Maybe you should move the crib

A new study from a major conference of sleep researchers reports that babies whose beds are in the same room as their parents and whose parents linger in the room while the child falls asleep take longer to fall asleep and wake more during the night than children who sleep in their own rooms. The quality of children’s sleep was better and they slept for more total hours when they were encouraged to fall asleep on their own and slept in a different room than their parents. This was a large-scale study, involving over 28,000 infants and toddlers from more than seventeen countries, including the United States.

The take-home message is obvious: if your older infant or toddler is struggling to fall asleep at night and seems wakeful for no reason, consider moving the crib to another room and consider letting the child fall asleep on her own. Within a few nights, you should see a new, more peaceful pattern emerge.

... happens first at home.