Co-sleeping has worked for us

It was never the plan to have him in our room this long (when was the last time everything went right according to plan). We thought 3 months and he would be in his crib in his room. Ha. Well, 3 months rolled around and he had outgrown his co-sleeper, so we moved him into the crib...still in our room. A month and a half later (and many fitful nights) we decided to remove the crib and just have the crib mattress on the floor...still in our room. Then we purchased a twin mattress to replace the crib one...still in our room. We just keep putting it off because we love having him there - and I'm sure he loves us being right there too.

A couple things have changed recently. One is that Rooster is now mobile. He has yet to crawl off the mattress in the middle of the night - his routine is to yelp out, sometimes softly, sometimes quite loudly (I've bolted to a sitting position out of surprise!). But he eventually will and the safest place would be his own room where we can't step on him en route to the bathroom. Another thing is us waking each other up. This was also the reason we avoided bed-sharing - it doesn't work because we both frequently awaken. Currently it doesn't happen all the time, but it does occur and would be greatly decreased in separate rooms. And finally, we are all ready for our own rooms. We like to think 9 months in, 9 months out in terms of where Rooster is in development and (in)dependence from us. He will be 9 months in a few weeks (WOW!) and it is time he slept alone.

We want to ease him in so he will begin to take his naps in his new room using the crib mattress. I'm sure this whole process won't go as smooth as we could hope, but nonetheless we want to start it. It's kinda sad for me and Roscoe. We are so used to having Rooster right there as we sleep, so when Rooster moves to his own bedroom in several weeks, he will be missed.