To wonder if parents who cosleep with toddlers have very biddable children?

[abacucat]

Many parents co sleep with babies, but I always wonder about parents who co sleep with toddlers and young kids. IME toddlers are fidgety, have a propensity to starfish, and basically be awkward buggers who would make the parents getting a good nights sleep, totally impossible. So do parents who co sleep with toddlers and slightly older just have lovely kids who sleep in a way that means their parents can also sleep well?

Yeah, apart from the demands for snuggles here and there!

DS was a quiet sleeper.

Nope mine sleeps on my face or curled around my head like a cat
I don’t sleep very well at all, but it’s preferable to the hours of screaming for me if I try to put him in his own bed

My DS would have thought co sleeping was co playing all night. YANBU.

DD is a very chilled out, calm child and we've slept successfully together for several years.

She’s not fidgety but does like to be v close to me so we start off at the far side of the super king bed and by 2am I’m usually right at the other edge! Sometimes (like last night) I ended up sleeping across the foot of the bed. Luckily I’m a single parent so we have the space for that. If not I would’ve had her in her own bed by now. But we live co-sleeping.
Dd2 wasn’t as clingy and just liked to hold my hand for a few mins if she woke up

I mean if it works for you fine, just suspect it is not that usual to have a toddler who sleeps nicely and quietly.

My LG sleeps well but does starfish so a superking sized bed is ordered or at least that's my excuse to my husband anyway 🙈

I think they're just used to it. My eldest never to slept and on the odd occasion I have had to share a bed with him it's awful. We take ages to settle and it's a restless night.
My middle child co slept from about 12 weeks old and is nice to sleep with now at 3. I think you just get used to it over time
We wake up in some odd positions.

Wintermam Yeah I could see that would work. I know on MN there is a better off demographic with presumably bigger houses than average. Not an option for a lot of people unless you want the bed to take up the whole room.

When my toddlers slept in our bed I would find myself right on the very edge. And no, my children are in no way biddable, even the gentlest of our three.

DS co-slept and was generally fairly still, so he came in with us from whenever he woke up. Sometimes DH used to jump in DS’ (small double) bed for the rest of the night if we were a bit squashed. DS is 4 now and sleeps in his own bed fine, but does still wake once in the night and one of us will go in and cuddle him back to sleep.

DD is a total wriggler, she kicks my head and fidgets and pesters me for milk. I put up with it until she was 16mo, and luckily by then she was fine in her cot.

My daughter coslept beautifully with me on a mattress on the floor. My son would be out of there and down the stairs in his sleeping bag in about 10 seconds.

Some amour of fidgety starfishing here but you sort of get used to it after a while. We got a king-size bed which helped.

(Co-sleeping was not the original plan, but DD was a hellish sleeper as a baby and toddler and we all got more sleep this way round.)

DD coslept and so far has been a truly delightful child. She’s 5 and still loves snuggles in bed.

Conversely DS2 & DS3 coslept a bit. I wouldn’t use ‘biddable’ to describe either of them at all

Snoring, star fishing, kicking, fidgeting, it's awful. Just slightly less awful than putting them back to bed a million times and putting up with screaming for hours!

With my DD1, it wasn’t planned but a solution to the lack of sleep for everyone - she slept, as another poster put it, like a cat curled around my head. A very quiet sleeper and, just like my husband, hardly moved at night.
We were then prepared for DD2 to have the same routine but she loved her own sleeping space (basket then cot) right from the beginning, loved naps - we used to stare in wonder at her falling asleep after just gently laying her in her cot no fuss at all. Would have been a nightmare to sleep with, as was a complete starfish !

Snoring, star fishing, kicking, fidgeting, it's awful. Just slightly less awful than putting them back to bed a million times and putting up with screaming for hours

This x10000.

Any sleep is preferable to no sleep.

I coslept out of necessity, for a few reasons.

One of which was that we had no space to do proper sleep training.

We lived in a one bed flat until DS was 4yrs old. It was basically an open plan living & kitchen space with a bedroom boxed off it, and a bathroom right off the end of the kitchen.

I certainly don’t think cosleeping is driven by affluence! Although I can see it can be portrayed as part of an ‘exclusive parenting lifestyle’, which is maybe what you’re thinking about?

In the rest of the world it’s certainly not, it’s just the way sleeping spaces fit into much smaller living spaces than we in the uk are used to.

Also sometimes they giggle in their sleep which is almost adorable enough to make up for getting woken by a foot to the eye socket. Alllllllllmost.

wellthisisshit I think it is driven by affluence in this country. Yes in much of the world the whole household sleeps together because the idea of an actual room just for sleeping is an unimaginable luxury. Used to happen in Britain too, everyone slept together that lived together, whether family members or not.
But these people have no choice. Most people in Britain do have a choice as far as space is concerned. So it is not really comparable.

We didn’t have a choice when DD1 was a baby because the spare room was tiny and damp and I didn’t want to put a baby in it. Didn’t feel very driven by affluence there!

My 2 year old is a limpet but now I'm just used to it. I objected to feet in the face though

Loads of parents cosleep with babies not through choice. Most cosleeping with babies is I suspect unplanned.
That is very different from the type of British family who buy a massive massive bed to sleep 2 parents and 3 kids in. The latter is much more likely to be driven by affluence.
But this is a total side track. I was more wondering if parents who co slept with toddlers had lovely quiet children who slept beautifully. I can see it is a mixture. If you have children who sleep beautifully, I can see the attraction of cosleeping with a toddler. Just not my experience of toddlers at all.

14 month DD has always been a great sleeper, but if she’s ever been unwell or unsettled after injections I’ve tried taking her into my bed.

She perks up immediately and starts using my pillow, duvet and headboard as a soft play area and refuses to just lie down. The one time I did manage to get her to sleep, she thrashed and wriggled so much I don’t think I got more than 45 mins sleep between each wake up.

I love the idea of co-sleeping, being close and snuggling with a lovely sleepy cuddly toddler. The reality is very different!