Transitioning from Co-Sleeping to Crib: Our Experience

This post shares our own personal experience and journey with transitioning our second baby from co-sleeping to crib. All babies are so unique in their newborn sleeping ways, so please take our experience with a grain of salt and apply where you see fit. Thank you so much for reading and supporting my blog! I sincerely hope this post is helpful to you. 

Sadie is getting so big that I can’t even remember how many weeks old she is; We’ve officially transitioned to answering how old she is in the number of months. Almost three!

Because babies and their unique sleep habits is such a hot topic for moms to frequently talk about, I figured I’d chit chat a little bit about how things have been going around here between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. 🙂

As of today (and I know very well that things could change as soon as tomorrow!), Sadie usually falls asleep while nursing between 7 and 8:30 p.m. (kind of a big window), and once it’s obvious that she’s out cold I transfer her onto her belly in her crib. She almost always wakes up between 12 and 1 a.m. to eat, then goes back to sleep in her crib after about a minute of butt taps, wakes up again to eat between 4 and 5 a.m., goes back to sleep, and then is typically bright-eyed, all smiles, and awake ready for the day by 7. Occasionally I’ll bring her back in bed with me to nurse and snooze a bit more if Jamie is home to get up with Hadley, but usually we are up and on the move no later than 7.

Transitioning from co-sleeping to crib

We transitioned Sadie from co-sleeping to crib to sleep at night about two weeks ago (I just did the math and she was just shy of 10 weeks old.) We weren’t in any rush to move her over to her room, but desperate times were calling for desperate measures! She down-right refused her Rock N Play by three weeks old, would only do two-hour stretches in her Fisher Price swing, and wasn’t thrilled about being swaddled in our co-sleeper (the kind with the mesh sides that lays in bed with you.)

Though I’d always heard 1,001 reasons to never, ever co-sleep with your baby (i.e. sleep with your baby in your arms or right next to you in bed), this was absolutely the only way Sadie and I were getting any kind of sleep by five weeks old. I was admittedly one of those people who said that she would never co-sleep with her baby, but I was forced to totally eat my words in the name of sanity!

So from the time Sadie was five weeks old until about 9.5 weeks old, she would be swaddled and sleep in the crook of my arm. When she woke up every couple of hours I would nurse her there in bed and we’d both fall back asleep. I was concerned the entire time that we were creating habits we’d never be able to break, but at the same time this was working for us really well. I was getting enough sleep to function during the day, and Sadie was happy that she was getting what she wanted, which was to sleep with her mama.

Things started going downhill at 8.5 weeks when Sadie decided that she was done with her swaddle. We tried three different kinds of swaddles, and each time she stayed up for hours at a time trying to break out of it (I wish I was exaggerating.) Our little Houdini would always fight hard and long enough to break out her arms, but because she’s such a startler, she couldn’t sleep on her back in my arms without being swaddled. Things were getting interesting all over again.

Cutting to the chase, this was the point we decided to hook up our video monitor and give her crib a go. We already knew she liked sleeping on her belly because she’d been napping in her crib during the day for several weeks, but I’d been hesitant before now to move her overnight because of a million fears I had. After talking with my own mom and many other moms who all reassured me that plenty of babies are natural belly sleepers, we made the big transition and never looked back!

Let’s chat!

Are your babies good sleepers? What’s worked for you to get your baby to sleep better? Please share in the comments!

PS: Check out more from my Motherhood section here.