TOGETHER OR SEPARATELY?

Discussion about whether it is necessary to “remove” the child to the nursery

There are only two points of view on this issue - either to resettle or not to resettle. Previously, most pediatricians advised placing the child only in a separate crib and, if living space allowed, not delaying moving the baby into a separate room. Opponents " cohabitation“(we are now talking about children under two or three years old) they argue that in this way the child’s lack of independence is brought up and “wrong” character traits are laid down.

➠ According to a survey conducted on the Internet, 43% of children sleep in the same room as their parents, but in a separate crib. 24% share a bed with mom, while dad sleeps separately. 18% of children fall asleep in their crib, but in the morning they come to their mothers and fathers. And only 15% of kids sleep separately in their own room.

For example, some mothers and fathers believe that children who live in the same room with their parents for a long time have too weak a character, are accustomed to constant protection and do not know how to stand up for themselves. Apparently they think the world overly aggressive and hostile and do not seek to come into contact with other children. However, my life experience shows something completely different. The thing is that a child, while he is still very young, needs the constant support and protection of adults. And even if the baby is suddenly afraid of something, just the knowledge that his mother is nearby allows him to cope with his fears more easily. To the parents’ worries: “What if he now sleeps with us all his life!” I find the answer very easily. After all, at twenty or twenty-five years old, a grown-up child will probably not ask to sleep in his parents’ bed, and in general is unlikely to want to live in the same room with them.

And even at thirteen to fifteen years old, children already prefer to sleep in their own beds and do not annoy tired parents with their visits. But I see that those children whose parents allowed them to sleep in bed with them or at least in the same room, on the contrary, grow up calmer and more confident in their abilities. After all, their nervous system was not in a constant state of anxiety.

“When we moved her to another room at one year old, Elya began to cry constantly. She kept calling me: “Mom, mommy, come to me,” and my heart was bleeding. During the night she woke up five to seven times, and I constantly had to run to her and rock her, lie next to her. It lasted exactly a week for my husband and I. Then we simply spat on the renovations done in the nursery and decided that let better for the child it will be calm and good, than he will constantly suffer so much. And everything worked out. Elya began to calmly fall asleep and sleep all night without waking up,” one of the mothers comments on the question.

The baby’s desire to sleep next to his mother is quite natural, because after nine months he has become accustomed to her warmth, smell, and heartbeat. Therefore, let us explain the fact that many toddlers do not want to sleep in their cribs and call their mothers several times a night to take them in their arms.

Let's look at the pros and cons of sleeping together and separately for babies and parents.

Baby sleeping in his crib

Minuses:

◈ It will be difficult for the baby to fall asleep without adults, as he often feels the need for warmth and stroking.

◈ The baby may experience anxiety and loneliness, cry more often and demand parental attention.

◈ Mom will have to wake up more often to approach the baby. Mothers whose children sleep separately spend much more time feeding and, as a result, do not get enough sleep.

◈ A child who constantly experiences loneliness will feel insecure, worry more often about his mother’s absence and sleep worse.

Pros:

◈ The baby can feel free in the crib.

◈ He is not disturbed by the noise of the TV or his parents' conversations.

◈ From the very first days, the child gets used to the fact that he is independent and autonomous.

Baby sleeps with parents

Minuses:

◈ There may be problems in the personal life of parents if there is no longer room for privacy in the apartment.

◈ If the baby sleeps with his parents in the same bed, then some adults complain about too light sleep and cramped conditions.

◈ Many mothers constantly listen to their children’s breathing, causing their sleep to become shallow. This means mothers don’t get much rest at night.

Pros:

◈ Mom sleeps more peacefully if she hears her baby breathing.

◈ Mom doesn’t have to run far if the baby wakes up.

◈ The child feels calm if mom and dad are nearby.

◈ The baby receives physical contact with his parents, and he achieves a state of physical and emotional comfort.

◈ The baby does not have to scream for a long time while waiting for someone to approach him.

◈ If the baby does not have enough communication with his parents during the day, then he will be able to make up for this deficit at night, when he feels the warmth of his mother’s body, her breathing and stroking.

◈ At night, many babies open up, throwing off the blanket. But those little ones who sleep next to their mother will not freeze, since the mother will always cover and warm them in time with the warmth of her body.

◈ Next to the mother, it is much easier for the baby to cope with his childhood fears.

“And if we want to wean the child from sleeping with us,” an alarmed dad asks me, “most likely he won’t want to move into his own nursery?”

But in life everything happens a little differently. Sooner or later the time comes when the child is ready to “swim” independently. For some toddlers this time comes at two or three years, for others later. In any case, the habit of sleeping with parents will not remain with the child for the rest of his life.

Recently, more and more parents are choosing the option of sharing sleep with their newborn and baby. It's really very convenient. Especially if the baby is on breastfeeding. The mother does not need to get up at night; the baby sleeps more peacefully next to the parents. Over time, many mothers get used to feeding their baby at night without waking up at all.

But the child is growing, and the time comes when parents begin to think about moving him to a separate bed. When making this decision, you should not rely on the average age limits indicated in the literature. Each family is unique, so base it on your child’s readiness for relocation and your convenience.

How it happens

How to wean a child from sleeping with his parents? Tricks and rituals

To make the transition to a separate bed easier for your child, help him see the positive aspects of this “relocation.”

Tell your child that big boys and girls like him sleep in their own beds. You can also try draw on the topic of a separate bed, play out “moving away from mom” with toys, emphasizing the advantages of your own, separate sleeping place. For example, in the cramped parental bed, the bear cub did not get enough sleep, but in a separate bed he began to get enough sleep that he immediately became the best at drawing, running, and jumping.
Use fairy tale therapy. Tell your baby a fairy tale, for example, that in the parent’s bed there are only dreams for adults (about work and household chores) and for babies (about pacifiers and rattles). And the most interesting, magical children's dreams never end up in beds where adults sleep. And they only fly to children's cribs. Would your baby want to try sleeping alone and see what he dreams about? What if his magical childhood dream gets tired of waiting by the empty crib and flies off to another baby?
Invite your child to sleep with your favorite teddy bear or a doll. Tell them that the toy will make sure at night that the baby has only good dreams.
Involve your baby in choosing his own bed and bedding. The choice of children's beds is now huge. A boy might like a bed in the shape of a car, a girl might like a luxurious bed with a canopy, like a princess. One three-year-old boy did not want to sleep alone until they bought him bed linen with images of his favorite cartoon characters.
WITH In general, come up with some design and equipment for the bed- something that would strengthen the baby’s desire to have his own sleeping place (a “fairytale” night light, “magic” pictures and other accessories). My son hung a hand-drawn “Magic Lantern” above his bed, which was supposed to show him interesting dreams at night.
Introduce new evening rituals. Sing your baby a lullaby at night or read a fairy tale. I show my children filmstrips before bed. It's a great way for them to interact with me and calm down.
Sometimes this works: new bed appears to the children's return from the dacha where they spent the whole summer.
If baby afraid of the dark, do not close the door to his room until he falls asleep, or turn on the night light.
For older children (3-4 years), you can arrange "Resettlement Festival", and so on game form transfer the child to a separate bed.

Weaning off co-sleeping and choosing a sleeping place

When choosing a children's bed, you need to consider many details. She should have enough space in her apartment or room, she should be comfortable and safe.

Safety. Some children toss and turn in their sleep so much that they can turn 180 degrees during the night. In addition, babies often have an insufficiently developed “sense of edges”, and in their sleep they can simply fall out of bed. To solve this problem, you can install a removable sideboard on the side of the bed (they are sold, for example, in Ikea) or at least lay a gymnastic mat from a sports complex next to the bed at night. In addition, many children open up greatly in their sleep, and now there will be no one to cover them again. Some people solve this problem by putting their babies in sleeping bags; for others, just warm pajamas are enough.

Childhood diseases. When the baby has a fever, is sick, or other acute situations arise, it is better if the mother is with him at night. Think about how this will happen: you will take him to your parents’ bed or you yourself will temporarily “move in” with him. In the latter case, a children's couch or a short sofa will not work.

Sleep accessories. To prevent possible orthopedic problems, a child needs a high-quality mattress, and children prone to allergies also need the “right” blanket, pillow, etc. Couches and small children's sofas (which, of course, are better placed in modest-sized apartments) have a significant drawback - it is quite difficult to find a normal mattress for them. It can be ordered, but it will last up to 5-6 years with a bed 140 cm long (since already at a height of 110 cm, the child’s legs begin to hang out of such a bed). You can, while the child is still small, use a coconut mattress from a crib (if you had one). But still, the problem of buying a large bed and a good orthopedic mattress will soon arise again. Therefore, many parents decide to immediately buy their baby a standard single (or 1.5-bed) bed with an orthopedic mattress, which will last him for the next 20 years. This problem is partly solved by sliding beds, which “grow with the child” from 135 to 206 cm.

Parents of two or more children often choose for a nursery bunk beds. When purchasing such a bed, you need to consider the following points:

Ceiling height in the nursery. If the “second floor” is quite high and the ceilings in the room are low, then it may be stuffy for the “upper” child to sleep.

It is difficult to remove babies from the “second floor” when they want to go to the toilet at night. If a child sleeping upstairs goes to the toilet on his own at night, parents should be sure that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will know where he is and can carefully go down the stairs. You need to be especially careful after trips and long holidays at the dacha, if the “upper” children there sleep on an ordinary “single-story” bed. The 6 year limit for sleeping on the second floor is not invented!

Side on the second floor bed should be high enough. Especially if the child sleeping upstairs tosses and turns a lot in his sleep. This is not difficult to do when making a custom bed; You can also attach an additional removable side.

If the child becomes seriously ill, he most likely will not be able to sleep on the second floor. During this time, the mattress from the upper bed can be moved to the floor or the father can be temporarily transferred “to the top”, and the mother can sleep with the child in the parent’s bed.

The same applies to the loft bed. By the way, such a bed assumes more options placing beds or sofas under it.

Another space-saving solution that doesn't detract from your family's sleep quality is pull out bed, located under the main one and travels only at night (available for sale, can be made to order). It can be useful during the transition period (the baby is already in his own bed, but the mother is still nearby), it can become a guest option, or serve in the future when two (or more) children move into their own room.

Transition of the child to his own bed - important stage his growing up. Let the child feel that you will support him and help him at any time. After all, now gives you confidence in the future! And sweet dreams to you!

Chubchenko Olga

When a child is just born, sleeping together with his parents solves many problems and is completely justified. You don't need to get up at night at every squeak and go to another room; if you are breastfeeding, it will always end up in the baby’s mouth at the right moment, etc. However, sooner or later there will come a time when you clearly realize that you need personal space and you really want to move your child into a separate room. As a rule, this is not easy to do, especially if children are emotionally dependent on their parents' bedroom.

The easiest way is to accustom your baby to his crib and a certain discipline in this regard from the very beginning. Usually a baby's cradle is placed next to the parent's. They often place it close to their sleeping place and remove the dividing wall. Surely it's convenient. But this is a great loophole for a baby. He will very soon understand all the advantages of this and will constantly crawl to your side. Perhaps it is worth considering this point, because the older the child is, the more he will get used to it and the harder it will be for you to transfer the child separately.

It's hard to give universal advice regarding the age when a child should be moved to his own room. This is very individual and depends both on the child’s temperament and on the desires and habits of the parents. As a rule, this is 1-2 years.

Not all families have such favorable living conditions that it is possible to allocate a separate room for a nursery. Many live in one-room apartments with two or even three children. In such a difficult situation, it can be recommended to allocate a children's space in the room, for example, to separate the children's sleeping places with a screen or wardrobe.

Moving kids into a nursery is especially successful if you time this event to coincide with something new in their lives.

Perhaps you are moving to another apartment - immediately set up a children's room there and place the children there from the very first day. Perhaps you have made renovations, equipping the nursery with new cribs, hanging beautiful wallpaper. Explain that now the children will sleep and play in this wonderful, beautiful corner.

When arranging a child’s sleeping place, you can use the forces of Feng Shui to help. To do this, you can call a home energy specialist, or study the relevant literature yourself. But there are universal rules that are quite understandable and in simple language. The baby's crib should not be located in the aisle, immediately in front of the door. It is not advisable for the sleeping place to be reflected in the mirrors. It is not advisable to pile up unnecessary furniture, and especially rubbish, in the nursery - this only gives negative energy, and it is difficult to sleep in such a room. Choose wallpaper in calm tones, without excesses and pictures that carry a heavy semantic load.

There are many ways to resettle children; each parent chooses his own tactics, depending on the habits and character of the children. Perhaps you categorically put the baby in his separate bed and sit next to him, read a book, light a night light, and all this without allowing him to get up and run into the parent’s bedroom out of habit. Perhaps you will choose a softer method: falling asleep on your parents’ bed and then moving it to the nursery. However, in this case, children, as a rule, wake up and return to mom and dad like a boomerang in the night. Be persistent and patient. Do not swear or use violence, even if the resettlement procedure for your family turned out to be a real test of nerves. Take the baby in your arms and, without entering into a discussion with him, take him to his bed.

If you have more than one baby, you are probably concerned that the children will not disturb each other and wake each other up. Perhaps until the children get used to the new state of affairs, they will not sleep very peacefully. But in the future they will get used to it. Babies sleep very soundly and usually don't wake each other up at night, even if one of them wakes up and starts crying.
At first, leave the door to the nursery open. Perhaps leave a light in the hallway or have a nice children's night light. Create a bedtime ritual, such as a bedtime story.

There are families where the practice is for spouses to sleep separately, with mom sleeping with the children and dad sleeping separately. Or children are divided between parents for sleeping. If you are completely satisfied with this state of affairs, no one can convince you. However, it is worth noting that spouses should still have their own personal space and should have time to communicate and show affection to each other. Often, while caring for children, we forget that we are not only mothers, but also women. A intimate life is very important in marriage. Few people manage to relax in a situation where a baby is sleeping lightly in the crib opposite. When the kids sleep separately, you don't have to worry that they will hear you.

If your living conditions allow you to equip a children's room, be sure to do so. Every person, including little ones, should have their own personal space. This is especially true for sleep. And in the morning, well-rested children love to come to their parents and bask next to them for a while. You don’t have to deprive them of such a small weakness - after all, they spent the night in the nursery and were simply bored!

The baby is used to sleeping next to you, but now the baby’s heels are already reaching your knees, and you understand: that’s enough! How to move a child to a separate bed without tears and hysterics?

How can?!

Experts say that for at least 6 months (and preferably up to a year), a child should sleep in the same room with his parents. Until what age does a baby have the right to take a place in the parent’s bed? This is what Tatyana Chkhikvishvili, a consultant at the Center, thinks about this baby sleep and development of BabySleep:

“It all depends on the child and on the parents’ desire to continue co-sleeping. If the parents understand that they are not yet ready to part with the baby at night, or the mother works all day and feels that she and the baby lack contact during the day (and he gets it at night), then co-sleeping can be continued for as long as desired. There are no age restrictions. Sooner or later the child will leave anyway, it’s inevitable.”

Enough!

Here are the main reasons for stopping parents and child sleeping together in the same bed (if at least one of the points listed below applies to you, you should think about moving your baby away):

(she cannot relax, wakes up at every rustle, sleeps poorly, experiences increased anxiety and is afraid of running over the child).
Parents cannot ensure that the child sleeps safely in the same bed with them (for example, the mattress is too soft - the child will not be able to breathe freely if he buries his nose in it).
The child's father is against co-sleeping, because in this case he does not get enough sleep, and in the morning he has to go to work.

Separate sleep: is the child ready?

As a rule, co-sleeping is convenient for the mother (especially if the child is breastfed). “But there are also children for whom co-sleeping is a very important need, about 15-20%. Such babies need constant close contact with their mother, and this manifests itself not only at night, but also during the day. “Tame” children constantly want to keep their mother at least in sight,” explains Tatyana Chkhikvishvili. If the baby is able to do without you during the day (for example, playing on his own for a long time in a chaise longue), then, most likely, at night the child will be able to fall asleep in his own bed.

Action plan!

So, you have weighed everything and decided that sleep should be separate. Where to begin? The first step is to build baby's sleep-wake rhythm.

“An overtired, overexcited baby will resist innovation. In order for your child to agree to change, make sure that he gets a good night's sleep and is in good health by the time he goes to bed. good mood", advises a child sleep consultant.

Check according to age, adjust the regimen to the child’s needs. “If the baby gets up at 8 a.m. kindergarten, and the norm for night sleep is 11 hours, which means that by 9 pm he should already be asleep. This is not the time to start bedtime!” - explains Tatyana Chkhikvishvili.

Now your task is teach your baby to fall asleep on his own.

“If a baby needs the help of his parents to fall asleep - rocking, stroking, his mother's breast, it will be extremely difficult to transfer him to sleep in a separate bed. The child will wake up when sleep cycles change every 40 minutes - 1.5 hours and require the mother’s participation, which is very exhausting,” says Tatyana Chkhikvishvili. Teach your child to fall asleep on his own, then at night the child will wake up and immediately fall asleep without your help.

And now sending the baby to sleep in a separate crib. There are two ways to do this.

Change the conditions for falling asleep immediately and present the child with a fact: that’s it, with today you sleep separately. However, you should not leave the baby alone so that he screams, humbles himself and falls asleep. Help the baby adapt to new conditions, comfort him. “There are children who calm down when they hear their mother’s voice, and there are those who, on the contrary, are excited by the sounds. Observe throughout the day - what helps your child cope with crying? What methods of consolation are familiar to him? They will also come in handy in the evening,” explains the baby sleep consultant.
You can also gradually change your sleeping conditions. This is what Tatyana Chkhikvishvili recommends: “To begin with, continue sleeping together, but when the child falls asleep, try not to lie next to him, but to sit. When your baby gets used to it, sit a little further away. Then just be in the same room with him. Now try to move the baby to a separate crib and be nearby when the baby falls asleep.” So, gradually your child will learn to fall asleep on his own in his own bed, and not next to you.

Has your child grown up and is already 2.5 - 3 years old? And even 5-7 years?

Does he still sleep with you in his parents' bed?

Would you like to start relocating your baby but don’t know how to do it?

Or is your child anxious and you are worried about how to find the right approach to him?

Then it will help you this resettlement algorithm the grown-up child to his room (his own crib).

A little background One day I received a message from Svetlana’s mother:

Hello Tatiana. I read the article, it concerns infants. But we have another problem - my son is already 4 years 9 months old, but he is used to sleeping in the room with us, and even every night he climbs out of his crib to join my husband and me. He has his own room, but he refuses to sleep there separately without me, he says that he is scared. Maybe he's even cheating, he just wants to sleep with his parents. It seems to us that he is already big enough and we want to move him into his room, but we don’t know how. Best regards, Svetlana.

We worked with her in a personal consultation, during which I first found out what exactly Sveta and her husband had already tried to do for this, what her husband’s position was at the moment, whether there was unity between them on this issue, how committed they were to a positive result, etc. .d. Having received the necessary answers, I offered her an approximate algorithm for moving her child to her room. At that time, the child was ill, so it was decided to postpone learning to sleep in his own room until he fully recovered. Sveta’s mother planned to start training for her son’s 5th birthday and completely transfer him to sleep in her room. Those. 2 months later. And 10 days ago I received joyful news from her:

Hello Tatiana!

Thank you for your advice on relocating the baby!!! My baby has been sleeping in his room for half a month now! Everything went even much easier than I thought it would be.

Today I asked him if he liked sleeping in his room, if he was afraid. He said that he liked it and that he was not afraid. I’m very happy, I thought that she would come to us many times a night, on the first night I sprayed from the spray bottle, asked where I got the magic water, but from the second night I slept peacefully. Always surrounded by toys, of course.

Thank you very much again, I don’t even know how I would have acted. Svetlana.

It makes me very happy to receive letters of success. Once in the newsletter I asked our regular readers whether it was necessary to talk in detail about this topic. Active responses confirmed that the topic is relevant and I outlined a description of the entire short algorithm in a separate file. You can pick this one up now Algorithm for moving a child to his own room, which I gave in consultation. What kind of algorithm is this and who is it suitable for?

The resettlement method includes 3 parts:

Methods for moving an older child to his own bed or room (Part 1)

The Method itself is suitable for children from 2.5-3 years, this is the age when they enjoy playing games and listening to fairy tales. Those. the child’s level of understanding of addressed speech and general speech development quite developed.

Includes a short algorithm consisting of 2 simple steps:

preparation for the process,
implementation in practice.

How to remove an anxious child? (Part 2)

By popular demand, for mothers of anxious children (ages 1.5 to 4 years) who do not want to stay in their room (in their crib) I added a special algorithm with steps to overcome this anxiety step by step before you start learning how to fall asleep on your own.

You will learn what 3 things are important to take care of before you begin to correct your anxiety. Without them, correction is meaningless.
You will find (5 +1) key steps to overcome anxiety due to fear of separation from your mother.
You will understand the role of the zone of proximal development in the formation of a child's calm settling down and independent falling asleep in his crib.

Thus, you can help your child go through this entire correction process in a playful way based on one very famous game and cope with another life task!

How to move a 5-7 year old into his room when he has grown out of fairy tales and games? (Part 3)

It’s good when you can play with your child and overcome fears in the game! But this is not always applicable, especially when your son or daughter has already grown out of such games. What to do? Of course, adapt the Methodology!

Moms often write to me 5-7 year olds, whose situation is something like this:

they actively used cosleeping (sleeping together).
closer to 5 years or later, they began to move the child into his own room.
the resettlement was accompanied by unsuccessful cajoling: “We’ll buy you this and that if you sleep at home alone.”
During the mother's absence, the child, it turns out, slept on his own.
mothers did not take into account the child’s initial inability to fall asleep without their presence (cosleeping does not teach this).
Children have a strong habit of feeling the presence (body) of their mother on the bed next to them (“I’ll move away - how he tosses and turns, looks for me and wakes up”).
various promises of “wizards”, “fairies”, “Father Frosts” and others were used fairy-tale heroes, the child’s favorite characters, with the goal of getting something special from them as a reward for falling asleep and sleeping in their room. But it didn't work...

If any of the above applies to your child, you will find your solution in this part!

Format: 2 PDF files can be opened on any computer with the free Adobe Reader program, as well as on tablets and iPads with the application installed for these devices. Volume: only 21 pages, total weight about 1 MB. Price: 750 rub.

Brief instructions: