How can we stop our 12yo sleeping on our floor??

[Jones3A]

Fucking broken with exhaustion and struggling not to just get really mad even though we know that's not going to work.
DS is prone to phases of anxiety around security/clinginess.
Currently 4 weeks into overnight wake ups where he marches into our room with his pillow and sleeps on the floor.
Any gentle / patient attempt to get him to try to resettle in his own bed rapidly spirals, he gets hysterical and we end up getting angry.
He won't even begin to try. Not to read, not to listen to quiet music, not to have us resettle him, nothing. He goes wild.
How the hell are we going to break this pattern?
We are both under a lot of work stress and the nightly drama is making it so much worse.
Any advice gladly received. I know we're making a shit job of this. In the wee hours I'm not in the best head space to handle it.

Lovely update @Jones3A can't beat an ice cream and chat to resolve matters. He does sound awfully like my dc , who regularly slept on my floor up to age 15, just because he liked sleeping next to me.

Whilst I encouraged him to sleep in his own room, secretly I miss him sleeping by my side but I always knew it wouldn't be forever!

Even without that detailed post, I have to say it is very normal that adolescence/puberty brings with it increased anxiety/insecurity. With the additional information... it does all make sense.

I am not remotely surprised that simply knowing he can come in and get into a bed next to yours to feel safer has reduced his anxiety!

I'd actually be more wary of someone having to go in with him, thats a bigger move from the norm than him simply getting into a bed on the floor in your room, and is likely to eventually illicit some grumping from whoever has to move, means waking someone up... I think that is probably a backward step.

Keep it simple and clear - bed is there on the floor if he needs it, the boundary is 'stay quiet, don't wake us up' be clear that the only reason for this is 'everyone needs lots of uninterrupted sleep' (him included.)

I think (if you can address the underlying issues and give him time to progress through puberty/adolescence) you'll find this is all you need and he will change rooms less and less frequently by himself. Don't rush it though, the second he feels pressure to get braver/grow up etc, that is likely to trigger that insecurity again.

It’s interesting reading your background that he didn’t meet the threshold for a diagnosis. Our eldest didn’t either through the nhs diagnostic tests.
We consulted a private paediatric consultant that specialised in ASD and she said looking at him as a whole person, his social difficulties, old fashioned speach patterns, sensory seeking behaviour it was clear that wherever he was on the spectrum (we all are somewhere) it was clearly affecting his day to day life and she diagnosed him as autistic. Because he was a little older when diagnosed she said he had learnt to mask a lot of the bigger things he had done when he was younger, in order to not stand out (diagnosed last year of primary when we were really in the trenches as he was literally coming apart at the seams and not coping)
She gave us loads of advise, literature to read from etc and things have improved because I think we are better at understanding him.
He is now coming up 12 and has always been our quirky one, but he’s really started to come into his own entering secondary and us understanding more his struggles. Parenting children like mine is no easy task and yours sounds very similar. I’ve learnt to not apply pressure when he’s spiralling as he’s not acting out to be ‘naughty’ and to let things slide a little and pick when to try and sort things rather then try to have it out at the time
Wishing you lots of luck, sleep deprivation is the worst and things always seem much harder when you’re so exhausted.

Wishing you lots of luck, OP. I lurked earlier because so many people had already given good advice.

That’s a great update OP. For him to just know the bed is there in your room if he needs it will be reassuring and will decrease stress for him. I’m glad you had a chance to really talk to him too.

Let him get on with it and get yourself a night’s sleep as well. He’s obviously upset about something and needs to be near you. Hopefully, it’ll pass but be patient with him.

@Jones3A What a great update.

Hopefully just knowing he has that space in your room will be enough to settle him.

It won't be forever. But it's what he needs right now.

You've got this, fingers crossed 🤞 you all sleep better tonight.

I couldn't agree more - we have pretty much taken it as on that day, in that setting, he didn't meet the criteria, which is fine, but we know who he is and I've always understood him through that lens. I'd love to know any particular reading/reference recommendations you have which helped you?
And yes, it is super hard to parent these children isn't it - we don't want to let him down, it feels terribly high stakes, and all so bloody charged.
We do try to often change our language/thinking around "naughty" as you say, we try to say to each other that it's not that he won't, it's that he can't.

Well done OP.Your post upset me earlier as I felt you were focusing on yourself. However Few people on here take advice as you have. Thats a credit to you. I’m so pleased you have talked to your dc and given them the chance to be heard. Good luck on your new start with your dc.

In the "bad moment" I think that's partly how it feels, and partly just my tired dashing off of a rushed cry for help without taking time or effort to reflect much balance.
It's not the reality of how we typically approach parenting him.

I agree with those suggesting you let him get on with it- provided he is quiet and doesn’t disturb you. I did exactly this for a while when I was 11. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and I tried but I kept ending up in my parents’ room. I also couldn’t go to sleepovers, Guide camps or school residentials at that age because I would get so homesick. My parents were almost certainly a bit exasperated by it but they didn’t really show it. They continued to encourage me to go to my own room, but ultimately would accept me sleeping on their floor if I insisted. Sometimes mum would go to my room with me and lie next to me and sing/talk me to sleep. Looking back, I know that I was preoccupied with several frightening thoughts at the time; the main one being the fear of my parents suddenly dying. Somehow being in their room made me feel less scared that they would die in the night.

I did grew out of the phase pretty quickly- hopefully your son will too.

As an adult, I am still fundamentally an anxious person and I also believe I am probably not neurotypical. But I can go away from my loved ones without being homesick and I no longer have to gatecrash someone else’s bedroom in order to be able to sleep!

Well done op, I'm glad you are both feeling better. I think that the security of knowing that something is there if you need it, often means you don't actually need to use it so much. I hope you all sleep better tonight!

Fair play op. I work with children with similar characteristics...something that helps me is to think of "attention seeking" as "attachment seeking" they don't know why they're doing it, just that they need something from you xx

She gave us a load of booklets, I also read a book called raising children with high functioning Autism that I ordered from Amazon that a fellow parent recommended.
We also worked with a therapist who was on the team at the centre we went to as it was a whole team based there.
We went through what was happening at home and then she helped us unpick some of the specific problems, why our child may have felt the need to throw things for instance in that moment. By us trying to parent him in the traditional manner as we had/do with his siblings we were in part making the situation worse, because rewards/withdrawing privileges made no difference because once he was spiralling he couldn’t see a way out.
The therapist was so helpful in showing us that it wasnt a us/him problem it was a communication breakdown, he wasn’t being naughty and we weren’t being terrible parents. Have to admit I cried bucket loads at that because I couldn’t work out where I had gone ‘wrong’ when in fact she pointed out I hadn’t, I had just parented him the same way that works for 90% of other children.

No the op did not say anything about sex whatsoever.

I was replying to the poster who said it was a problem to have the Dc in the room because it could affect the op’s sex kids or be a problem if they sleep naked ( so she did raise nakedness as well as sex).

Far from saying these things rule a house, I was saying the opposite. No one is denying the right to privacy on a long term basis. It’s you who is inferring this will become some sort of long term irregularity. Plenty of posters with experience of exactly this situation have confirmed otherwise. And op had not been doing it until this point so I’m not sure why your comments about “ being a martyr” are appropriate.

My point was that if a child is needing - on a temporary basis - to be near the parents, then those things ( like sleeping naked) take a back seat. In many situations that is the case for parents. I don’t see what you round find so very “disturbing” about that; some of us might find it disturbing that you would not see that.

You are acting as though the op has allowed this on a permanent basis. It’s a phase she has to support the Dc through. That’s what parents do. There’s no shame in the fact he’s wanting to be in their room, no cause for lectures about lack of “ good parenting.”

I could not disagree more in this instance.

Thank you! I thought I was going mad reading the replies on this thread.

Your DS is anxious and the step up from primary to secondary is huge for more less confident, worried children. His brain isn’t fully developed and as you also suspect ND, he has a lot going on in there. Good idea setting a bed up. Make sure he knows to be super quiet when comes in. It sounds like he need his mum n dad at the moment, as he is going through an anxious and insecure stage. Where can’t he just go to bed when u do in your room and all straight to sheep with no waking? Stop worrying for now, enjoy the family closeness and don’t be resentful of him, it won’t last forever

also to clarify I’m not meaning the above as a permanent fixture, just a temporary thing, to help comfort OPs son who’s obviously anxious about something, which hopefully op can get to the bottom of so he can start to relax and be on his own all night

Put an airbed down and just let him sleep there?

I’m inclined to agree.

Our 10 year old has only just stopped coming into our bed in the wee hours. We just went with it for years because y’know ‘it too shall pass’ except it didn’t.

It was a symptom of broader anxiety/clinginess - he struggled to separate from us at school drop off, couldn’t have babysitters etc, we ended up seeking the help of a counsellor.
He’s much better now and stays in his own bed.

I know many of these replies normalising it are well meaning but I really think you need to unpick this and maybe seek professional help.

My DS did this occasionally. When puberty hits, likely v soon, they immediately absolutely do not want to do this! I’d try and sleep through until then

Has anyone said it’s “normal”?

I think they’ve said it’s not an uncommon hiccup. That’s quite different from “normalising.”

I wouldnt say parents put their 6 month old in a separate room just for privacy, surely it’s to train the baby to be able to sleep alone? And to make sure the parents are able to get enough sleep too?

Are we biologically designed to co-sleep? I doubt it. The first Homo sapiens evolved 300,000 years ago. We have since evolved to what we are now. Sure, parents would sleep in the same cave as their children, many reasons for that such as keeping them safe, not getting eaten and warmth. It was also normal to have large families due to no contraception and children dying. Can we say these reasons truly stem from a biological design?

Every single organism evolves. We do this to survive. When we evolve we lose old traditions that don’t serve their purpose anymore. Hence as time has went on we build houses that don’t just contain one room and in western culture a child will usually have their own bedroom. The need for a family to sleep with the children in one room disappeared.

Birds are biologically designed to throw the weakest chick out the nest to ensure the survival of the other stronger chicks. Same with many animals. Humans might find that cruel but this a biological design trait that certain animals have, these animals have all evolved yet still millions of years later still do this. If we were biologically designed to co-sleep, surely every parent on the planet would do it?

You cannot guarantee what age the son will stop sleeping in the room if he continues to do so. It’ll probably be over by the time he’s 13 is based on what? An opinion? The more he does it, the more he’s building a habit and will be harder to break in the long run. Floor/bed. Whatever, still not normal for a 12 year old.