Transitioning to crib

[girlygirl]

We have been co-sleeping with our 3 month old since birth but would like to start transitioning him to his crib in the next month. What's the best way to go about this? Also, I am breastfeeding and am concerned about hearing him before he gets too hungry. We have a monitor, but I seem to remember reading that if they're crying, you're already too late. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[tgray99]

We moved our daughter into her crib from our room at 7 weeks. Our monitor is sensitive enough to hear her "pre-cry" sounds (little grunts) so I can get to her before it's a full on scream. She transitioned pretty easily. No freakouts or meltdowns. Sometimes if I have a hard time getting her to sleep after a nighttime feeding, I'll bring her back to bed with us, let her fall asleep and then put her back in her crib. We've only had to do that a couple of times.

[SaphirimalMei]

We co-slept til 3 months as well and DDs first night in the crib was the first night she slept all through the night!!! I think it was tougher on me than it was on her :p

As far as hearing his little cries. I'm sure you are already conditioned to hearing him even in your sleep. I'm confident from personal experience (I hear Jilly's little pre-cries even without monitor help) that you will hear him :)

Good luck! I hope the transition is a smooth one!!!

-Marisa

[Hedwig]

I am the mom of two DD's! When we were getting our first to transition into the crib, we were also worried about not hearing her...believe me, it will not be a problem. First, it is ok if they cry for a few minutes (we were bottle feeding) In your case, since you are breast feeding, your baby won't have to wait very long anyways. As for the transitioning, each day put the baby in the crib for one of their naps, then 2 and so on. When the baby is comfortable with the crib for naps, they will be comfortable over night as well.

[Marisa]

Is there room to set up the crib temporarily in your room? That way you can ease the transition a bit, first to the crib, then to the separate room. You can then better gauge how your reaction time is when you're not sleeping immediately next to her.

[sparkle&shine]

We just started transitioning our DS to his crib.
He is 8 months old and it was just too hard to continue cosleeping. He sleeps very wild and none of us were getting any sleep. We still bring him to bed with us in the mornings just because we really like the closeness.

What we did is the first few nights I put him to sleep as usual let him fall asleep in our bed for 15 minutes and then carried him to his crib. He would usually still be sleepy enough to fall right to sleep. I won't lie the first time he realized he was somewhere else right away and woke up and it took me a while to get him to go back to sleep. He would wake up every hour at first. If he woke up after 1 then I would just take him to bed with us so I could get some sleep. Then I started letting him rest in his crib during nap times and he got to look around and 'get to know' his crib. I still sometimes let him fall asleep in our bed but I can usually nurse him in his room and put him in his crib and he will stay asleep. He has been doing really well and sleeps in there usually every night now. We also try to make his sound like our room did. We make sure that there is white noise and that really helps.

I do sleep much more soundly since I am not super aware of where he is in my sleep now. Because of that I don't usually hear him until he is really waking up and starting to cry a bit. He calms right down though once I get to his room and he nurses and falls right back to sleep. Only one night did he get so worked up that I couldn't get him to go right back to sleep. We do not do CIO and he has been sleeping great and will even put himself to sleep for naps in his crib now. We have been working on it for about 3 weeks now.

One word though is to make sure that he is not going through a growth spurt when you start trying to transition. If I recall correctly I think that he went through one at 3 months and woke up every two hours to eat again for a few days. I know that I would not have been wanting to trudge to his room during that time as I do wake up much more than I used to when I could just nurse him in bed.

That's all I can think of for now but if you have any other questions I would be happy to answer!