Co-sleeping is one of the most strong sleep associations.
It can be quite difficult to move away from
so this is why I'm answering your sleep question,
my seven month old is co-sleeping,
how do I move away from this,
and get them sleeping in the cot?
Hi, I'm Brooke,
one of the sleep consultants for Little Ones,
and mother to two beautiful children.
At Little Ones we specialize in infant,
and child sleep through a comprehensive set
of online sleep programs.
We would love to help you and your family
achieve better sleep.
So please visit us at www.littleones.co.
This transition needs to be treated delicately.
Your seven-month-old will be quite accustomed
to sleeping with you,
so we need to make the transition as smooth as we can.
We don't want to move them into their cot,
and expect them to be sleeping perfectly straight away.
So I like to suggest that we move your little one's
cot or bassinet into your room next to your bed.
This way they're still sleeping
in the same sleep environment,
and it will help that transition to the cot or bassinet
a much easier transition.
Now we will need to add a few more sleep associations
to help your little one settle in the cot.
A sleep association is something
that helps you a little one go to sleep,
and resettle after a sleep cycle.
So this can look like patting, rocking,
feeding, or co-sleeping.
These are active settling for a parent to do
for their little one.
A sleep association that isn't parent controlled
is something like thumb sucking,
or a lovey, comforter,
or white noise, or a sleeping bag.
These are all baby controlled sleep associations
which help our little ones go to sleep on their own
without us helping them,
and that's the main goal that we wanna achieve here.
So we'll move the cot into your bedroom,
and then we can start actively settling
your little one to sleep.
We can use rocking or patting to sleep in the bed.
We wanna get them all the way to sleep at the start
using white noise,
making sure the room is nice and dark,
and making sure they're not too hot or too cold.
So putting them in a nice sleeping bag
that is the appropriate tog rating
for the room's temperature.
Once your little one is comfortable going to sleep
in their cot in your room,
and you are actively settling them to sleep,
you can then move them into their own room,
and let them be in there.
Or you can move a mattress into their room as well,
and camp out with them to help them through this transition.
Once they are comfortable going to sleep
in their cot in their own room,
then we can start weaning away
from the new sleep associations that we have put in place.
So if you're patting to sleep,
you will want to just pat them until they're drowsy.
And once their eyes start to flutter
you can then remove your hand from patting,
and let them drift off to sleep on their own.
Each day you want to remove the patting earlier
so that they're more awake every day
before they start going off to sleep.
Eventually you'll be able to put them into bed wide awake,
and they'll happily go to sleep on their own.
Now, like I said at the beginning of this video
it is quite a strong sleep association
so it's going to take maybe a week or two
to move away from this association.
And we really need to be consistent in our approach
in doing this.
We don't want to start co-sleeping one day,
and then letting them in the cot another day.
This will just confuse our little ones,
and undo any of the hard work that we have achieved so far.
So stay consistent, stay persistent,
and be patient with your little one.
There may be days that you need to help them more,
and there may be days that you need to help them less.
It's all part of the learning process
in getting your little one to sleep on their own.
I just wanna touch on the sleep environment.
We need to have a very dark room as light can come in,
and that can disturb our little ones,
and inhibit their ability to produce enough melatonin
to stay asleep.
We also wanna have white noise nice and loud
so that it can block out any background noise,
and set the mood for sleep.
We wanna have them sleeping in a sleeping bag
so that they are nice and warm,
and they don't get cold in the night
as our little ones move a lot in the night.
If they are having a blanket or a sheet,
they can easily come out
from under these blankets and sheets and get cold
which can result in more night waking
which we do not want.
I hope that this video has helped you gain some knowledge,
and skills to help your little one
transition from co-sleeping into their cot.
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