How do I transition my dd out of my bed?

[believer]

My 3 1/2 yo dd does not want to sleep alone. Her brother, who is 6, does not want her in his bed. Her 12 yo sister does not want her in her bed. DH and I are tired of having her in our bed. She grabs my fingers and rolls around and sticks her feet under dh's back and we are not sleeping well at all. She has gone through phases where she has done this and then sleeps well, and she just got the hang of potty training, so I don't know if that is disturbing her sleep, but she is disturbing mine! I am exhausted! She is old enough to sleep in her own bed, but has no desire to do so. We have been staying up late and sleeping in late all summer, but starting next week, we will begin getting up earlier to transition to a school time schedule. I am hoping that will help.
Any suggestions on how to get her out of our bed? With my oldest, she was about this age when she started sleeping in her own bed, but she is 12 now and I don't remember what we did. Ds was 2 when we put him in his own bed - as part of weaning him - it was not fun, but I was pregnant and hormonal and ready to stop nursing him, and putting him in his own bed helped with that. So, is there a gentle way to stop co-sleeping?
Thank you, from a very tired mommy.
Dana

[MomToDM]

I'll tell you what worked for us. We bought a toddler bed, made a huge deal out of it, let ds pick out the bed set (Spongebob). We set it up and put it about six inches away from my side of the bed. Some nights we would put him in there and then he would come to bed with us when he woke, other nights he'd just come to bed with us. Then I got even bigger and decided okay, lets get serious, its time... (This was about a month and a half ago). So I told dh, you need to sleep on the couch for awhile (because everytime ds woke dh would just automatically want ds to come to bed with us so we wouldn't have to try to get him back to sleep). So we started a bedtime routine, stories, songs, hugs, etc. Ds in his bed, me in mine (right next to him). I would just lay there until he fell asleep, if he was having a hard time we would hold hands. Everytime he woke I would either sing to him, give him a drink, or hold hands. He really, really wanted to come to bed with us for awhile, but now the bed is on the other side of our room (getting ready to go into his room), and he only wakes for us to put the covers back on him. One of us still has to be in the room for him to fall asleep, but other than that he is doing very well. HTH.

[TxMama2Cody]

Our 3 1/4 year old started sleeping in his bed about 9 months ago I guess.

We bought him a toddler bed also and put it a couple feet from ours (facing the same way). We would start him out on his bed and he would crawl into ours consistently around 1-3am. Then we bought him a Cody-sized teddy bear that he adores and put it next to him and low and behold, he slept all night in his bed!

He rarely crawls into our bed anymore when we're both in there. If he wakes up when I'm up at night (I'm a night owl) he'll crawl in bed with daddy and when daddy goes to work, he'll crawl in bed with me. If he tries to come into our bed when we're both in there, I'll tell him no and if he gets back in his bed, he can crawl in bed with momma when daddy goes to work (even though this is a given, it's motivation for him LOL). He's accepted that and doesn't fight it, but boy he used to and we just eventually worked through it.