Transitioning Baby to Crib

Hi L..

I will tell you my experience which is pretty recent as I have a 4 months old baby.
I know that here in US is pretty common to let the baby sleep in the parents bedroom for a long time...
In my case I prefer to let the baby get used to his own room and to get used to the fact that he will fall asleep alone and wake up alone and if he needs mommy or daddy we are just a step away.
My son slept with us till almost 3 months cause my parents were here since his birth to help me and they were staying at his room as I have a full bed there too. I used to put him on his crib for day naps...not always but at least once a day. And also let him play in there too so he finds his crib very amusing.
After my parents left we put our son on his crib and he doesn't drink during the night, his last feeding is at 11pm ( although his bed time is 7pm I feed him when he is sleeping..and he drinks and get back to sleep again) and the next feeding is only at 7am). I had him checked by the doctor and he was gaining enough weight and developing well with only the feeding he got ( about 6 times a day, almost 5oz each)
During the first few nights he would wake up 2 to 3 times at night...one of us would go there..reassure him that all was ok and put him back to sleep without taking him out of the crib...he would fall back to sleep quickly.
Lately he almost never wakes up...or sometimes around 3am when I get there I find him laying crossed in the crib...without his blankets ( i make sure he sleeps in a sleepsack to keep him warm) , so once I put him back he is back to sleep.
I have to say that there are fussy nights..but mostly when he doesnt nap well during the day. And when I have nights like that I just sleep in his room so is easier to get up every 15 min or so...but I try not to make it a habit...
I saw my sister in law rising her children on the 'dutch way' and found the result very good...and one thing she always did was keeping the baby in his own bed and not staying there till he was fully asleep but letting him fall to sleep by himself...and her children never cried in the morning...
Mine is the same..he wakes up and start playing in his crib by himself...so far so good...and I truly hope it continues this way.
I think is also important to get some quality time with the hubby...and have a good night sleep.
I guess if you dont mind getting up to feed him during the night..it is a good idea to move him to his crib. Make it interesting..I have a mobile that he loves to watch moving...and the crib bumper has some cars and he loves to look at it too or touch it...
But again, that's just my experience...
Good luck !!!

starting with naps is a great idea. That's what we did and it worked. Also - spend some quality awake time gently playing in his room. No loud noisy toys. You want him to make associations with enjoying his room - but that also quiet time is spent there - resting or sleeping. He will come to like his room and want to be in there. Good luck!

Hi L.,
My daughter is 7 months old now and has been sleeping in her own room since she was 5 months without a problem. I spent a month transitioning her, mostly because of me :) .
I started out by putting her in her crib for her naps during the day until she was falling asleep on her own in there. I would put her down when she was sleepy acting for her nap and let her fall asleep. At first she sort of cried a little or whined, but I would wait 5 minutes to see if she'd quiet down on her own. She usually did. After three weeks of naptime in the crib, I put her for her first night in the crib. Boy, I feel like I should have done it sooner. She and I both slept through the night for the first time since she was born. I was like a new person the next day. It was great.

I do not suggest staying in his room until he falls asleep. It's a habit that is extremely difficult to break later down the road. Just put him in his crib for naps during the day until you're comfortable and then try a night in his crib. I think you'll be surprised at the results and happily so.

My son slept in a crib at the foot of my bed for the first 9 months - we were in a 1 BR apartment. We moved to a 2 bedroom - he had his own room and bathroom. I was so worried - but he slept through the night even though Hubby and I got up every 20 minutes to check on him. We didn't sleep for 3 nights - but he loved it!
IF you can fit the crib in your room - and you're really anxious - have him sleep in the crib to get used to the new mattress etc. and he will probably be fine in his new room.
We had an air purifier running all the time and that went into the new room - so it sounded like the old apartment and it helped a lot with the noisy upstairs neighbors. Grrrr....
Otherwise - napping in the new bed and room will be good practice for both of you. Sleep with his crib sheet a few nights so it smells like you and get a good baby monitor if you don't already have one. :)
Baby will be fine and you will be too!
BTW - get a crib mattress that has a waterproof cover so you can quickly wipe and disinfect any late night accidents. Don't spend more that $80 on the mattress - you don't need cashmere or wool or 287,000,000 coils. I got a Simmons at Babies R Us for $40 and it's great. I splurged on a good cotton mattress pad ( 2 for easy changing) :)
O.K. are you bored yet??

Hi L.,

This is a really interesting question to me, because I think it has a lot to do with one's overall "sleep philosophy." Our daughter slept in a co-sleeper with us until 6.5 months old (she's 7.5 months now). We used the Snuggle Nest, so she was right in the bed with us, between us. I was really worried about the transition to her crib, but it was smooth and easy. We only had her napping in the crib for a couple of weeks prior to making the change.

Our baby is a great sleeper. However, we are doing many things that people would say not to do: we help her get to sleep 99% of the time. For the first 7 months, this involved swaddling, rocking, shushing or other white noise, until she was completely asleep. I certainly tried putting her down while drowsy but awake, but she would rub her eyes nonstop and was not able to settle herself down. I tried, on half a dozen occasions, letting her cry it out, but she would get more and more upset, and if I helped her back to sleep it was easier on everybody ... and she slept better and longer. The other thing we do is feed her if she wakes up crying. In the mornings, she wakes up and doesn't cry, so we know if she wakes up crying, she really needs to be fed.

At this point, I am starting to see signs of her needing less help to sleep. Sometimes I can get her down without the swaddle (just a paci), sometimes I still need to swaddle her. I now no longer need to rock her, I can simply sit in the feeding chair and hold her while she sucks on a pacifier, and she drifts off to sleep. I'm beginning to sense that soon, I'll be able to start doing the drowsy but awake thing.

ALL of this is to say that if you know your baby's sleep needs, and can attend to them without second-guessing your instincts, through trial and error, you'll pretty quickly figure out what your baby needs. I hope to reassure you that the transition will be smooth -- it was much harder on me than it was on my daughter! (And it was only hard on me that first night when I went to bed -- I missed her!)

If somebody had told me before my daughter was born that she was going to spend nearly 7 months in the bed with us, I would have laughed and said they were crazy. I certainly did not anticipate co-sleeping as long as we did. It worked great for us, and the transition to the crib has been great, too. Oh, and she HAS been waking up less during the night since she's been in her crib. When co-sleeping, she woke up at least once (often twice) every night; now it's once a night every few nights, she's sleeping through the night with much more regularity.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but obviously I have a lot of thoughts on the subject. :) Good luck to you!

T.

Good for you for co-sleeping! I, too, find it makes my life so much easier - and my daugther's as well (no sleep deprivation for either one of us!). I'm amazed more parents don't do it. But, to each her own.

Anyway - though you don't have any nap "problems", the No-Cry Nap Solution book has lots of great ideas regarding making transitions. All ideas are gentle and don't involve CIO methods.

At about 4 months old, I started having my daughter take naps in her crib for safety reasons as well as knowing the day will come when she and I will both want her to eventually sleep by herself. She was fine with this arrangement until she was about 8 months old when she started protesting being put down in the crib. But, I've found this to be in typical conjunction with separation anxiety and other developmental milestones. Anyway - that's when I got the No-Cry Nap Solution book. I found it the most compassionate of all the sleep books (and the most honest about there being no "one method fits all" solution). It offers LOTS of suggestions and let's you figure out what will work best for you and your baby.

Good luck!
Cassie