My 3 1/2 year old goes to sleep in his own room, and usually makes it until 5:00 AM or so before he comes into our room. He used to have to be put to sleep in our bed, and most times, I fell asleep, too, so my wife would just scooch us over, and we’d all three sleep in the bed. Whatever works for you and gets all of you a decent nights sleep is the right way.
Lazy parent checking in. Co-sleeping saved us sooo much work. I never had to get up during the night for any of the kids. Recently a report went out under the headline “co-sleeping is dangerous”. Annoyed me highly, because what the report REALLY said was that sleeping with a child is dangerous if you are a drunk overweight smoker.
5 year old daughter sleeps with me, 1 and 3 year old daughters with BoringMom. Co-sleeping didn’t seem to prevent us from having enough parent alone time to make more after the first one. We just made sure that we had penty of beds in the house of the proper sizes.
How long will they be in our beds? I figure they will want to sleep on their own sometime before they leave for college. I’ll have a lifetime with BoringMom, kids’ll be to old to sleep with in a few short years. Special parent space is not important to us right now. Perhaps a side-effect of having been with BoringMom for 14 years before we had kids.
Kids rule our life? Darn tootin. That’s why we had them.
Our 2.5 year old and 4 month old both sleep with us. We’ve got a California King sized bed, so there’s plenty of room (usually; occasionally the oldest likes to sleep perpindicular).
Mine slept with me untill he was about three. He seems pretty stable. (considering where he got his genes from! 
)
Other than that I really don’t have anything to add except for maybe a little levity:
I remember once I was having this really f’ed up dream where I was in a pool of water and I couln’t hardly breathe to save my life. The dream eventually gets so disturbing that I woke myself up only to find baby shakes had crawled up on my back and conked out himself; the weight of the kid on my back was keeping me from being able to breathe freely. It was kinda weird to say the least.
Oh yeah, SCREW those people that think your freaks they don’t know squat!
Wow. People here give me these pitying looks when I tell them that I didn’t sleep with my parents until mid-elementary school.
Just tell them you’re practising Feng Shui child-rearing.
Oh BRUTHer…
I slept with my infant son until he was probably 6 months old. I breast fed him and he woke up so often to feed it was just more comfortable for both of us.
Both my children slept in my bed from time to time as babies, toddlers and on up into elementary years.
Heck, when my daughter and I vacationed in Vegas a few years ago when she was 21 we shared a hotel bed!
Of course we were having margaritas and girl talk at the time lol!
PS, sorry if it wasn’t clear, but I’m supporting your side and “oh bruthering” those giving you grief!
Thanks so much for the feedback. My wife and I are now feeling fairly certain that our son will probably not grow up to be an axe murderer after all.
Yet another lazy parent checking in. Didn’t take the first one into bed (nervous) but kept him in a bassinet in the room for easy nighttime nursing. Which I did in a rocking chair.
With #2 I made my life much easier by simply taking him into bed with me the first time he woke up, and then keeping him there, switching sides as necessary. The Mom is closed, but the bar’s still open . . .
This also worked well with #3. Except for the 2nd one, they were all real slow about sleeping through the night, but as soon as they started doing so they got put into cribs in their own room (well actually, the first 2 had to share a room for 12 years).
They turned out all right. No privacy issues with the bedroom, no reluctance to sleep alone. Obviously I didn’t squash 'em (they would have yelled, I think), and anyway part of me never really went to sleep, always aware of them, but I think I got more sleep doing this than when I was getting up to feed the first one.
Another co-sleeper here. It is the absolute done thing here in Japan, and I am regarded here as cold and cruel because my two boys at 6 and 3 are put to bed in their own room (one futon for two kids though!). Then I am regarded in Britland as wierd and deviant because I don’t chuck them out when they migrate every night to our futon in the next room. Kids in Japan sleep with their parents until they are at least elementary school age , often until the approach of puberty.
I am an ardent supporter of getting enough sleep. So we have always done what was the easiest at the time. The incidence of SIDs is said to be lower here than Europe (but I have no cites, only what Drs have told me here) and it is thought to be that if the baby has breathing troubles the mother is aware of them. It is also thought that the baby might regulate its breathing to its mother’s. Whatever - I was very worried about leaving my tiny ones alone, particularly my second babe who had a hard entrance to the world. He even napped in his basket in the living room or on the sofa, as he was slightly premature and could only fall asleep on his stomach. Eeek! I never left him out of my sight till he could roll over himself at a very late 6 months.
I worried that I might roll on my babies or something, but actually within the first few weeks I knew that would not happen because babe choked in his sleep and I woke up with him over my shoulder, banging his back. I had grabbed him reflexively. On the other hand, DH nearly did squash the second one when he rolled over dead tired and I woke up to a feebly struggling babe half pinned under Dad. After that I made sure that babe was always positioned on the outside of the futon with me guarding him against all comers! (And futon - all of three inches to fall, so that was a plus factor for co-sleeping.)
Once the kids were about 9 months old-ish, or able to roll over and get up on their hands and knees at will, we put them in their own rooms. But living in non-centrally heated Japan, they usually end up back with us for the dead of winter months because it is too cold otherwise. (Our bedrooms reach about 5C each night - and the kids still kick their covers off.)
I used to babysit a North American girl, and one evening a week I had to work, so my husband would come home early, bathe both kids and get them ready for bed, then I would come back from work, put little girl in the carseat, and then take Mum and kid home. In Japan, it is one of the Dad’s jobs to bathe the kids, and they all get in together. I never thought anything of it (been in Japan too long by then!!) On one of our drives home, months into this arrangement, Mum got chatting about how her daughter seemed to be scared of her Dad’s penis and so he had to bathe wearing swimming trunks. I never, EVER dared to tell her that the kid had been taking a bath with my husband and had never so much as blinked at his!!
That leads me to think that these things are all in the eye of the beholder, and you see things from your cultural standpoint. So make your family’s own culture suit your way of living, and your child’s needs and personality and ignore the rest of the ignorant world. You are masters of your own domain! Good luck!
Whatever floats your boat (I didn’t like it much).
But PLEASE, lose the term “co-sleeper”. It’s stupid. You’re sleeping with your children. Not helping them navigate sleep. Just stop it.
Yes, do what works for you. However, remember the goal here is for everyone to get a good night’s rest. I know families who have been sleep deprived for years because they played musical beds all night. If one or all of you are not getting the sleep you need, it’s probably time to make the move to different, permanent beds.
I’d caution all parents to not introduce “crutches” in order to lull your child to sleep. By crutches I mean something other than a bed that they NEED to have happen in order for them to fall asleep. This can be a pacifier, bottle or breast past a year, having mom or dad lay down with them or even tickling their hand. I’ve even babysat a child who needed to fall asleep to the t.v. It may work well at first, but for your sake imagine what your life will be like in a year when you have dinner guests over and one of you has to excuse him or herself for a half hour to go tickle your 18 month old son’s hand so he can fall asleep. Or expecting a babysitter to lay down with your children in order for them to get to sleep. Or having to make a midnight run to Walmart because your daughter’s pacifier has mysteriously disappeared and she is NOT going to sleep without it. (Guilty as charged here. )
One of the best gifts you can give your child is a good night’s sleep. So, sure, keep the infant in bed with you if it makes everyone happy. But be willing to make the switch if and when his presence means less sleep for everyone.
My first son slept in a pumpkin seat beside my bed for the first month because he refused to sleep in a bassinette and my husband at the time was a terribly heavy sleeper and I worried about him rolling onto the baby. After that, he went to his own room in a crib and slept wonderfully there until about 18 months. Then he started waking up super-early (we’re talking 3-4am here) and I got into the habit of just bringing him into my bed to calm him and get a bit more sleep for the both of us.
That became habit, and when I tried a few months later to get him into a toddler bed in preparation for the new baby, he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Ever since, he’s been sleeping with me. And although cosleeping was something we simply stumbled into, I’ve found that I really like it. He’s almost 2 1/2 now and yes, he flops and kicks and sometimes takes a header over the side, but he also sings little songs with me in the dark, cuddles up to me in his sleep when he’s cold, and wakes me up with kisses on my belly. It’s really worth it for me.
I’m not sure what I’ll do if the new baby decides he wants in too. He’s in a crib now, and perfectly happy there. But if he ends up needing to sleep with me like his brother did I’d let him in without a second thought. Only thing is, with two floppers and me, I’ll probably have to upgrade the bed size!
I would put the babies to sleep in their beds and then take them into my bed to nurse. First baby would sleep just fine all night, second baby–My Little Pony. He just couldn’t sleep with us, because he was too restless a sleeper (for several months, he slept very little at night and barely napped during the day–I nearly went nuts). Last baby, mostly slept in her own bed, she didn’t wake up as much at night. The real problem I had when any of my kids slept with me was the awareness that they were there all night. I would adopt the standard nursing position with my arm under my head and fall asleep that way, never moving for the rest of the night. Next morning, my ribs would hurt so bad that I could hardly move or even take a deep breath for a few minutes.
As far as bedtime helps are concerned, I have learned that a parent will do whatever it takes to get a baby to sleep! If that means a binky, then you do it! Just buy a couple hundred spares! My son used one. I made him start taking one out of sheer desperation, because he was a very big baby (over 12 lbs at birth) and ALWAYS wanted to nurse. He’d have nothing to do with a bottle and whenever I put him down, he’d wake up and want the noo-noo (that’s OUR name for it–what’s yours?). So I had to do something or go crazy, and of course, he got addicted*. (I made him give it up right after I had another baby–I said no way was I hunting binkies for TWO!)
*BTW, if you’re ever on vacation, about five months pregnant (and already HUGE), and your binky-addicted child has to go to the ER for Tylenol ingestion, and they tell you that you’ll be there for a few hours, and you send the hubby and the older child back to the hotel to wait, make sure that you remember to have hubby leave the diaper bag–with binky–there with you, so that you won’t have to pace up and down the halls with a fussy, sleepy child in your arms who cannot get to sleep till the nurses take pity on you and send down to the hospital nursery for a binky!
Personally my daughter and I slept together from the time she was born until about age 2 . I tried weaning her around that age and it was tough. But we did it!
Looking back I think I would have weaned her a little earlier then I did. It made for many a sleepless night.
My brother, his girlfriend and both their children sleep in the same bed. THis bothers me. The children are ages 3 & 5. They have pushed 2 full size beds together and have this big family bed even though the girls have their own bedroom. They started sleeping together out of sheer laziness to get up to breastfeed and they just never moved the kids out.
I’m sure if someone mentioned to social services that they are sleeping together that it would cause many probelms by today’s standards of what is the “norm”
personally I think it is unhealthy for the children to be so old and not in their own space.
Also it makes me wonder how they are handling having sex if the girls share the same bed. I find it inapporpriate if the child is in the room while the parents are being intimate.
What if the 5 year old slips and tells one of her friends that she sleeps with her parents. THis can be easily misunderstood and can become a “sexual topic” and cause all sorts of probelms with social services.
My suggestion is DON"T WAIT TOO LATE!
I usually put the kids in a crib, took them to bed when they woke up to nurse and then fell asleep before they were finished. In the morning we’d all get up together.
I’d like to believe that it helped them to figure out that night time was for sleeping because if they did stay up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after their 4:00 a.m. snack they were surrounded by sleeping adults and probably fell back asleep out of sheer boredom if nothing else.
I can’t tell you how many moms of similiar aged babies would complain about needed to stay up with jr. in the middle of the night because they weren’t tired.
Also - my kids who shared a bed and nursed till toddlerhood and beyond are now great sleepers who are otherwise well adjusted and outgoing. This idea that meeting a young child’s need for comfort will somehow warp them is truely perverse.
Ahem.
Co-anchor, co-chair, co-pilot, co-sleep. It’s completely appropriate when applied here to indicate that the two parties sleep together.
Mess with the pedant bull, get the pedant horns!
A more experienced mom once told me that if having a child in your bed is interfering with your marital intimacy, maybe you should be thankful to have gotten an impetus to have a more creative sex life!
You don’t need a bedroom to do the nasty.
So, another cosleeper here.
Didn’t ‘technically’ cosleep long with our first - it became clear around 3 months of age that HE didn’t sleep well in proximity to others. He overheated, and needed a nap 30 minutes after waking. So we moved him slowly to his own bed. He still needed company (in the room, not in the bed), though, and I ended up sleeping in the recliner in his room at least part of the night for a while (3+ years), until he slept better (turned out to have health issues contributing to the non-sleeping, so he truly needed the extra comfort of someone present to be able to sleep until those were resolved). Anyway, it wasn’t always a blast, but it worked, and it meant I didn’t have to get up and go to his room 4-5 times a night when he woke and freaked. More sleep for both of us, even if an unusual scenario.
Second kid? Lesson learned. Started with his crib attached as a sidecar to our bed. That way, he has his ‘own’ bed, but it is the same level as our bed, right there. Easy for night nursing, and easy to get my own space (though he still crawls across me to go snuggle next to his dad some nights…). He can get away from me if he is too warm, and I get to stay in my bed. Given we have little iceberg children who like their tootsies cold, that’s fine.
As for the sleeping in the same bed being weird/unhealthy (or a risk for social services intervention), there was a long-term study that followed kids 18 years after cosleeping, and showed that kids who coslept as part of a natural approach to parenting (rather than for access by a sexual abuser, say), had exactly the same mental health, socialization, self-esteem, sexual maturity, etc., as kids who did not, with one exception - the boys who coslept were more self-confidant in middle-school than the boys who had not coslept. But apparently that is a short-term advantage. Otherwise, WHERE the child sleeps has zero impact overall on how well they do as adults. It is a non-starter for issues.
It is how you parent that has an impact, not where you parent.
As for the sex? Who ever said you had to have sex in the bed? Or even in the bedroom? And I’m ‘sure’ nobody I know has ever had sneaky quiet sex while camping in a tent with their kids asleep nearby (NO! GASP!)… what’s the difference if they’re in the bed anyway? It is their conscious minds that are affected by parental sex, not their sleeping minds, as far as I know. I’d far rather my parents had silent no-waking-the-kids sex anywhere than loud sex in the next room, myself.
As for why there’s a difference in the SIDS rates in the US vs. Japan and other countries, given that they’ve shown that there are some SIDS cases that are heart-related, and that DHA (a fish oil) is a major factor in stabilizing heart electrical process, the diet (fish oil) may have an impact (and Japan has a rather high level of fish oil consumption, as do many northern European contries). Beyond that, keeping the child in the same room for the first 6 months, even if not in the same bed, significantly reduces SIDS and SIDS-categorized deaths. See here: http://bmj.com/cgi/reprint/319/7223/1457
So, my take? Be a good parent, and do what works. And keep trying things until something works. And when things stop working, pay attention and try something else until you find what works now. Hanging onto one way of doing things is just bound to get you smacked in the parental head later. Kids are in constant states of change. So are we, as parents, and our kids will teach us to be the parents they need us to be if we listen, pay attention, and keep adapting to make the whole system work in its current configuration with its current needs. If cosleeping works for that, then it does. If it works two years from now, then it does. If it stopped working today, then try something else.
I am in a mood… however I shall endeavor to be polite.
I am female. I VERY much remember giving birth to my son. He is 7 years ld and sleeps with me. There is nothing sexual involved. Frankly, the hubby and I had sex in the living room more often than not until he came along. More space and the hubby hates my bed.
As far as telling anyone WHERE my son sleeps Why should I? Its our business. He is fine and has no separation issues. I suspect I miss him more than he misses me. He knows when Mom and Dad go in the bedroom and shut the door its our PRIVATE time and he is to leave us alone. However with our schedules our sex time is usually in the afternoon when he is at school. I see no reason to traumatize him by forcing him to sleep in another room. He will move there when he is ready for some privacy. I shall also shock several people here by adding that on occasion he bathes with me.
What is it with this country that they worry more about what goes on in people’s bedrooms than what goes on in public?