While I was pregnant with our second child we really tried to transition our son into his own bed. He did not have a problem falling asleep on his own but he needed a warm body next to him to feel safe. First we converted the crib into a toddler bed so that he would have easier access to it and not feel imprisoned. He would not sleep in the toddler bed at night very well and usually ended up in our bed at some point during the night. Knowing that at some point we will convert the crib/toddler bed into a full size bed, we went ahead and bought a full size bed for our son. With his own full size bed, we tried a different strategy. Either my husband or myself would lay down with him to help him fall asleep in his own bed. We had a bit of success with this tactic. Some times our son would sleep the whole night in his bed without waking during the night. Other times he would wake up and generally I would get out of bed to lay down with him to help him fall asleep. The idea was to get him used to sleeping in his bed. It was working pretty well even though my husband took and evening job (usually working until midnight … later sometimes). I was about seven months pregnant at this point so aside from the difficulty getting out of bed, I was still able to aid him in sleeping in his own bed and then returning to our bed. Things changed once our daughter was born, I was tending to the baby and was largely unable to just pop out of bed to soothe our son back to sleep. My husband did his best but was too tired to take over for me. That is when survival mode kicked in for our family. I would take both of the kids to bed with me usually a few hours before my husband got home. When he did get home, he would move our son into his bed. To cope with his extreme need for sleep he would frequently just sleep in our son’s bed. Needless to say we are still co sleeping with our son. Things are about to change again as my husband takes a different position at the same company that will involve day time hours.
