Child sleeps on a mattress on the floor

Similar, had a little sleepwalker and it was safer for him
he still talks and walks asleep now he’s 19!

My eldest son refused for years to even sleep on a mattress on the floor! He wanted bare floor with a sheet over him and it didn’t matter how many different beds etc I tried he refused to sleep in them! As an adult he will sleep on a mattress now to keep me happy and occasionally a bed if in a hotel etc but loves a hard floor really 😂 it’s a sensory thing and he’s got autism which means a lot of his friends also with ASD also don’t want to sleep in a bed

From IP’s description it seems unlikely the mattress wasn’t aired, though description is brief and if I was there I might have thought different. And I don’t know about the sheet. Which is why I said it wasn’t enough on its own to make me consider mentioning it to the school.

If you think about it a bed is a mattress on wooden slats so is almost the same. When we moved my DD has a high sleeper but due to the heat we couldn't get a fan up that high so we put her mattress on the floor so the fan would help her with the heat. I must admit I didn't feel massively comfortable with it but she was happy.

Maybe she’s just a bit of a hippie? I’m genuinely quite surprised you haven’t ever come across this. If there were no other signs of neglect and she isn’t struggling financially I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Have you had quite a sheltered life? I don’t mean this rudely but your other comment about mess made me think maybe you haven’t come across many bohemian type people before?

A change of linen, and a regular mattress turn will help. Putting the mattress on a pallet so it's ventilated from underneath is also going to make it healthier.

I had to do this for my DD when she first started having seizures in her sleep and falling out of bed. Was just until I saved up to get her a lower down small double and memory foam mattress. But that did the trick.

Some of the responses, including the OP, reminds me of the Catherine Tate sketches involving the wealthy mother with two children. I think there was one about a Northern nanny, and another involving a yoghurt that wasn’t organic.

You’ll be telling me next that the children eat chicken nuggets and Iceland baked beans.

Oh, the horror.

How? Clean bed linen. Turning the mattress regularly. As long as it doesn’t get wet it will be fine.

I think the fact it was a bare mattress is the thing that would bother me. Yes the sheets could be in the wash or whatever but if they're not then that's not great.

@PrettyLittleRose

What exactly is 'happening ' to this child?

@Ovenpizzasarerank has started a thread and set hairs running based on a brief glimpse into a child's room on a play date.
She had said the child is cared for.
The only other thing she can come up with is that the house is untidy, and his clothes are old.
Is the kitchen overflowing with rubbish, maggots or flies, she hasn't said the bathroom smells to high heaven.
Every one is jumping to conclusions based on one thing which is that the sheet was in the wash.

Im away to do 2 days of washing up and have a bowl of cereal for dinner.

Floor beds usually still have a base though

I'll have you know, growing up I lived in a cardboard box....

I agree that most people would hope to give their children the most comfortable start in life, and I am simultaneously pointing out that children did survive sleeping on (gasp) second hand mattresses on the floor, or lifted off the floor for ventilation on pallets.

Where do you live that you’ve never seen a floorbed before? This is 2026 and it’s super common especially among upper middle class people. She may well have stripped the bed that day. The fact you say she’s bohemian just suggests she’s one of those Montessori types. Honestly it’s rife!

I slept on a futon for a while as a kid. As far as I know no one made a social services referral and I have lived to tell the tale.

I did have friends growing up who didn’t have beds but it was because they were poor. If she isn’t poor then it’s likely by choice or temporary. Children in poverty not having proper beds is a big issue, there are charities that provide them.

Humans are indeed. But as time goes on we live and learn better ways to do things, through years of learning, science, biology. Having a child sleep with bugs and ticks in the past doesn't mean that it's actually a good idea going forward.

It could be in the wash. We supposedly have 2 bedding sets per bed, but I'll be damned if I can find them all. So on wash day Ithe beds have no sheets.

Maybe the child is a bed wetter, and the duvet was out to air?

A one-off snippet isn't enough to judge.

100s of years ago, people used to throw their shit out of the window onto the street below, (when there were no proper sewage systems.) yet the human race survived!

Shall we start doing this too?

🙄

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I said "greater susceptibility" not all.

I haven't cast a judgement, just outlined why it can be a problem in British homes when it's culturally normal in other countries.

From what OP has described, it's ambiguous, and it's worth being aware of what is problematic in case it is past that threshold to being an unhealthy sleeping arrangement. Bed poverty is a genuine, widespread issue, and not always a healthy, well-informed choice, especially as children get older and able to sleep on a standard bed safely (in the absence of SEN adjustments).

For hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, children slept on straw with all the bugs and ticks and infestations, and they survived to be your forebears. The human animal is pretty resilient.

Bed poverty is a form of child poverty - this covers bed and bedding. It may be the child prefers just a mattress but in view of the other concerns (inadequate bedding, generally untidy), I would mention it to school and let them investigate. You could ask they don't mention to the parent that you have reported it to them.

Lots of people sleep on mattresses on the floor. Its certainly safer. Id only be concerned if the child had to sleep on the actual floor with nothing to lie on.
A lot of people are also not house pround and dont have these kinds of standards.
The important thing is that the child is loved and reasonably presentable.

Of course it's not a ridiculous thread. It's full of opinions - and peoples experiences - that do not align with YOURS! That does not make it 'ridiculous!'

What a rude, dismissive thing to say - that the thread is 'ridiculous.' purely because many people think what is happening with this child is not normal or acceptable.

Basically saying that anyone who has a different opinion to YOU is 'wrong.'

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That must depend on the floor's constrction.

On a concrete floor with no damp membrane it might.

On suspended wooden floorboards it'll be as dry as a bone.