According to this, it’s completely natural for family members, including children, to sleep in the same bed.
So, near as I can tell, you’re in the clear.
Well, my son sleeps with me because we have only one bed.
Thankfully, its a king size.
As others have noted, issues of where a child sleeps are primarily cultural/personal in nature. If you and Charybdis are not uncomfortable with having daughter share your bed; and if daughter is happy, sleeps well, and doesn’t display any worisome emotional attachments to the relationship–where’s the problem?
As daughter grows, you might find that wither you or she is uncomfortable with the arrangments, or you might not. I have friends from India who sleep 3 generations together when they visit the grandparents. It doesn’t seem to have scarred anyone in the family. Of course, there is erl’s cautionary example to consider. :eek:
Great. Now I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Baby Mundi is going into his own bed immediately!
Words to the wise, my friend, words to the wise 
For example, as Tuckerfan noted:
Save a baby’s life? 'Tis to laugh. If we can prevent one more me in the world, now, that’s motivation!
It’s funny, though. Many mothers have commented to my mother, in candid moments, that they wish their sons and daughters still “snuggled” with them. They have vocal jealousy that my mom and I still snuggle when we’re watching a movie, or we’ll read together, or whatever. And I, for one, cannot imagine what it would be like to not want to and not be able to sleep with my mom. I love her to death. It is cozy. 
Shucks. Now I gotta send her an email.
But, you know, it may be a result of something more at work here, and I am serious. Never had a father figure in my life, so my mom and I might just have become that much closer because of it. I don’t know, though. Many kids of single moms do not share my experience. As I noted: I am an exception to many things.
But I think the whole “controversy” over the issue is looking at a complicated thing like “emotional development” and trying to find one thing which is a big no-no. Well, we can empiricly demonstrate by the evidence in this thread that there is really nothing necessarily wrong with it. The issue of parents going to sleep drunk or otherwise imbalanced with their very young children is a possible concern, perhaps, but overlooks other issues which are probably more apparent: what the hell are you doing stinking drunk around a kid that young to begin with? Smacks of other issues, IMO, of which “sleeping with baby Johnny” is only tangential.
Someone mentioned a problem with accidentally rolling over on a baby or child in bed with you. In my own experience and that of my friends, this never happens! Mommy is preternaturally aware of baby during sleep, and I would assume Daddy is as well.
erislover’s posts in this thread have made me react in a way I’m not sure I entirely understand. Upon reflection I’m sure it has plenty to do with the way things were in the house when I was a child.
Displays of affection were not a strong suit in my family - this was more out of dysfunctional repression on one person’s part than anything else. Unfortunately, the expression of affection - or what was understood to be affection - took the form of some seriously detrimental actions. It did not happen to me, but I caught plenty of the fallout.
I don’t know how old you are, erislover - I’m making no assumptions, here - but seeing, or hearing about, two adult family members expressing their affection in such a physical manner absolutely blows my mind. I’m not attacking you for this, please be clear on that. I see my niece and nephews expressing their affection for their parents, and to me it looks like behavior between two romantically involved adults. That doesn’t mean it is, of course - because there’s apparently a real bond of trust and openness between them all that I’ve never experienced.
Overall, I guess I’m on the side of parents who don’t feel uncomfortable with having their kids share the bed when they’re young. I suppose if there’s that level of affection early on in life, then it won’t feel like anything out of the ordinary later on.
Feh, enough soul-searching for one thread!
Yeah, olen, I can see that it sounds strange (I’m almost 26 :o). But it doesn’t feel strange. She’s still my mom, I still feel comfortable with her. Admittedly, we don’t bathe together or anything LOL but just watching a movie or going to sleep. :shrug: Very affectionate people.
Nah…too easy
Co-sleeping family. No big deal transitioning to own beds when the kids were/are ready.
However, if you’re going to co-sleep with a newborn PLEASE PLEASE look at the newest research! Mckenna and Sears were responsible for claiming that co-sleeping protected against SIDS but the research is NOT bearing this out at all. There are ways to co-sleep with a newborn which are safer than just putting the baby in bed with you. It does seem counterintuitive that co-sleeping is not the safest option but research is showing that it is not.
Your role as a parent is to nurture and protect your child…and then to help him learn how to live on his own.
So while it’s okay for now, you may be setting yourself up for a hellacious battle later when the child is too big or squirms too much for all involved to get a decent night’s rest. Make sure you aren’t becoming a crutch for her where you inhibit weeScylla from learning how to pacify herself to go to sleep. Knowing how to overcome your fears is a big deal in development.
A neighbor of mine didn’t have the kids sleep in her bed…she and hubby would sleep in the kids’ beds. They went in “just until I fall asleep, daddy/mommy” and would end up falling asleep. Eventually they’d make it to their own bed, but every night their rest was interrupted and a lot of the time, the youngster would wake up, not find mom or dad, and come join them. It ends up they’re all tired in the morning. And if there’s a thunderstorm, you can guarantee four blurry-eyed people come morning.
Now she is having problems with her 8 year old son not being able to attend sleepovers. He’s called them the last 5 sleepovers at 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning to come get him. Because he’s scared. When everyone else falls asleep, he simply doesn’t know how to get to sleep on his own. Mom and Dad are doing him a disservice by not allowing him to do this at home.
So follow your heart for now, but keep in mind that there is a fine line between being protective and being overly protective.
Well, we just figured that when he got some of those ‘special feelings’ he won’t want to sleep in the same bed with an adult.
Which is just what happened about 11.
I was raised in a pack of seven children, and none of us were allowed to sleep in the parental bed, so it was hard for me to go along with my wife when she wanted to let our son into ours. It made her happy, everyone got a good night sleep, and he eventually outgrew it, so no problem right? Of course, right before he outgrew it (between 4 and 4 1/2 yrs)he was sleeping sideways, passing noxious gas(quite loudly), and trying to stick his stinky feet where they didn’t belong. When I voiced my concern, my wife would say,“but he’s so angelic, its so peaceful to watch him sleep” to which I would complain that the end I was getting was not as angelic and hardly peaceful. But I didn’t make a big deal out of it, and he outgrew it.
You might be faslely linking causality here. I didn’t sleep in the same bed as my parents (well not often It might have happened on occassion), but a couple times when I was at a sleep over I got scared and couldn’t sleep and had to be taken home.
First of all I don’t see anying wrong with parents sleeping with thier kids. No argument here. Do it if it works for you.
But:
You know, I’ve always had a problem with this rationalization. Non-industialized societies are generally impoverished. There simply isn’t another place for the kid to sleep if you’re poor and living in a hut. I don’t see how this makes co-sleeping more ‘natural’, it just makes it the only option if you’re poor.
To turn that argument around, it’s mostly poverty that forces parents in non-industrialized societies to sleep with thier children. Ok, so what? Why does this make co-sleeping better or worse than not co-sleeping? I don’t mean to pick on tygre or anyone else, but I really don’t see how this pop-socioanthropology contributes to the pluses or minuses of co-sleeping. I’d like to hope that the subject could stand on it’s own.
Oops, I should have put:
[hijack]
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around my post.
And sorry for the hijack.
FWIW, SqueegeeJr (33 months) has been in his own bed since about 6 months old.
We co-slept for a while, and nobody got much sleep – SqJr was a very loud & restless infant (snorts & sighs & farts etc all night). I ended up sleeping on a couch off & on for weeks, Mrs Squeegee didn’t fare much better. We finally decided this wasn’t working at about 4 or 5 months and got serious about making him sleep in his crib. After some adjustment (which was fairly unpleasant at first) it’s been mostly bliss ever since, for all of us.
SqJr is now in his ‘big boy’ bed and doing well, though with occasional trips down the hall in the middle of the night for hugs and reassurance.
Everyone has their own bed, however both our boys slept with us as much as not when they were infants and toddlers. The oldest slept with us longer, off and on until about four. The younger one was a noisey sleeper and seemed to prefer his own space unless he wasn’t feeling well. By the time the oldest was four we had a good bedtime routine down, teethbrushing, bath, jammies, prayers, rocking, songs, and stories, everyone started out in their own bed. There was no great trauma getting anyone to sleep in their own bed by the time the oldest was school age.
I wouldn’t trade the wonderful goodnight snuggles and good morning giggles for anything. They were worth whatever small amount of sleep was lost by sharing our bed with our children when they were young.
Assumably their spouse.
Sicko.
In fairness, this could have been a mistype of “how”.
I’d like to sleep with my baby. Unfortunately, he tends to lick my face and snuffle my crotch and bring me sticky, slobber covered things if I let him into the bedroom at night. It keeps me up all night and makes a hell of a mess out of the bedclothes. But I do bring him in in the morning and let him jump up on the bed and get some lovin’. Then we snuggle a little bit and I rub his belly before we go for walkies.
Oh…you mean HUMAN babies.
I don’t have children, so I’m certainly not qualified to answer questions about child-rearing. But it’s always my opinion that there’s nothing wrong with affection. Chances are, because of your own nature, you’re raising a bright, well-adjusted, independent little girl. When it’s time for you to get some private time or what-have-you, I’m sure she’ll adjust easily because you KNOW how to handle those situations.
Until then, maybe Dr. Phil would tell you to rearrange things, even though everyone’s comfortable and happy. I don’t think a change is such a great idea.
-L