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I have co-slept with all 3 of my children. When they were infants they slept in a co-sleeper next to my husband and I. As they got older I weaned them from co-sleeping by sleeping with them in a twin bed in their own room. Can you sleep with your 4 year old in his room? I think this would make a nice transition instead of him going "cold turkey". Instead of punishment use a reward system for him sleeping on his own.
That's how I'm transitioning my daughter (adopted, different circumstances, many issues).
From the get-go (17 months), she was in her room - I wanted her to establish her own space, but I slept in there with her. She is secure enough now at almost 3.5 that Mommy and Daddy can sleep in their own room "soon", once she gets her "big girl bed" - a twin instead her toddler bed.
She understands that there won't be room for my small futon and her new bed in the same room, so everything makes sense to her and she accepts it. (I'll keep a monitor in there to alert me of her frequent disruptions.)
Now she has just reminded me that she would like a little brother...I may be doing this all over again in a year.
My son was also 3 for our last move. We have always taken things very slow with him due to his autism and he has been babied a bit. When he wanted to sleep in my bed, I let him. This took me almost 2 yrs to fix.
For the first couple months I really didn't mind him in my bed. I then made him a pallet on the floor, his bed was in his room. Every time he took a nap or went to sleep I waited a bit then moved him into his bed. I was getting up 4-5times a night to move him and I was exhausted all the time.
After a couple months of this I moved his bed into my room but he still kept crawling into bed with me in the middle of the night. I sat him down for a talk and said that I would buy him whatever big boy bed he wanted but he had to sleep in his own bed at night. A racecar bed later we were making some effort. He did good for about 3 mos then regressed again to wanting to sleep with me.
I tried very hard to keep a strict routine with him. Bath at this time, then book and bed. It was much better than before but took about 6 more months before he quit trying to get into my bed.
As my son neared 5 I told him that he was simply to big to be in my room anymore and he needed to be in his own room. This was a struggle as he started having nightmares on a regular basis due to his fears of being alone.
I talked to my son about the things he was afraid of and we developed a routine where he was allowed to take certain toys (they were like imaginary friends to protect him) to bed with him. This helped but did not alleviate the problem.
I thought about how well the first bed worked out and did the same thing again. We went to a children's furniture store and let a great associate show us all the possibilities. My boy was thrilled with a bunk set that was all in camoflauge. The top was a twin bed and the bottom was a tent. There was even a slide for getting off the thing. I know it may seem a waste of money to some, but it worked and to me it was worth every penny to get his cooperation. My son felt comfortable "hiding" in the tent where he couldn't be seen for the first several months, but it did work.
I bought little soft glow lights to put around his room and he still takes his "protectors" to bed with him, but he is a big boy in his own room. Finally.
Vesper, the tent beds are awesome! My DD had a loft bed that we found a pretty tent for. She has autism also, and LOVED her tent when she was about 5 also. Now she has a bigger bedroom and a queen bed. SHe has so many pillows and dolls on there we can barely see her when she is in bed, lol.
I don't know if this applies to anyone's situation but I remembered a story a teacher told me once. His preschooler was terrified that monsters were in his room hiding and could not sleep in his room. So the teacher one night in total dispair over the situation grabbed a can of lysol air freshner (his son couldn't read yet so it was ok) and sprayed the room telling him it was monster repellent...LOL Well it worked. They sprayed the room each night and the kid had no problem sleeping.
I layed down and often ended up sleeping with my daughter in her double bed til she was 5 and a half. We decided it was time for her to be on her own at that point, but after much negotiating, we compromised and she sleeps by herself 5 nights a week and I sleep with her 2 nights a week. She's 8 and we're still doing this. She's perfectly capable of going to sleep on her own, but she likes the closeness. I don't mind because I know it's only a matter of a few more years til she be appalled at the thought of sleeping with me. Also, it's a nice time to talk and laugh.
I didn't read the other posts so I hope I am not repeating anyone; but,
The way I would deal with this is I would metaphorically "hit e'm" with a number of different tactics at the same time!
When it is bed time put him in his room and let him scream!
As far as time-out goes, give him one minute for each year of life. Anymore than that, he will forget why he is there to begin with. When he gets out of time-out ask him why does he think he was tere to begin with? Let him answer you, let him think about it on his own.
However, not wanting to sleep in new surrondings is not something to punnish him for, so at teh present I would suggest you force him to stay in his room even when he screams. He will eventually accept it and be comfortable there!
Long after his anxiety has left and all is normal again, only then would I let him sleep with you and your spouse again!
However, not wanting to sleep in new surrondings is not something to punnish him for, so at teh present I would suggest you force him to stay in his room even when he screams. He will eventually accept it and be comfortable there!
I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this advice and think it is a completely needlessly cruel way to treat a child.
This same thing happened to us. Letting your kids into your bed is not a good idea if you want them out anytime soon. But we explained to our daughter that she had to sleep in her own room. She didn't care if I went in there, but she wanted daddy to stay with her until she fell asleep. So now every night I help tuck her in, leave the room and daddy sits by the bed until she falls asleep, which is about 5-10 minutes. Then he leave the room and all is set the rest of the night. Eventually we'll work on him not having to be in there when she goes to bed, but for now it works because we don't have her in our bed all night. He gives up 10 minutes so we have more comfort all night. :-)
When DD12 was about 4 she would crawl into our bed every night. SHe would wake one of us up and ask to get into our bed. One night we shut our door so she wouldn't come in because we were so tired. We found her sleeping in the hallway outside our door the next morning. We felt horrible. We told her after that to just crawl into bed without waking us up so she did that for about 6 months and outgrew it. She only wants to sleep in our bed if Dad is out of town to 'keep me company'. Thanks honey.
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