Let me just preface this by letting you know we are not co-sleepers. Toddler Checkers slept in our room for a total of two weeks before we put her in the nursery. Before she was born, I had imagined she would be in our room for the first few months, but postpartum insomnia and subsequent anxiety and depression were unexpected parts of this adventure, and I knew early on co-sleeping was not going to work for us.
This is not an opinion piece on sleep training vs. co-sleeping. I am a fan of the “whatever works for you” approach to parenting. So yeah, whatever works for you, do that.
I’m merely here to share my experience and to ask the question, “How do you co-sleep with a kid who has never co-slept?” Based on our experience thus far, the answer would be, “You don’t sleep. Co-sleeping = no-sleeping.”
The only instances in which we have attempted to co-sleep are 1) when Toddler Checkers is sick and 2) on vacation. In the case of Number One, what usually happens is we will try to sleep her in our bed, but usually after an hour or two of play, it becomes apparent no sleeping is going to take place. So we do the shuffle back to her room, and in most cases one of us will end up sleeping on her floor. In the case of Number Two, well, this is a recent development. You see, in the earlier part of Toddler Checkers’ life (before she was able to climb or have an opinion), we could take our trusty travel crib just about anywhere and have her sleep peacefully there. Of course, there was always an adjustment period, but by the second night on vacation she would fall asleep much easier than the first.
Something happened when this child turned two, only we didn’t realize it until we were on vacation. We packed our travel crib like we always do when we travel, and she waited until I had set it up before looking me square in the eyes and saying, “No crib.” Of course I thought she was joking so I put her in anyway, and we watched in amazement as she swung her legs over the side, hopped out, and shouted this time, “NO CRIB!” So the days of crib imprisonment while traveling were over.
Co-sleeping it was! We all got ready for bed at 8:30 PM and turned out the lights by 9 PM. Only, I think a good two hours passed before anyone fell asleep. Bedmates meant play partners of course, so lights out meant dancing on and marching around the bed, singing loudly (sometimes coherent, other times incomprehensible), and sticking fingers up nostrils. Play partners transformed into scary things in the night, since Toddler Checkers woke up every other hour crying any time one of us moved. As someone who has never co-slept, I can only imagine she was thinking, “Are there aliens in my bed?” Negotiations and threats at 11 PM turned into begging at 4 AM; “If you want to go to the zoo tomorrow, you better go to sleep!” became “PLEASE GO TO SLEEP. I’LL DO ANYTHING. Please, have mercy on us!”
We will all be traveling again next month, and I have no idea how we plan to tackle this issue. Perhaps we will all stay up all night until we are all so tired that we cannot keep our eyes open. Or perhaps I should just resign myself to the fact we may never sleep again on vacation.
Hive: Do we have any sleep-trained babies who have successfully co-slept away from home? Do you have any tips to share?
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
Yup – this has been our experience as well. I feel ya and will be following the comments closely because I need advice too!!
cherry / 204 posts
Can you get a room with 2 beds? This way Toddler Checkers can have her own bed? That’s what we do when we travel (even though we all have no problems co-sleeping). The kids (ages 3.5 and almost-2) share one bed and we have our own.
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts
Have you guys tried a toddler bed? We transitioned Charlie to a toddler bed at home, and then used door locks to get him to stop coming out all the time.
Now we get him a separate bed when we travel, and I leave the room after putting him down… and he often passes out on his own! It took him a while to figure out how to sleep on his own as a toddler, but we were able to go through that process in his own room instead of when we were on vacation!
GOOD LUCK!!
pear / 1723 posts
Our 14 moth olds are sleep trained and will still sleep in a pnp at my parents house, but when we go out in our camper, we cosleep. We divide and conquer, 1 baby and 1 adult per bed, and we just try to give them space to settle. They still mess around for awhile, usually 30 min but sometimes up to an hour. We just buffer that in when we plan for bedtime. We still put them in sleep sacks and have white noise and loveys and their pillows, and just kind of make an open space on the bed for them, ideally with a wall on one side and the parent blocking the other. And we try to just ignore them, as much as possible. It has worked pretty well for us so far.
honeydew / 7488 posts
We try to book hotels that come with a suite and sleeper sofa. If they are having a hard time going down, we may lie down with them and do some adjustment when we get home if they get too used to it. This way also, since the kids sleep earlier, we can still watch TV, etc. in the bedroom. The other thing we did once was put down a bunch of blankets on the floor and my DD slept on the floor next to the bed. We didn’t have access to a sleeper sofa in that situation and were overseas, and she slept just fine.
pomegranate / 3225 posts
I am experiencing the same thing with my 10 mo. We taught her early on to sleep alone in her crib, and now if we are traveling, she’s sick, fussy, etc, and we try to bring her in our bed, she thinks co sleeping time is PLAY TIME! I’m rethinking not doing some co sleeping with her, I guess there is no easy answer. You definitely have me scared with the whole “no crib” thing!
guest
Oh, I feel this. My soon to be 3 year old wakes up every night. At home it’s fine he stays in his bed in his room and puts himself back to sleep. On vacation, he has his own bed but were in the same room, he thinks its playtime. I try and keep him up all day and wear him out but he still only sleeps 4 to 6 hours a night. It’s awful!
cherry / 206 posts
This was our SAME experience last month when we traveled to Europe with our 14 month old. It wasn’t pretty.
guest
This is exactly what happens when we try to co-sleep with our 18 month old daughter! Is it possible for you to rent a crib where you are travelling? Companies like http://www.babysaway.com will deliver baby equipment to your destination and pick it up too. I haven’t used this type of service yet, but we’re planning on travelling next summer and think it would be a great help!
cantaloupe / 6086 posts
I am subscribing just to get advice . . . we will be in a hotel at Thanksgiving for a few days with a 22 month old and I don’t think the PnP is going to happen. But she is awful at co-sleeping, has been since about 3 months.
I was hoping to maybe do a sofa bed and prop pillows around to keep her in, but then I might be up all night worrying about her falling/getting out anyway!
apricot / 370 posts
this is a on point post. I always wondered how other families with little ones did it who didn’t co-sleep, because it seemed all of our friends slept with their kids in their beds, and couldn’t relate. I notice it’s easier and harder at different ages. We generally have always tried to find a place that has a 1 bedroom suite, and when that isn’t possible, we put up a makeshift partition to make a little separated area. Sometimes we’ve hung up a sheet (with tacks), or draped it over a makeshift tower of table/suitcase/bags, and that helps. We learned to do that when we tried to co-sleep when she was 16 months, and she did not want to sleep when she can see us, it was play time. So the partition helps tremendously. However, now that she’s 3, we recently traveled and stayed with together in a big room with 2 beds, and she was just fine sleeping in the other bed, as we explained to her and she understood, so it won’t be this crazy sleeping arrangement forever! However, we also have a 9 month old, so it’s her turn!!
blogger / grapefruit / 4836 posts
Twin air mattress??
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
This is definitely us!! Our kids are NOT co sleepers. In the past we’ve been up until 3am in a hotel room bed with Wagon Jr. The only way we got him to fall asleep was to put him between us and turn both our backs to him and ignore him totally, even with him tapping our shoulders and giggling in our ears.
After LMW was born we just decided to go for it. We have been lucky because now when we tell him to climb into bed on his own and fall asleep, he will do it. We were afraid he’d be scared all by himself, but he has been totally fine. The two times he co-roomed with LMW, we pushed the pack n play up next to his bed. The last time was a few weeks ago, and they actually kept each other company and kept checking in on each other until both fell asleep. Loved it… am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with traveling with kids!!
hostess / eggplant / 11068 posts
Oh boy. We will be travelling in a few months and DD does NOT co-bed at all. I told DH that if we ever travel with DD I would only consider it if DD gets her own bed. Yikes
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
Lil’ CB will co-sleep, but he will be the only one that gets sleep…child is the most mobile and violent sleeper in the world! It is not unusual for me to get kicked in the face when he sleeps in our bed!
When we travel, we usually end up making a little floor bed for him in between the bed and the wall. We’ll pile up blankets or sleeping bags or couch cushions and he’ll happily sleep on his little makeshift bed. This past vacation, we stayed in a room that was a double with trundle bed and he did well in the trundle, too.
pea / 18 posts
I have heard of people traveling with a small dome tent that the child sleeps in–this way the child has their own space. You could maybe play it up as a special treat–that you only use the tent while traveling.
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
we’ve put charlie to sleep in the bathroom before. you could put her in the tub!
pineapple / 12053 posts
@birdabouttown: that’s genius!
I was going to suggest some sort of floor bed too. DD used to be fine sleeping with us but now even sharing a room can be tough! Kinda crazy because we all slept great for 5.5 months when she was in a cosleeper next to our bed.
kiwi / 689 posts
@Mrs. Bee: We put our LO in a large walk-in closet in a hotel we stayed in. Worked wonderfully.
coffee bean / 49 posts
Oh my gosh, I had to laugh reading this because it is exactly what we experienced with our 13 month old. Unfortunately he never fell asleep. It was just nostril poking, rolling, smacking, doing super cute things that made the night slightly less miserable. It is funny thinking back now, but certainly not fun at the time. LO is a climber so I think we will be moving to a toddler crib sooner than later, hopefully that will help with travel. Love all the tips!
pear / 1614 posts
DS has never coslept, and when he gets into our bed, it is always play time. He is 20 mos now and I’ve been wondering what will happen when he is done with his crib for travel. I thought we were the only ones – so many parents say they get their kids to sleep by laying in bed with them when they are fussy. We have no “escape route” like that with DS so when he fusses (esp during travel when in an unfamiliar room) we usually have no choice but to leave him in the crib and let him fuss. I appreciate all the great advice here for the day he eventually boycotts his crib! And thanks for the great post, glad I’m not the only one.
olive / 64 posts
This is the exact reason why for the first time in my life I have NO desire to go on vacation. Good luck!
blogger / persimmon / 1220 posts
@mrbee: Not yet. She sleeps fine in her crib (and we don’t have a need to use the crib for another baby yet) so we are holding off on the transition for as long as possible!
blogger / persimmon / 1220 posts
@su9su9: @T-Mom: @Mrs. Cowgirl: I think we will try to book a room w/double beds or a suite w/sleeper (although I think w/the freedom she’ll just wander right back into our room). We shall see how it goes!
@Doodlesmama: @shellio: @Mrs. High Heels: Glad I’m not the only one either!
grapefruit / 4442 posts
DH and I sleep in separate beds when we travel with DD. She sleeps with me and it has worked out for us. I would see if you can get a room with two beds so one of you can sleep or switch off if LO does a crazy 4am wake up