To think co-sleeping with toddlers is madness?

[Grapejuiceforgrownups]

We have a 16m old, recently went on a week long holiday with friends and their 19m old. Our toddler naps 12-2 or thereabouts, she had some naps in car or buggy if we were out and about but prefer her to nap in cot where possible. She sleeps 7-7ish, went to bed later on some nights as we were on hols. We have a 10 min long bedtime routine and she usually falls asleep within 5 mins of going in cot, if she cries we take her out again, settle her then put her back but this is rare. On the week long holiday she woke two of the nights in the night, took 5 min of settling. Other 5 nights she slept through.

Friends' DS won't sleep unless there is a parent with him so one of them has to lie down and either sleep or pretend to be asleep for up to an hour to get him to have a nap. At bedtime they do the same. Every night at about 10pm he would be up again screaming, I'm guessing because he would wake and get upset that the parent he fell asleep with was gone, and he would usually come into the lounge with us and fall asleep in his mum's arms. He won't sleep in a cot so they have to put the mattress on the floor surrounded by cushions. When they go to bed he sleeps between them and kicks all night when he is asleep, wakes up hourly and fusses and needs soothing, so basically neither of them get any sleep. During the day he was grumpy and tired, rubbing his eyes a lot. No set bedtime (usually goes to bed with them at 9ish at home they said), no set nap times, no routine that I could see. He's not BF since 1 year.

I get why you would co-sleep with a little baby, we did occasionally when ours was little and we did everything baby led for the first 4 months before gently adding a night time routine. She was in a bednest until 6m then cot in her own room. We've never done CIO, I don't have a problem with controlled crying if done gently but it wasn't for us. We rocked or cuddled to sleep until 8m then used pick up put down method to teach her to self settle.

I'm asking in the spirit of genuine curiosity rather than hoiking up my judgey pants, but it seemed so mad to me that they were still at newborn levels of exhaustion when he is 1.5 years old, I genuinely want to know what the benefits are of extended co-sleeping and why people do it? Am I missing a trick??

Oh god, I sound like your friends.

I lay down with 2 and a half year old dd for naps and to go to sleep.

She usually just comes to bed with us around 8-9, she falls asleep and we go on the internet or sleep ourselves.

I do it for an easy life, i did it with my 14 year old and by 3 he was in his own bed sleeping 12 hours a night, he just decided he wanted to sleep in his own bed one night.

I hope she'll do the same but she is far more cuddly and clingy than he was

I started co sleeping as I am a soft old bag and can't bear my babies to be even a few feet away in a cot.

i;m a lazy fucker though and work from home usually in the middle of the night so i nap with her in the day so it suits me!

I have also co-slept because it was either that or no sleep. I have a ten year old who suffers from severe anxiety and has panic attacks etc. Sometimes she wakes in the night flustered and teary. I could either spend an hour and a half getting her to take deep breaths etc whilst she sobs, or I can climb into bed with her and let her calm herself. I go for the latter because that way we both get some sleep.

Dc1 you say. I truly hope your luck continues because I wouldn't wish a non sleeping DC on anyone. It's the pits.

I co-sleep with my soon-to-be 7 year old. This has been going on for nearly 5 years now.

There are reasons, tied in with her traumatic early life. It is inconvenient, but feels like what she needs right now.

It is very galling how many people (friends, family) queue up to tell me how stupid I am to do it, though.

Ah the smugness of having a first child who is a sleeper! Different strokes and all that - I'm sure it will have occurred to them that there are different methods and they will be doing whatever it takes. As a PP said - that smugness might come and bite you on the arse if you have another one!

Despite what you think and your child sleeping definitely having been down to your superior parenting methods it is actually more down to the child you get, and each one is different.

Yeah, and give it a few more years and another child or two - you'll find yourself doing all kinds of things that would seem madness to you now!

Lucky you to have a child who sleeps so well

You sound like our friends who couldn't get over just how much effort it took us to get our DS1 to go to sleep and stay asleep.

They didn't say too much to our faces but I'm sure behind our backs they were commenting.

DS was FOUR before he was finally diagnosed with lactose intolerance causing severe reflux. Poor thing was in so much pain I'm not surprised he couldn't sleep. Co-sleeping saved my sanity, my job, my health and probably my mariage.

I have one that sleeps and one that doesn't. I am currently sleep training and its torture.

Ooh and we all couldn't get over having DS2 who napped no problem and sleeps reasonably well at night (though never more than 9/10 hours)

Our DC have come and slept in our bed on and off since they were old enough to leave their own beds and toddle across the landing..... it went on until they were about 3/4 respectively but then fell off. DS1 (5yo) has only started going to sleep by himself at night in the past 3 weeks and has never slept for a 12 hour stretch in his life.

All kids are different.

I look at it this way. When you are little the world can seem scary. If I was little, and scared, what could be more comforting that cuddling up with my mum or dad? So if that is what it takes to get them calm and sleeping, then I don't mind doing that.

But it is to each their own. I don't mind, partly because I am a terrible insomniac myself, so even with little arms and legs kicking me and poking their fingers in my ears, it doesn't really matter because I wouldnt' be getting wonderful restful sleep even if I was in a king size bed alone.

If you can sleep well, and you don't sleep well with a baby/toddler/seven year old/ten year old beside you, then it makes perfect sense that you will not want to co sleep. And nothing wrong with that either.

This won't end well OP. I'd never "seen" so much co-sleeping until reading MN. BUT, people have such busy lives these days (often both parents working full time) and that sometimes means doing anything to get even a reasonable amount of sleep for all concerned. We never co-slept with DD (unless poorly), it just never crossed my mind as a "thing to do" but I'm a much older mum (53) and I think it is partially a generational thing, things are done a bit differently now to say if I had been a young mum in say the mid 80's (later toilet training etc).

I know people with children under 4, parents never share a bed (well rarely obviously), dad shares with one child, mum sleeps on a mattress on the floor with second child in another room. I was a bit 😧 until I realised that this was actually really hard for them but itworked (in a strange way) and it's unlikely they'll be doing it at 12 and 14.

Viking what's the difference between because of and due to??

I have a horrendous back ache today due to the awkward position I slept in last night with 1.5 year old DC snuggled up with me from 3am when, after three hours of trying to get her to settle in her cot we gave in and brought her in with us. Some just don't sleep well. And to be honest, waking up with a little face inches from mine saying hellow mummy makes the back pain bearable.

maddie it is really funny you should say that because I had never seen so much anti co-sleeping sentiment until I read mumsnet! Everyone I know did or does the 'let's just climb into bed beside them if it gets them to sleep' thing, it was just taken as part and parcel of parenthood. I had never heard of 'sleep training' until I read about it here. And I thought that 'sleep training' was the modern thing, and co-sleeping was how it was done 'in the olden days'.

I think the big difference is that no one called it 'co-sleeping'. It was just, well, sleeping.

*Lucky you having a child who sleeps well.

When you have a child who doesn't sleep well you tend to do whatever is needed to get some sleep!*

This. With bells on.

Your post is positively radiating with smugness. Dress it up as 'curiosity' all you want but you are clearly judging your friends. My DD is 2.5 and she was very much like your DC until around 18 months. She would nap anywhere, was blissfully easy to get to sleep in the evenings and slept for 12 hours a night every night. Then suddenly at 18 months it all changed. Just like that. Now we have to lie with her (in her bed) until she falls asleep and she wakes between one and four times a night. So, yes, most nights she ends up in bed with us because we are fucking exhausted and have jobs to go to in the morning so we have to do what we can to get some sleep. Believe me, I would love to have my bed back and be able to get a full uninterrupted nights sleep.

Am I being unreasonable to think that co-sleeping as a deliberate parenting strategy is an overwhelmingly middle class concept? Most people just try to get sleep. Sometimes that means the child is in the bed with them. I am pregnant with my first and, having seen the havoc wrought by toddlers in my family, in and out of their rooms and jumping into bed with mum and dad every five minutes, screaming hysterically if left alone for five minutes or if told to go back to their own beds, I am going to be straining every sinew to get mine into her own cot and sleeping through within 6 months. But it may not work.

Oh god OP, you sound like a smug arsehole. 'We have an excellent routine and our friends don't, therefore their child not sleeping well is all their own doing. We however, are perfect, with our 12 hour sleeping toddler'

I have a horrendous back ache today due to the awkward position I slept in last night with 1.5 year old DC snuggled up with me from 3am

I feel your pain, but I have the opposite problem. DH and I had the bed to ourselves last night so I ended up sleeping the whole night on my back, rather than spooning DD. My back is killing me. I'm supposed to lie on my side to sleep.

Curiously OP hasn't returned

Love smug first time parents.

They fucked me with DD1. I listened to too many very knowledgable people. DD sadly didn't. She would ONLY go to sleep if she co slept.

Ds2 didn't care. Would sleep anywhere.

Dd3 will only sleep in her cot.

My opinion on where the dc sleep obviously counts for feck all.

All my friends sleep trained their children, I co sleep, Dd has always had her own bed but chooses to sleep in mine she's nearly 7.

However, wih the exception of bedtime DDS is an exceptionally easy child, never tantrums, never sulks, eats what ever is given to her, is kind, caring and very empathetic, behaves impeccably when we are out and always has done. I'd much rather her have those qualities but want a cuddle in bed at night than many of my friends children who behave the opposite but go to bed and sleep through, who knows whether it has a link but I suspect the security does affect her personality.

We have one wonderful sleeper. Was sleeping through from 10 week, rarely wakens in the night, sleeps 12 hours a night.

Then we have DC2. 19m and has never slept through. In-fact I can count the number of times she has done a 5 hour stretch on one hand.

We co-sleep as it is the only way I get anything resembling "sleep"

It's horrible but needs must.

Yes I could do sleep training but I work and thus need some kip , I have another child and I have neighbours.