Crawling into bed with your child after a long day can be comforting. But this habit might interfere with her ability to sleep alone. Learn how to transition a child out of your bed and stop co-sleeping for good, even if your child has always slept with you.
In an earlier post, I reviewed reasons why you might want to avoid co-sleeping, because of SIDS risk in infancy, and the fact that it can be associated with poor sleep as children get older.
What is Co-sleeping?
Co-sleeping is simply sharing a bed with your child. Some would argue that it is imprecise, and that “bedsharing” (as opposed to “roomsharing”) would be more precise.
Why do some families co-sleep?
In many parts of the world, cosleeping is the norm, either for cultural reasons or space reasons– some families sleep in a one bedroom home. Other families due it for closeness. Many parents who are interesting in attachment parenting cosleep.
I was just interviewed by Good Morning America about the actress Alicia Silverstone, who still cosleeps with her 11 year old son. (The full interview is here).
When is co-sleeping OK?
Co-sleeping never worked with our kids as they never slept well in our bed. People I know and respect have chosen to co-sleep with their children and have been happy to do so. One great example is Dr. Claire McCarthy, who wrote about co-sleeping with her children on the Huffington Post.
This made me reflect on what would make me OK with ongoing co-sleeping if a family asked my opinion. My goal for families is good enough sleep, which in this case means:
- Your child is older than a year and thus the risk of SIDS is minimal.
- Everyone is sleeping well
- There is enough space in the family bed for everyone to be comfortable
- Parents are not being disturbed during the night.
- Parents and children feel well rested in the morning and are not sleepy during the day.
- Your child CAN separate sleep elsewhere without tears or anxiety– say at Grandma’s house or on a sleepover.
If all of these circumstances are not met, then I think you should stop cosleeping. (In the case of the last criteria, a child that cannot separate may struggle from separation anxiety. Cosleeping doesn’t cause separation anxiety, but if your child cannot be without you at night without having a breakdown, I think you should work towards some independence at bedtime).
When to stop co-sleeping?
If your child is less than a year of age, I would recommend immediately transitioning your child to a crib or bassinet (if your child is less than a year, preferably in your room.)
For older children (think toddlers and up), you may want to plan a bit for when and how to make the change. Read on for more and how to do this.
How to stop co-sleeping with a baby
For very young infants (less than three months) you can simply soothe your child to sleep and put her down in the crib. At four months of age, I would recommend putting her down drowsy but awake. If this is a struggle, you may want to consider sleep training your child.
For more on this see “Sleep training in infancy: Flipping the switch“
What if my child co-sleeps and nurses all night long?
Generally, I recommend addressing the co-sleeping first. This will stop your child from grazing all night long. Once you establish your child sleeping independently, you can work on weaning night feeds. For more on this, here’s how to stop feeding your child at night so you can sleep better.
How to stop co-sleeping with a toddler or older child
There is no magic bullet for fixing sleep problems. How you address this issue depends on how and why you are cosleeping with your child. But no matter your circumstance, there are some important elements to a successful transition. For more on why people fail to fix sleep issues, please read my post on Sleep Training Mistakes and Pitfalls.
General Recommendations:
- Be consistent: The number one reason I see families fail at extricating their child from their bed is that they are inconsistent. Either your child is sleeping in your bed or he or she is not. If you relent even once in a while during the process of establishing a new sleeping pattern, you will reinforce the behavior you are trying to extinguish. Remember that intermittent reinforcement is a powerful mechanism for encouraging undesirable behavior. (Again— if your kid comes into your bed once a while, and you do not regard this as a problem, you don’t need to proceed with any of this).
- Have a plan: To be consistent, you have to know exactly what you are going to do. It is hard to come up with good plans on the fly in the middle of the night. Make sure that all caregivers are on board with the plan.
- Have a “quit date”: I highly recommend that you mindfully chose a time for a change and do not, say, start a change the day before a vacation, or before your mother in law comes to visit
- Make your child’s room special: Some children may be apprehensive about spending time alone in their room. Spending fun and special one on one time. Take him to pick out some new pajamas and sheets. Pick out a new stuffed animal to use as a transitional object.
If your child falls asleep in your bed every night
If child sleeps in your bed every night for the whole night, and this is a long-standing pattern. In this scenario, many families want to stop once they are expecting another child, or their child hits a milestone such as kindergarten. In this scenario, you need to go gradually. Why is this different? Often your child does not know another way to sleep.
- Discuss with your child at an age appropriate level. Often this transition may happen at an older age. Be honest. Tell her that she is a big girl now and is almost ready to spend the night in her own bed. Tell her that Mommy and Daddy (or Mommy, or Daddy, or Daddy and Daddy, or Mommy and Mommy) need some time by themselves.
- Start moving bedtime into your child’s room: If your child spends the whole night in your room, start doing all of bedtime in his room and then moving him into your bed for a few days, as a dress rehearsal for spending the night in his own bed.
- Napping in her bed first:If your child is still napping, this may be a good time for your child to practice sleeping on her own.
- Bedtime fading (moving bedtime later) can be a big help with this transition.
- Consider camping out If (you or) your child is very apprehensive about this, consider a “camping out” approach where you temporarily move to an air mattress on the floor of your child’s room. I would recommend NOT bed-sharing at this point to smooth the transition.
- For more on sleep training, here’s a guide to all of the different sleep training techniques.
Separation anxiety and co-sleeping
Separation anxiety is the most common type of anxiety in children. If your child is afraid of sleeping without you, he may be suffering from separation anxiety. Commonly children with separation anxiety insist that they sleep with a parent, or that a parent sleep near them. Often, they may be afraid of being awake when their parents are asleep, and may demand that parents stay awake until they are asleep.
Other signs of separation anxiety include dreams or nightmares about separation, and difficulty with separation in other contexts, like school drop offs.
If your child is suffering from separation anxiety, I highly recommend you discuss it with your pediatrician. I also highly recommend the book, Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD by Eli Lebowitz (affiliate link), a colleague here at Yale.
Dr. Lebowitz also has a terrific plan for parents of anxious kids who want to break the cosleeping habit:
The Yale Plan for Getting Your Kid To Sleep In His Own Bed
This involves playing a game with your kids around spending time in the bed where they pretend to fall asleep in their own bed. They should play to an imaginary audience. This should be performed at your child’s usual bedtime. Here are the steps:
- Make sure the child actually has a bed and a place to go to sleep. For children with longstanding cosleeping, their bed may have been put away or repurposed. Set up the bed where you want your child to sleep with pillows and blankets.
- Have your child prepare for bed as if he is actually going to bed. Brush teeth, put on pajamas, read a story– whatever your bedtime routine consists of.
- Your child will then get into bed and pretend to fall asleep for a set period of time– usually a minute or less. They should be able to stay calm during this period. If they cannot, you have selected too long a period of time. For older children, let them decide how long this time can be.
- After the set period of time, come back in, congratulate your child, and allow them into your own bed. Don’t encourage them to stay longer even if it has gone well— don’t suggest that they “just stay there”, although they are welcome to stay longer if they like. Praise your child and invite them back into your own room.
- After two to three nights, increase the time duration by a few minutes every two to three nights
- Often, once the duration gets to 15 minutes, children are falling asleep independently. If they do fall asleep, leave them in their own bed and celebrate their success in the morning.
- If they wake up at night it’s ok to welcome them into your own room,
- Continue the plan (with increasing intervals at bedtime) until independent sleep in their room is a regular occurrence. I would continue for at least a week or two.
As per the authors:
The secret lies in the fact that by predefining the amount of time a child will lay in bed, a situation is created in which the child is in bed but is not anxious. This is because they know it is only for a limited amount of time. The natural consequence of lying in bed when not particularly anxious is falling asleep. Children could lie awake for much more than 15 minutes if they think they need to be in bed alone all night and could even keep themselves (and their parents) up by calling to the parents or crying. But by assuring the child that this is only a “game” for a set and brief amount of time, the anxiety is eliminated and the child forms a new association between being in bed and feelings of calm and relaxation.
Lebowitz, Eli R.; Omer, Haim. Treating Childhood and Adolescent Anxiety (pp. 96-97). Wiley. Kindle Edition.
If your child has trouble with going to sleep and waking up at night. Once children are successfully falling asleep in their own bed, you can then try having them stay in bed for set lengths of time with night wakings as well.
The source for this is Treating Childhood and Adolescent Anxiety: A Guide for Caregivers, by Eli Lebowtiz and Haim Omer (affiliate link).
If your child comes into your room every night and falls asleep
If your child only cosleeps in the middle of the night, or has transitioned to falling asleep in her own bed but is still coming into your room at night, you can try the following interventions.
- For anxious children, I would follow the protocol above, but start with expecting your child to spend short periods of time in bed and gradually increasing over time.
- Addressing sleep onset associations:: This is the most important thing to do: How your child falls asleep is the key to successful sleep. Sleep onset association are when your child falls asleep under circumstances absent during the night: usually this involves you being present when he falls asleep. These sleep onset associations may be subtle. Do you turn out the lights and then have to go back in to settle your child? Does he come out of the room multiple times at bedtime until you lay down with him.
- One of the most challenging forms of reactive co-sleeping is due to early morning awakenings. Although it is really tempting to just relent at 4 or 5 in the AM, if you want your child to stop this behavior, they will not do it on their own. In this scenario, I recommend the OK to wake clock. The correct way to use this is to set the “OK to wake” alarm to 10 minutes after their usual wake time, and then move it 10 minutes later a day.
- Sleeping bag on floor: For children who come into your bedroom on his or her own, I highly recommend that you provide them an option for sleeping in your room without disturbing you. A sleeping bag and pillow on the floor is a great solution for a transition. Many children will stop using this of her own accord with time, especially once they realize that it is not as comfortable as her own bed.
- Bringing you child back to her room every time: If your child does not want to sleep on your floor and insists on disturbing you every night, you need to walk him back to their own room. Every time. Most kids will not pitch a huge fit in the middle of the night. If they do, you can employ the door closing strategy. This means bringing your child back to bed with the expectation that he will stay in bed. If he gets up and leaves the bed you close the door for one minute and hold it shut. If you open the door and he is not in bed you close it for two minutes, and increase as needed. This is a nuclear option, but sometimes it needs to be employed.
Other questions that may come up:
- How long will this take? It is somewhat hard to predict. It may go really smoothly if your child is ready for this change and take a day or two. In other children, who may be more reluctant, you may need to go more slowly. I would expect this to take no more than two weeks. If you try to stop cosleeping and it is a disaster, I recommend discussing it with your pediatrician or a sleep specialist. However, remember the extinction burst: your child’s sleep will typically worsen before it improves, and such difficulties may occur 2–3 days in.
- What if my child gets sick/has a nightmare, etc?I would encourage you to try to follow your plan as strictly as you are comfortable. A quick cuddle in the middle of the night in their room is OK; bringing him into your bed for the rest of the night may undo weeks of hard work. I would say that if you are not ready to be firm on this topic for a month, I would hold off for a bit. After your child is successfully sleeping in his bed for a month or so, I think that it may be OK to bring them into your bed if you really have to (e.g. if he is running a high fever) with the understanding that you may need to be a bit firm afterwards.
- What if I’m not sure if I am doing the right thing? If you are ambivalent and telegraph that to your child, you are setting you both up for failure. Perhaps you should wait for a bit. However, if you have come up with a plan and started executing, I encourage you to follow through in spite of middle of the night misgivings. Give it a week. If you stop too soon, you and your child have suffered for nothing, and possibly made it more difficult for yourselves in the future. I think you can do it.
So this has turned into an epic post. Let me know if you have other thoughts on this topic, or questions I have not answered. Also, if you have successfully navigated this transition, please let me know what worked for you.
I understand that each case is different and it is difficult to advise without physically analyzing the child’s sleep first but I have a new two year old foster child who has night terrors and is afraid to be in a room alone during the day, not sleeping, let alone at bed time. The first two weeks the only way to get any sleep was co sleeping. We would now like to transition him to his own bed but he hates the toddler bed so we have a queen in his room. What advise would you give for this difficult transition?
My son is 9.5 months old, and I am expecting baby 2 in less than 3 months. My husband and I have been trying to get him into his crib for about 2.5 weeks, but his resistance is getting worse! I’m about to go crazy actually! From the day he came home, he has refused to sleep away from us. He hated being swaddled, and the instant he was set in a bassinet he’d scream. For our sanity (literally) we took turns letting him sleep in our arms. After a couple of months totally sleep deprived, we began co-sleeping out of pure desperation. Around 4 months, I moved him to a pack and play next to our bed, which worked better. He began sleeping on his own for several hours a night waking once around 5:00 am. I started training him to fall asleep on his own, but that didn’t always work. Finally, I knew we had to make a change…we cannot have two babies in our room! I started by doing nap times in his room only. My concern was that it was confusing for him to be in one place for naps and another for night, so I decided to go all in. At first, he would just play forever and then sleep for 30 minutes at nap time, but he didn’t really fuss. At night he woke up almost hourly, but he could be shushed back to sleep. Now, he totally refuses naps, and night time is a total nightmare! He has started screaming when we lay him down, and at night he pulls on our arms begging to be held. It has been awful, but I have no idea what to do or what we have done wrong. I want to give up, but I’m 7 months pregnant and sleep is already an issue. Adding a co-sleeping baby to the mix is miserable, not to mention the fact that soon we will have a newborn too! Sorry this is so long, and thanks for any advice/encouragement.
First off all, congratulations on your new baby. Second, I’m sorry you are having a hard time. I wonder if you are in the middle of an extinction burst. The most important thing is being consistent with how you manage your child at bedtime. YouI would sit down with your pediatrician and sit down and go through exactly how you are managing this to see what changes you need to make.
Hi, I am considering sleep training for my five and half month baby. We co sleep at night, and during the day he will only sleep if I laid in bed with him. I considering use gradual extinction for the naps, and co sleep at night time for a while so the transition is no so harsh on him. It’s a good idea or it will only increase his suffering during the training? Should I do it all together day and night? If any body can help me I will really apreaciatte.
I think that there is nothing wrong with going gradually, and it will likely be more gentle. As always, if you co sleep, please make sure you are following safe sleep practices and make sure to discuss it with your pediatrician.
Thank you very much!!!! We will start the training next week. (-:
Hi, please help! I have a 33month old that keeps waking in the night and won’t settle until I go in. He most of the time goes to sleep by himself. However I also have a 9 month old that the eldest is waking up when he wakes up who then won’t sleep until I nurse him, so I end up going between 2 rooms , which is exhausting when hubby is away. I would like to stop co sleeping with the youngest and stop night feeds but he’s not feeding much in the day ,so feeds a lot in night. I can’t move youngest into his own room as he doesn’t have one, it about to be built and I can’t move him in with eldest as they might wake each other up. Overwhelmed and flummoxed as to best course of action. I hate controlled crying or cry it out,so these are not options for us, as we all end up distressed.please can you offer some help?
Tough situation here. I’m not sure there is a quick fix under the circumstances you describe. Do you think that your 33 month old would sleep better if he slept in your room and you moved the baby into his room until the extra room is available? As for the the feeding and cosleeping, check those links for those articles.
Help! I have two issues – night time bottles and Co sleeping. My daughter is almost 3 yrs old. She has never slept through the night. She is in day care full time active eats well but always wakes up hungry wanting milk. I’ve weaned her down to half milk half water but anything less and she knows I’ve put more water in and freaks out. She does not have bottle at school.
Second she wants to sleep with me. She used to go to sleep with help but minimal fuss in crib but then we left a domestic violence situation and had to live in a shelter for 3 months and share a bed. This was now a year ago. I’ve tried to make her room special got her a big girl bed new bedding etc.
Note she does not use a soother.
I admit that I’m guilty of giving in. I work full time and am a single mom with no help. I can live with her being in my bed but the constant waking for bottles is killing me.
Side note I live with chronic pain and don’t sleep well on my own takes me a while to fall asleep and get a restful sleep so with that and her waking up I’m exhausted.
Any advice would be helpful
Hi! I would get rid of the feeding first then address the cosleeping. Here’s a link how. I would reduce volume instead of calories as watered down milk is gross. I would address the the feedings first then the cosleeping once you have done so.
I have a 6 month old that has been sleeping in our bed since he was born he still wakes every hour and a half to two hours and I give him a few sips of bottle and he goes back to sleep he just crawled out of the bed and fell he is ok but it is time for us to get him out of our bed for good do you have any suggestions on how to get him into his crib and how and how to keep him there I understand we should stop the night feedings as well but he doesn’t take much just a few sips and then he goes back to sleep any suggestions are greatly appreciated I also have a six year old and a 4 year old who were never grate sleepers either ugh
Hi Christina. If the feedings are only sips you don’t have to worry about weaning him. I know it won’t be easy, but you will just need to commit to moving him to the crib. Ideally for the night, or at least so he starts falling asleep there on his own. As a transition you could start with the crib in your room or alternatively moving into his room where he can see you. Good luck.
Hi, I’m in my 13 month old daughter’s room as I write to you. Ever since I found out I was having another little one I knew I had to stop the co sleeping, but it was difficult to even start. She is breastfeeding and still feeds in the middle of the night. I’ve cut off feedings during the day and only feed before bed but in the middle of the night she uses me as a human pacifier! Please help me find a way to start before the new baby comes. Thanks!
Hi there, Mai. Here is my article on how to stop feeding at night.
Hello. I have an 18 month old who has been co-sleeping with me since she had a high fever around 9 months of age. We had been letting her fuss it out in the crib, but she started pulling herself up and then falling and we didn’t feel it was safe. I recently started getting her to sleep in her own bed, in her own room. I have to lay down with her until she falls asleep, then I move to a mattress on the floor next to the bed. She sleeps pretty good, but I feel little hands reaching to touch me sometimes, and it seems like as long as she knows I’m down here, she is ok, but cries when I am not here. I just don’t know when to go from here. Please help if you can.
Hi Angela. I’m a little unclear. Is she in a bed now? You can try slowly moving where you sleep further and further from her until you out of sight. At some point, if you want to change this, you may need to move out of her room and deal with the consequences.
I’m a 50+hr/week nanny of a 3.5 year old girl and a 12month old boy. When I arrived 3 months ago, neither child would take naps during the day alone, boy had to be constantly rocked to sleep for the entire 2 hour naps and girl would lay next to us on the floor. I taught girl how to self-soothe in a matter of weeks, and she sleeps alone now in her room during her nap time. Boy couldn’t be more than a few feet from an adult or he would scream-cry incessantly. After 6 weeks of rocking him and developing acid reflux myself… I trained him to sleep in his crib during nap time within a couple weeks. For the last 6 weeks, Monday’s have been a wreck and Friday’s he sleeps through the entire nap time. His mom refuses to not rock and coddle him at night, so she has him sleep all night with her. Because of the inconsistency – baby is getting worse and only sleeps in his crib for naps for short intervals. As a nanny, it’s difficult for me to tell the parents anything… But I feel that if she continues to do this, boy won’t sleep in his crib at all anymore. Is baby boy at a disadvantage for the inconsistency? Will he eventually not be able to sleep in his crib if mom continues to coddle?
You are correct to say that inconsistency will result in persistent sleep difficulties. As for the crib issue, it becomes a concern when kids are big enough to climb out of the crib. Whether or not he stops sleeping in the crib will have more to do with whether or not his parents give up on having him sleep there.
hello, my daughter turned 2 last month. We have always co-slept and until about 4 months ago we have slowly started to transition her into her own bed (still in our room) my plan was to transition her out of our bed, into her own, and then transition her to her own room. I figured doing it in steps would be easier for her since she has never slept in a seperate room from us. Lately, she wakes up each night and is crying and screaming and wants to be in our bed with us, and unfortunately I have given in and just toss her in with us so i can get some sleep. I know I just un-did all the work we did. So now my question is do you think I should skip the bed in our room and transition fully in her room? She is fine napping in her room, or on the couch or away from us, its just at bed time. I have tried for a week or so getting her to sleep in her own bed in her room, but she wants me to stay by her side until she falls asleep and then she wakes up and freaks out when she realizes I am no longer there. We have a second baby coming in June and I am hoping to have her in her own room by then. Also what do we do to get her to sleep in the seperate room initially. I know its not giving her appropriate sleep standards if I stay by her side until she sleeps, because she will wake up shortly after, and if I leave she wont stay in bed. I am not comfortable locking my daughter in her room, so wondering what to do from here. Never thought we would co-sleep this long, but it has been so hard to transition her!!! please help
I think moving to her own room is a good move. Best of luck.
Hi Doctor. Please need advice .I have 14 month old who wakes up several times in the night for feed. Some nights are like horrible every hour he wants feed.He sleeps with me. Is he having any sleep deprivation or is he actually hungry . If I don’t feed him he screams a lot and finally I offer him feed to stop his cryin. As my husband is working night shifts i feel really difficult to manage.How can I stop this?
Hi Maria. I’d recommend weaning his night feeds.
HELP! my daughter is 5 yrs old and my son is now 3 yrs old. We co slept because our babies were premature and had health problems. Now they see our bed as theirs. We have tried everything. Fixing their room up, talking to them, bringing a twin bed into our room, etc. It is awful and not working. Now my 5 yr old is acting out at times, not speaking at other times and hitting her younger brother when she doesn’t want to share. My baby boy is sweet and calm and just takes the abuse. I’ve started a behavior chart and it seems to be working but sleeping in their room isn’t happening. What should I do?
You could try moving into their room to start. That might be helpful
Hi Doctor- I have a situation and would like some feedback. My child is 11 years old and lives with me. Five years ago his father and I divorced with my son and I leaving the marital home and rebuilding our lives in a nearby community. My son was born prematurely at 32 weeks gestation and had an IVH grade III. He suffers from asthma along with having vision issues. I should also mention that he does have a diagnosis of CP and requires bracing at night following a gastroc release. When we arrived at our “new home” I established his bedroom with his assistance in decorating and he seems to be quite happy with it. Having said this my son has yet to express his comfort with sleeping in his bed all night. I should have also mentioned that during the past five years my son has suffered the loss of his nanny who had been with him for 10 years along with the loss of his grandfather, starting a new school system and the death of the family pet. My son is quite comfortable in talking about his feelings of loss and the comfort he feels by “sleeping with mom.” He appears well rested in the morning and seems very happy to “crawl in the bed” to tell mom all about his day. I have been of the opinion that he will tell me when he is ready to sleep in his bed and choose not to turn this into a monumental event. Any thoughts?
If you are comfortable with the current arrangement I don’t see a reason to change it for the time being. I suspect when he moves through adolescence that he may come to value his privacy more with time.