A No-Cry Approach to Stop Co-Sleeping (and How to Start)
Many parents who are ready to transition their child from co-sleeping to sleeping independently would like to do so using a gentle, no-cry method, but have no idea how. Avoidance of crying-it-out might have been one of the reasons you chose to co-sleep in the first place, and even if not, no one wants their child to have a more difficult experience than is necessary. Also, many children who have been co-sleeping have been doing so for a long time, and changing that habit abruptly would probably result in a long, intense period of crying. But most parents feel lost, a little hopeless, and unsure of where to begin.
The good news is, there is a proven and no-cry approach to transitioning from co-sleeping to independent sleeping. It will take time and patience, but if you’re willing to put in both, you will eventually have an independent sleeper and get some evening adult time and better sleep back. Bedtime in your child’s room can become a positive experience in which you bid your child goodnight without having to lay with them until they fall asleep.
You need to fade your physical presence in order to transition your child from co-sleeping, because your presence has become your child’s sleep association. A sleep association is anything your child needs to fall asleep, and these associations are usually formed out of habit and comfort. Do you sleep better with a pillow? Do you like the TV on to fall asleep? These are both sleep associations as well. There’s nothing wrong with you being your child’s sleep association, but when you are teaching your child to sleep in his own bed you want to remove yourself as his sleep association and help him form new ones in his own room. That is why many kids sleep with lovies or special blankets.
How to start:
Most children do better with advance notice of change, so before you begin the transition: prepare. Start talking about the upcoming transition, perhaps even buy a book about it (this one written by a child psychologist might be helpful, but a quick search will show you there are also many others). If you have the time, you can even make one yourself on your computer and personalize it! You can include pictures of your room, your child’s new room, and their lovies. Another suggestions in transitioning is to try to give your child control in any aspect of the transition possible:
Let them pick their bedding
Let them pick a night light
If you’re purchasing one, maybe even let them pick the new bed!
Anytime we give our kids more control in a situation, they are less likely to push back against the transition.
What you’ll do next:
The method I recommend for the actual transition is called “sleep fading”. It is essentially removing, or “fading”, yourself at the time of your child’s sleep. Your child will get used to falling asleep with you farther and farther away at the time that they fall asleep, but without the abrupt change that would occur by you simply placing them in their bed one night and expecting them to fall asleep independently. You will instead take that big transition and divide it into “steps”, do each step until your child can fall asleep easily, and then move on to the next step. Breaking hard, new things into more achievable steps is a great way to teach most things, and sleep is no exception.
I’ll write in detail about that step-by-step sleep fading process next week, but for now, begin with preparing your child for the transition in the ways I described above!