When dd was born I liked all of the theory behind attachment parenting so I coslept, breastfed til dd was 3, tried slings (didn't get on with them ) etc. I didn't go back to work til dd was 18 months and am still in a PT role.
DD has had a sleep regression since Halloween which scared her. I have to lie next to her to get her to sleep and then she still comes into mine in the middle of the night. I wouldn't mind but she talks and I end up grumpy and shouting at her. I am tired and resentful and in all honesty I just want my own space. The trouble is when she's in bed with me the slightest sniffle disturbs me. I don't feel more bonded; I feel like I want to scream although I love her. This next week I am not working so will have to do sleep training. Any suggestions?
AIBU?
To think that attachment parenting hasn't really worked for me?
superstarheartbreaker · 30/12/2012 10:54
You need to put a time limit on a nice hug if she's scared and then quietly and firmly take her to her own bed.
It takes practice, but there is usually a point after about half an hour when an older DC is getting either very fidgety or almost a sleep and is quite amenable to having their own space.
It helped that DD2 still BF at that age and seemed to instinctively understand that this priverlage would be withdrawn if she stopped Mother getting too much sleep.
To be fair DD worked this out at about 2 and only came in at night when too many tigers entered her dreams or she was ill.
DD1 never co-slept as she wasn't BF and simply did not keep still. She would pull herself up on the bed head and bounce on the pillows between DH and I
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I agree AP isn't a set way of things or a means to an end - if you're doing it as a means to an end then that isn't AP, it's just co-sleeping or whatever.
Also I think it's okay to agree with AP principles for babies and toddlers because they make logical sense but not so much for older children, but it's about the way you handle it - it would be cruel for example to get to some set age, say 3.5, and switch suddenly from AP to supernanny techniques. IMO, anyway.
I think it's quite normal to find co-sleeping intensely irritating once you have stopped, I certainly do, and I loved co-sleeping back when he was a baby. DS is 4.2 and although he's got to the point now where I don't need to stay with him until he falls asleep, some nights he does want me to lie with him and depending on circumstance etc I will do. If he comes into my bed in the middle of the night I either end up putting a pillow between us so that he doesn't encroach on my space too much or moving him back once he's in a deep sleep. He can't share with me and DP any more - the bed is just too small.
If it helps, I was a single parent from when DS was 13 months. I have had both a casual-sex "relationship" and a proper romantic/serious relationship between then and now while DS was co-sleeping and this is how it worked:
With the casual sex thing, he would come over when DS was asleep or with his dad. If DS was asleep upstairs then we'd use the sofa bed or just the sofa 
When DS was away, then we used the bed. Visits were quite few and far between but it was purely a physical thing so that wasn't really an issue.
When I met DP DS was about 2 - possibly just under 2? He still co-slept at that point. It took a while from meeting DP, realising I liked him, to us getting together, to sleeping together and then it getting serious enough for me to let him into my bed. All of this meant I had plenty of time to move DS out and get him used to that idea before it looked (to DS) like I was shoving him out of bed to make way for my new lover, because it wasn't like that at all.
Up until this point, again, if we wanted to have sex it was on the sofa/sofabed after I got DS to sleep or when DS was out of the house completely. DS did occasionally come into bed with me and DP once DP was sleeping over regularly but because I knew this was a possibility I had left it until I felt the relationship was serious enough to let DP sleep there. Before this if he stayed over, he had the sofabed and I'd sleep with him until DS woke up and then move upstairs, possibly come down again if I happened to still be awake by the time DS fell asleep, but usually not.
Waterproof mattress protector is good for accidents! Alternatively you could say she has to wear a nappy in your bed? That might put her off? I don't know if that's too mean DS is (luckily) very good with nights so I haven't had that issue. I DO have a rule that if he comes into my bed he has to lie still and no fidgeting or kicking or he goes back to his own room and that works.
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