How We Got a Toddler Out of Our Bed

This post is for the sleep-deprived parents of young kiddos. I feel the pain. I know your struggle. For nearly three years our son slept in between my husband and I. It was like sleeping next to a thirty pound penguin who is constantly flopping around trying to get comfortable. Torturous...sleepless nights...awful. Sleep is ridiculously essential not just to survive, but to maintain a reasonable level of sanity. I can now say with some flimsy confidence that my sanity has leveled out after almost three long years. That's right, he's out of our bed and in his own (sweet sigh of victorious relief). 

I will share the bizarre story with you of how this came to be, but first you have to understand that there is no certainty that anything I say will help you. That's a terrible thing to say (laughs) I know! We tried so many things for so long, so you'll just have to start trying anything and everything...eventually something is bound to work. Right?

Where do I start? The days before his first birthday when we tried to let him self-soothe in his crib. Fail. He would cry for twenty-thirty minutes (if we were lucky), pass out, and wake up a couple of hours later ready to start right back up. This did not fly for long. We enjoy our precious hours of sleep around here so we weighed the option of sleepless nights full of crying against the option of having a baby in our bed. Sleep won. 

From then on it has been a struggle to get him into his own bed. We tried going from the crib to a "big boy" bed to get him excited. No dice. Then we tried bringing his bed into our room right by our bed to see if it was just about being in the same room as us. Nope. W tried a new "big boy" CAR bed. Totally exciting during the day, but same ordeal at night. He would either cry until I came and got him or would crawl right into our bed. At some point I just accepted the fact that we were a co-sleeping family. Then I got pregnant. 

Then the pressure was on! I had to get this child out of our bed before my nights were consumed by late night feedings and newborn coos and cries. All business now, I made a plan. It was ridiculously simple. 

• When he moves rooms, he gets a twin size bed.
• I will sleep in that twin size bed with him for about a week (I definitely resembled a zombie).
• For about a month I laid in his bed until he fell asleep and then went to my own bed (at this point he is still coming into our bed halfway through the night).
• Then for about two weeks I sat in a rocker next to his bed while he went down (this may have been the most important part as he learned to fall asleep holding a toy instead of a person).

I would often fall asleep in that rocker by his bed and always felt restless and awful when I woke up. One night I'd had it. We went through our normal routine to get ready for bed. I tucked him in. I looked him right in the eye and told him that I was going to go sleep in my bed while he slept in his. He looked super irritated at first but after we went through our goodnights, sweet dreams, and bed bugs talk he looked fine. I stepped away, left his lamp on, and left the door cracked. Done. Victory. Sweet sweet sleep. I woke up the next morning in pure disbelief and a little bit of panic. After I checked on him and realized that I wasn't dreaming I made myself not get my hopes up, but it's been weeks and he has slept soundlessly every single night! We even spent a night out of town at a relatives house and he slept in their grand-baby's room without any problem!

My advice for you is this:

1. Do not let your kiddo spend the night at anyone's house while your going through this process. It totally messes up the consistency.
2. Leave a nightlight or lamp on in the room all night long.
3. Provide your kiddo with a stuffed animal or let them choose a toy to take with them each night.
4. Try using music or white noise to camouflage any other noises that would usually make your kiddo stir. I like to run a diffuser with essential oils in it while he sleeps. It makes a very subtle hum.
5. Most importantly, do not let your kiddo think you will be in the room when he/she wakes up. I think the biggest difference we made was when I looked right at him and made it clear that he sleeps in his bed and I sleep in mine. End of story. He watched me leave his room (melted my heart) and I knew that he understood that I would not be in there when he woke up. So simple and logical that I can't believe we hadn't tried the straightforward approach before.