18 weeks.... and still no sleep

Well, perhaps the title is a little misleading. We are getting SOME sleep..... and Emma is slowly getting better..... although I wonder if this is just a survival technique my husband and I have employed and I seem to be perpetually saying that she is slowly getting better!!

It is hard to remember when Daniel started sleeping through, all I can recall is that in the early early days he used to wake screaming in the night with tummy ache and we would sing to him to calm him down and he would then sleep on me or my husband. He did start sleeping through the night I think around 9/10 weeks. 

The only other sleep issue I recall with Daniel was a huge sleep regression at just under five months. It corrected itself when he went into his own room and, touch wood, we haven't had any other issues. His sleep is actually remarkable, we rarely ever go back into him once he is put down to bed for the night.

Our plan had been that when Emma reaches six months we would switch her into the cot that Daniel currently has, and move him into a bed. Up until recently Emma has been sleeping in our room in a crib.

However, as she sleeps on her tummy, she holds onto the edge of the mattress. When she stirs she strikes out and I think it is waking her up as she knocks her hands on the side of the crib. For the past week we have taken her out of the crib and placed her on a cot bed mattress on the floor next to the bed. She has *fingers crossed* been sleeping much better - she stirs as she enters a lighter phase of sleep but soon settles herself back to sleep. We have had an 8.5 hour stretch of sleep and another good stretch last night too. She is still waking for a feed in the night, which is fine. We can live with that. She had been waking 3 / 4 times a night until we took her out of the crib!

It's hard to know what has been part of the natural 4 month sleep regression and what has been just part of Emma's poor sleep. however we have seen a big difference the past week, so we are hopeful we are, finally, seeing a change for the better!

I'll just have your bed, Mummy - there's lots of room for me!

Whether we will move her into the cot Daniel currently uses at the planned time remains to be seen. We aren't sure if Daniel is ready to move into a proper bed yet. We had planned to do the switch for Daniel at the end of July when Damian has two weeks off work; on the basis that we won't have to worry about Damian getting up for work if we have a bad night with both Emma and Daniel.

What tips do you have for moving a child into a new bed? Any recommendations for the type of bed to buy? and what else should we be considering?