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I agree that careful consideration needs to be taken when transitioning a child at any age really, but I really have a problem with Dr. Alan Greene’s advice to “Give her a spray bottle filled with "monster spray" so she can shoot the monsters if they come out”. This inevitably reinforces that there ARE monsters when we all know there are not. I think it is much more important to express to your child that there are not real “monsters”.

You're so right!

Our daughter is 19 months and we are still happily sharing sleep and are not sure when the time will come to transition.

But... his whole idea of not "rewarding" them with a trip to your bed rubs me the wrong way. I slept with my parents on and off until I was six YEARS old, and many of my trips to their room were inspired by violent nightmares and sometimes night terrors. I still have night terrors occasionally during times of stress (had to explain that to my partner once when I woke up screaming my head off). Anyway, "monster spray" would not have helped me. A lot of the time I really really needed my parents to calm down, and I hate to think of how I would have suffered if they hadn't "rewarded" me. Every child's situation will be different, but I am grateful all these sleep experts weren't around when I was little.

I do think he has some good tips for helping children articulate the reasons why they area afraid, and I agree that changing the feelings of fear (if that's the issue) should be the first step, before changing beds.

a good idea is to keep a container of certain toys hanging over the side of the childs bed or just in the childs room. this way if your child wants to play with those toys, they know that means that they sleep in their own room. forcing your child to sleep in their crib or bed will only make them hate it. remember your parents forcing something on you? let them think that its their idea. granted, my son is only 5 months old right now so i have NO idea whats in store for us when he moves to his room (i might have a harder time with it than he will). as for the monster spray..not so sure about that.

I agree with lb. I crept into my mom's bed from time to time until I was eight or nine years old, and it wasn't because I was afraid of monsters. Sometimes I had nightmares, and sometimes I just needed extra contact and non-verbal reassurance. My mom never made a big deal about it, and these phases always ended on their own.

I don't have any tips about transitioning older kids to their own bed, because we did this with Sam when he was ten months old. But perhaps the process isn't unlike transitioning kids from the crib to a "big kid" bed, which we recently did with Sam. In his case, we took it very slowly. Because he was also moving into a new, bigger room, we got him involved in the process of painting the walls and choosing furniture. We showed him every new stage of the project, from getting his new "big kid" art framed and hung to having him help move his clothes from his "baby" dresser to his "big kid" dresser. (As you've guessed, "big kid" is an operative phrase in all this.)

It took a couple of months to get the room ready, but he didn't start sleeping there immediately. We spent a lot of time in there during the day, playing with his toys and reading stories on his bed. Finally, when it seemed like a good time (i.e. he was in a pretty agreeable phase and wasn't going through any big developmental milestones), we suggested that he might want to nap in his big boy bed. He was keen, so we gave it a shot. Admittedly, his naptime ritual took about twice as long, due to mild anxiety-related stalling on his part, but in the end it worked. And when he woke up, it was wonderful to see how proud of himself he was for sleeping in a big bed in a big room all by himself. It seems like he has a brand-new confidence and sureness, which makes me so happy for him.

Again, I don't know if this is helpful for the family bed transition, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

I have had 3 kids, and believe me they "know " that monsters are real. No reinforcement needed. You just can't be Adult Rational, like some people want to be.

Remember, Doctors don't know everything and every kid may need a different solution to the Monster problem.

I told all my boys that Monsters were not real a million times, they were still afraid.

Now when I told them monsters are made of Chocolate and are afraid kids will Eat them, that is when my boys stopped being afraid. The youngest got this story at about 3-4 yrs old. After the story they all Wanted to see and Eat a Monster?

We transitioned our son to his own bed around 2 years of age. He's still welcome in our bed if he wakes up afraid, but he starts out the night in his bed. We decided to make this transition in part because he was finally sleeping all night long and more often than not he stays where he fell asleep. We do keep him company until he falls asleep -- trying to leave hasn't worked yet but all in good time, I hope!

He has recently developed a fear of monsters under his bed so we've been reading a few books that talk about monsters and at the end of the book they end up being something else. Not entirely sure if this is helping though.

I think the move has as much to do with the parents as the child. Parents need to mentally be excited for their child to be independent (I mean excited FOR the child) and then support them into independence. Isn't that the model for all parenting?

Oh, and letting them pick out the coolest bedspread or sheets will make them excited about it as well!

My daughter slept in our bed off and on until she was 5 years old. The first step towards her own bed was to put her single bed right up next to our King-sized. It was the best thing we ever did. There was plenty of room for everyone and she could roll over to me whenever she needed to. It was so warm and cozy. I think my best family memories are of my hubby, daughter, and newborn baby all sleeping peacefully together. There is no greater happiness.
I think the key to a successful "family bed" is that the kids know that they are always welcome in your bed. I know the family bed was the right choice for us. We now have a confident 5 year old who sleeps happily in her own room and tells me to leave when I want to stay and cuddle to long! She wanted to sleep in her own room when we decorated it together. Bed time is a happy time in our house. No fear. No fights.

i know this thread is old, but just want to add my two cents. I'm 24, my sisters are 21, my brothers are 19 and 16. We ALL still sleep in our parents bed. My parents didnt do a shared bed, but I remember from being age 2 on climbing out of the crib and tacoing myself between my parents. They never made their bedroom off limits, so the bed was like a living room for all of us. The best times when we were all little enough to fit on the bed. 5 kids and two parents jammed onto the bed. One of the best feelings is waking up and sleeping on the foot of the bed while my parents are asleep. It does annoy them sometimes, but I know they love it too.

I am so glad to read that there are other co-sleeper families. I have share my bed from day one with my daughter. Now at 6 years she has started to sleep in her own room which is next to ours. We have open door policy so that she can come if she want to. I usually carry her back to her own bed after she has fallen in sleep. I have given her a small flashlight, and she has her stuffed animals to feel more secure. Her drapery is very see through so that there is a little bit light from the street lights for her to see around the room when she wakes up in the middle of the night. I have friends who have done the scream sleep school which I think is absolutely horrifying and results kids who later will want come to the parents bed. I also do not understand that small baby or child is placed by them self in a separate room, far away from the parents room.

My son slept in a crib in a room right by our room from the time he was was 1 to 3. At 3 we bought him a "big boy bed" and the frame was his greatgrandfathers. He loves that bed and goes to bed just fine. But 3 or 4 nights a week he will wake up around 4 am and he comes in and jump in bed with us. He is a bed hog, but I just keep thinking one day he won't want to sleep with us and so I enjoy these times.

As for monsters- We do a monster check at night, and my little doggie has his big crate in his closet ( the closet has no door- just a curtain) and he knows that no monsters can come in with the dog in his room. It has worked everyday for over a year.

My advice...don't start bad habits or they will be tough to break. My 3yo has always slept in his own room.

Yay for the family bed. I was pleasantly surprised to see a post here on this topic. We have co-slept since the beginning and everyone is content. I have just started to think about, when it's our time, how we will transition our 19mo old to her own bed. Naps in a big kid bed seem like a good place to start. Thanks for all the input parents. I just wanted to say that meeting the long term needs of your child and ensuring a secure and confident adult is not a bad habit.

Labchick, I'm sure that option worked well for you, but each family has its own style.

I'm with Labchick. Unfortunately in our house, we do consider children sleeping in parent's bed 'a bad habit', and thus, chose not to start it at any point. Growing up with a sister 13 years younger than myself who flat out refused to sleep in her own room until she was 13(!), I always reminded myself of that after having my own kid.

Baby is almost 2 now and have never slept a single night in our bed ever since she was born (in the same room, yes, not the same bed, not even on holidays). She's a cheerful confident and independent little girl who's a very sound sleeper since a very young age also. We moved her to a big girl bed from the crib just last week, and she still stays in her bed until the mornings, even though she knows she could get out of bed by herself now. She's a strong willed girl who's not afraid of confrontation, but bedtime is one battle we never had.

The thing is, it is sometimes the parents who are reluctant and anxious about 'releasing' their children into their own beds, and the kids sense this (which in turn become their anxiety too).

I didn't co-sleep when I was little, but I did have a good 6 month period of recurring nightmares when I was 5. My parents set up a little mattress on the floor and I was able to come in and go back to sleep without waking them up. I remember it being sooo comforting.

I'm with lb and Doppelganger; but we had a slightly different spin on this problem.

We did the family bed, despite everyone's advice that it was "bad". We did buy our daughter a crib, but mostly she slept with us. We were glad to have her, but by the time she was 3-4 we were ready for her to move out. We had bought her a convertible crib, so we converted it into a toddler bed.

To answer the original question, we gradually phased her into it, starting with naptime. Like others, we did plenty of emphasis on the "big kid" thing, stuffed animals, bedtime stories, stayed until she fell asleep, etc., etc. This progressed until she would go to sleep in it at night. But most nights she would wake up and come back to our bed.

We tried everything we could think of to get her to stay in her room, until I remembered something important: One of the reasons I used to creep back into MY parents' bed, aside from nightmares, was the MATTRESS. Mom & Dad had the best mattress in the house.

We have one of those "sleep number" mattresses, but her toddler bed had a rock-hard, plastic-coated spring mattress thing that was uncomfortable even to sit on, let alone sleep.

So we hurriedly got her the same type of mattress, and transitioned her to a "REAL bed" (again, emphasis on REAL and big kid, stuffed animals, bedtime stories). We let her pick the sheets and stuff, so it was a celebratory thing. We made it a very big occasion, but we also made sure she knew this mattress was JUST LIKE OURS.

She was just under 4 when we did that; she's now 7 and has basically NEVER come back to sleep in our room. We make exceptions for illness and really nasty nightmares, but I can count on one hand the number of times she's come into our room to sleep in the last 3 years.

I know it sounds expensive and indulgent, but it was worth it to us. She knows she's welcome in our bed, but she loves hers. Score!

What worked for us was setting up his toddler bed in our room when he was around 18mo. He enjoyed the novelty of a bed 'his' size, and started taking naps in it, eventually moving himself into his own bed a month before his little sister arrived. YMMV but I think it helped that we took our time and let it be his decision. When his sister turned two, they started sharing a bedroom, which also helps since they aren't all by themselves.

if you never start it...you never have to end it. i know a 14 year old boy who still sleeps with his single mother. that's all kinds of issues right there...