Co-sleeping

[oldnewmummy]

Our lovely boy is almost 8. He was adopted at birth, slept in cot and then his own room until about 10 months, and has been pretty much co-sleeping ever since. (Mainly with me, husband usually ends up in the spare room).

We've tried a few times to get him to sleep in his own bed/room. We tried a single bed in our room but he fought it, and now have a new grown up double bed in his room. The plan was that I'd sleep in there with him for a few weeks and then he'd be alone, but he's hysterical at the thought. He is an anxious child, but I don't know how much of his reaction is genuine anxiety and how much is trying it on.

I'm pretty immune to the criticism from, e.g., my parents, but I'm concerned about getting him out before puberty!

Any experiences/comments/suggestions?

don't worry about pupertry stage. they will soon learn to move on and not want you near them

When I mentioned sleepovers, I meant inviting a friend to stay at yours. This could be an incentive, "when you can sleep by yourself, you can have a friend to stay etc" it helped my DD to be motivated to give up her dummy (at the age of 6)

You say you have plenty of bedrooms. Is there no way you could rearrange so his room is closer to yours?

No experience of adopted children but mine love to be in my bed. I read to them, then tuck them up and be 'busy' with little jobs like brushing my teeth, then check on them, talk h my make up off, then check.....

Generally they are asleep within half an hour now.

Have you thought about trying a putting a single bed right next to yours, if you have space. We used the ' family bed ' to allow dp in as ds was using bedtime to get me to herself and doesn't like sharing me with daddy. May not be your issue but does ds push your dh away at other times? We had to work a bit with ds 6 on being happy to share my attention with dh. I.e. Letting me talk to him, give cuddle etc. Ds now loves family bed and it meant the whole bed time stress could be shared!

Found this article on my FB newsfeed, which seemed prescient.

evolutionaryparenting.com/bedsharing-beyond-infancy-the-question-of-independence/

He's had 2 nights in his bed with daddy and 1 night in the single bed near me. We'll carry on with that as a halfway house. He's very close to Daddy, but he snores.

Re sleepovers: on NYE we had 2 families staying, so 5 extra kids. They were going to have a giant sleepover in his room but he ended up crying and coming in with us.

Thanks for all the comments - good to know we're not freaks!

Very interesting article. I do like a bit of scientific evidence to justify my approach!