try sleeping in his bed and he may well follow. Start storytime in his bed, then naps, then sleep........ My son finally gave up and retreated to his bed when his younger sister became a crazy kicker. (I suspect it was her strategy)

---

Our four children slept with us that long and longer. I also home schooled my children. The nurturing is so important. They grow up strong, secure, self assure and spectacular people. We would talk with our kids about how exciting it is to be a big boy or girl in their own beds so that they are prepared. Then, after they go to sleep with us we would carry them to their own bed. So they wake up in their own bed.

After a while they want to go to their own beds. We never pushed. They made the decision.