Parenting Secrets with Dr. Michele Borba : Blogs at iVillage.com
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Q&A: Letting Your Child Sleep In Your Bed
Each week Michele Borba answers your parenting questions right here on her blog. If you have a parenting problem or question leave a comment on this post and you may have yours answered next week!
I have a 8-year-old son that still sleeps with me. I started it when he was 2 years old. He had exema and was up about every 2 hours and I had to go to work the next day. It was easier to roll over and put the cream on and go back to sleep then to get out and go to his bed and do it. I have tried everything to get him in his bed. Bought him a new bed and redid his room twice. It is up staris from my room. He has a night light and can spend all day up there playing video games and watching cartoons... even into the evening. But when bed time comes in in bed with mom. My husband sleeps on the couch since the bed is not big enough for the 3 of us. HELP!!!!!!
--Ginger
I wish I had an easy solution but then that's not how parenting goes, right? So here's the long and the short. He's eight years old and it's inappropriate for your son to be sleeping in a bed with you. Period. You already know this but I want to reinforce your instinct. Second this is the age when sleepovers start and for other kids to hear about your sleeping arrangements can cause major damage on the social scene. But most important--this is going to (if not already) cause a major wedge in your marriage. Your husband belongs beside you in that bed. Not your son
You've tried all the "nice" options. You're left with one solution. Tell your son clear and simple that from this moment on he belongs in his bed. That's it. Expect resistence. Expect a fight. And expect him to test you. He'll gradually give up the fight as long as you DO NOT GIVE IN. Your son has to know you are serious.
You and your husband plan your "united front.". If you need to warn the neighbors that there may be a bit of a rucus in the evening they will understand
No guilt. No second thoughts. Just do it, Mom! I'm cheering you on. (And do it tonight--you owe it to your child, yourself and your marriage). Do it!
Stay tough!
Click here to read more of Michele Borba's Q&As, or leave a comment below with your own questions and it may be answered next week.
I have a 8-year-old son that still sleeps with me. I started it when he was 2 years old. He had exema and was up about every 2 hours and I had to go to work the next day. It was easier to roll over and put the cream on and go back to sleep then to get out and go to his bed and do it. I have tried everything to get him in his bed. Bought him a new bed and redid his room twice. It is up staris from my room. He has a night light and can spend all day up there playing video games and watching cartoons... even into the evening. But when bed time comes in in bed with mom. My husband sleeps on the couch since the bed is not big enough for the 3 of us. HELP!!!!!! --Ginger
I wish I had an easy solution but then that's not how parenting goes, right? So here's the long and the short. He's eight years old and it's inappropriate for your son to be sleeping in a bed with you. Period. You already know this but I want to reinforce your instinct. Second this is the age when sleepovers start and for other kids to hear about your sleeping arrangements can cause major damage on the social scene. But most important--this is going to (if not already) cause a major wedge in your marriage. Your husband belongs beside you in that bed. Not your sonYou've tried all the "nice" options. You're left with one solution. Tell your son clear and simple that from this moment on he belongs in his bed. That's it. Expect resistence. Expect a fight. And expect him to test you. He'll gradually give up the fight as long as you DO NOT GIVE IN. Your son has to know you are serious.
You and your husband plan your "united front.". If you need to warn the neighbors that there may be a bit of a rucus in the evening they will understand
No guilt. No second thoughts. Just do it, Mom! I'm cheering you on. (And do it tonight--you owe it to your child, yourself and your marriage). Do it!
Stay tough!
Click here to read more of Michele Borba's Q&As, or leave a comment below with your own questions and it may be answered next week.
The following book has help me establishing a routine with my child:
Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep, Stay Asleep and Wake Up Happy.
Oh please lady! It's not inappropriate! Inconvenient yes. So many cultures have the whole family sharing one bed. Americans sexualize everything. Every heard of Attatchment Parenting? So much for being an expert.
i agree. it is NOT inappropriate! it's inappropriate for you to think it is.
an eight year old boy is a young child. cuddling with his mother is not something that should be discouraged, rather encouraged. our country is so messed up. i am proud to be a growing part of the population that is well versed in child psychology/human development. try visiting www.askdrsears.com for some real "expert" advice on attachment parenting. you don't stop parenting your children because it is nighttime. or inconvenient.
This issue is more about the parents(MOMS).If one isn't able to parent a child to calm himself and go to sleep feeling secure on his own, there is more going on below the surface. I'm not saying sexually.My point is that spouses are supposed to want to sleep together,most of the time. For the child to supplant the husband from his own bed suggests deeper issues.
The best idea I have heard for a persistant co-sleeping child
(after 7 years old)is to provide a spot on the floor for the child. Allow the child to make his own bed up out of his own blankets.Every morning the blankets MUST be returned to his own bed.Be firm.Do not allow the child to climb into your bed.Resist the urge to make it too comfy. let the kid do it himself.
Get your husband back where he belongs so the child can see
he is not in charge of the adults.
Before long the child gets the idea that there is no longer
a reward for sleeping anywhere else but in his own bed.Period.
Confidence will soar and the child will gain understanding of his place in the family.
This attachment parenting is about adults being so emeshed with their child they can't see the forest for the trees.
It should always be about the children. Never about the immature,insecure parents and their unmet childhood needs.
It's not inappropiate unless you make it inappropiate. The child is eight for christ sake.
My eight year old sleeps with me, I'm not married, he has his own room, but it's not big deal. We read together, do homework or watch movies. I see no need to demand that he sleep in his own room at this age. I have three doctors that agree.
He's not going to go into high school still sleeping in moms bed.
Its comforting for both the parent and the child. I cherish our time together.
You need to get over it.
I agree with Tam - a moderate stance is needed that will keep the family together and structured. In the long run, the parents need to be a united team and having the husband out on the couch doesn't support that. I do agree that co-sleeping is only inappropriate if you make it inappropriate.
I don't believe its inappropriate either. My 4 yr. old sleeps between my husband and I and YES its very inconvienant as a matter of fact I have grown kids that did the same thing. I think once they get school age (or sooner) they should be sleeping in their own beds, but to suggest it's inappropriate is wrong.
Since we're talking about children, to me inappropriate is letting a toddler (or older!) breast feed...but I guess that makes me not 'politically correct'...
It is absolute malarkey to say that it's inappropriate for an 8-year-old to sleep with his parents. Of course, Americans always do insist that *our* cultural mores are the ONLY acceptable ones, don't we? It is common practice in many, many parts of the world for children of that age to continue to sleep with their parents. In a study done to evaluate the sleeping habits of military children ages 2 to 13, one of the conclusions was that co-sleeping was *less* common in the children who required psychiatric care. To put it more clearly, military kids who co-sleep are less likely to require psychiatric care. Interesting, to say the least. In that same study, kids who co-slept were reported by their teachers to be better behaved than kids who didn't. A cross-cultural study of 5 ethnic groups in the US showed that adults who co-slept as kids were HAPPIER. Gee, I dunno, but I think I'd kind of like that for my daughter. And the last one I find very relavant to the situation is that a survey of college-age males found that the ones who co-slept between the ages of 6 and 11 (which would include age 8, in case anyone was confused) had higher self-esteem.
So all this "co-sleeping is inappropriate at that age" nonsense is just that: nonsense. It's nothing more than the culturally biased opinion of an expert who has apparently either failed to read the research on the subject or declined to consider it when forming said culturally biased opinion.
I think the problem here is NOT the co-sleeping or even the father sleeping on the couch. The problem here is that the parents are no longer happy with the arrangement, and that *is* a valid issue. They could let the child sleep on the floor until he's ready to move out. They could get a bigger bed, if possible and they're amenable to it. They could put his bed in their room. They could lie with him in his bed until he falls asleep. There are any number of things they could do to work it out that do not involve basically telling the child that they don't care about his needs because theirs are more important.
I am guessing most of the respondents here reside in the People's Republik of Kalifornia. I am wondering how you would feel about your 8-12 year old daughter sleeping with your husband.
As a reminder, it is your job to prepare your child for life, not to be their best friend.
Most of the people on here are idiots, period. It is very inappropriate for an 8 year old boy to sleep in the bed with his mother, while his father is on the couch...that is B.S. You liberal hippies need to wake up and stop ruining our country, I'm sure if it was up to you, you would let a 15 or 16 year old son sleep in the same bed with his mother. If the age of 8 is not inappropriate, then when does it become inappropriate? 9, 10, 11, 12, 13...? Seriously, when?
I do think it is inappropriate. Son or daughter, there are so many things going on at this age and younger developmenaly. If you were talking about a dad sleeping with his eight year old daughter most of you would think this was "weird" Point is a child cannot sleep in mom and dads bed forever. They need to learn to become more independant. Wouldn't you want to teach your child to be seld sufficent?
it is not inappropriate for him to want to sleep with his mother and father. However, it is inappropriate that your husband has been displaced. Perhaps (and this has worked for several families that i have provided childcare for) you can set up goals for him. an actual board with the days of the week and tell him that this weeks goal is to sleep in your own room x number of times and each time he does this he marks it on the chart. when and if his weekly goal is achieved then he recieves the prize or award he was workign towards. after 2 or 3 weekly goals begin a monthly goal. and then after 2 or 3 months start a yearly goal. and by this time he should be sleeping in his own bed with no hesitation. what i have suggested some families do is that after he no longer needs the reward system, tell him that he can still earn point, prizes, or whatever by doing chores or small tasks and recording them. if this does not work let me know i have a few more things up my sleeve. you do have to make the reward something he REALLY wants money works very well with some children. just do not forget to praise him for sleeping in his own bed, and do not scold him for sleeping in yours. just simply say "oh last night you didnt sleep in your own bed, tonight you should try so this way you can mark off your chart".
You people who spew this stuff about attachment parenting are insecure. The child is going to have a healthy attachment to their parents no matter what. It's inbred and natural. Children need to be in their own beds, otherwise they have a warped sense of their place in the family. It has NOTHING to do with any sexual issues. Some of you have said that it is comforting to the parent and the child when you're single, and that is the issue right there. You are putting your children in a place of providing emotional support to the parent. VERY dangerous for the child's emotional well-being.
I am a single mother and my 10 year old daughter still sleeps with me. She should be in her own bed and we discuss it now and then. She knows she cant sleep with me forever but I refuse to make a huge deal of it. Its more or less a habit which eventually I believe she will chose to break. Then together we will ease her into her own room and as far as I am concerned she can revisit any time she wants.I dont believe it is of any harm to either of us.
That's another problem - you are allowing your child to control the situation regarding YOUR bed when it should be YOUR decision. Your daughter will love you anyway even if you send her to her bed for good. Don't be afraid to take the upper hand!