In short:
When and how did you stop co-sleeping? Also why?

Our son is 3 years old and we haven't stopped. (Though he's spent *part* of
probably two-thirds of all the nights of his life in his own bed -- first a
bassinet, then a crib, and now a twin-size bed -- he's almost always in with us
by the time we get up in the morning.)

I think the time to stop co-sleeping is when (1) one or more of the people in
the bed isn't sleeping well or enough, or (2) the child involved prefers to
sleep elsewhere than his parents' bed.

For families in which all members sleep fine in a shared bed, as far as I can
tell, the child usually departs more or less on his own sometime between age 3
and age 6. So, yes, you could certainly be still co-sleeping when your child
is in kindergarten, though it's relatively unlikely much beyond that. But if
you don't consider co-sleeping a "bad habit", what's wrong with that?

I do know people who trained their babies to sleep in a crib quite early,
because either the parents weren't comfortable or the baby truly slept better
that way. But remember that it's quite normal for a baby to wake, or
semi-wake, many times a night, and in fact this may be safer for them. Unless
your baby seems overtired during the day, don't conclude that his being wakened
by your movements means he's not getting enough sleep.

I also know people who've moved (or attempted to move) baby to a crib at
various ages from 2 months to 2 years. Age doesn't seem to be a very good
predictor of the relative ease or difficulty, nor the ultimate outcome, of
these efforts, as far as I can tell. Although some people claim that it's
easiest at 4-6 months, and there may be some truth to that, there are also an
awful lot of babies who sleep contentedly in cribs at 5 months but begin night
waking and crying for Mommy at 8 months.

In any event, if what you're doing is working for you, then keep doing it,
unless and until it ceases working. :-) And there's no reason you can't go
back and forth between co-sleeping and crib sleeping at various times for the
next couple of years, depending on what makes the most sense for your family at
any given time. Do what works for you NOW, instead of changing your habits
based on what you think will work better in 5 years. And if and when what's
working for you now stops working for you, THEN do something else! No sense in
borrowing trouble.

Holly
Mom to Camden, 3yo
EDD #2 6/8/04