Why do we make children sleep in their own room when it’s clear they don’t want to?

[merrynelly]

Many people I know have struggled with or are struggling with getting their children to sleep in their own room and to stay there for the whole night. Often the child comes to the parents room in the middle of the night and if permitted will sleep in their parents bed for the remainder of the night. I would think that many children seem to feel safer and more secure sleeping in the same room as their parents if not the same bed. So why do we force them to go against what seems to be so natural for them?

Just seems like that on this thread there are two camps and neither one wants to rtf or listen to the other.

"If you don't put the child in their own room, they won't be independent, they will be in with you til they're 18"

Although there are several posters on this thread that say they coslept until the child self-selected to sleep alone and everything worked out well in the end.

"If you put the child in its own room you are damaging the child and neglecting its needs"

Although there are several posters who say they moved their child and the child's sleep actually improved and everyone got a good nights sleep.

So maybe, just maybe, this is like all of those other parenting choices where you can just decide what works for you and your family and everyone else keeps their nose out. I mean it's what you do in your own bedroom at nighttime. It doesn't affect anybody else.

It annoys me a bit when people join threads like this to spread garbage about what will or will not stunt a child's development, traumatize them, turn them into adult babies etc. It's a bedroom. That's all. There isn't anything violent or abusive in either of the choices. If your child grows up to be a psychopath it's not because you did or did not cosleep with them.

I don't care where other people's children sleep. Honestly. I have some friends who Co sleep in big family beds and that's fine for them, great! But it seems to be a huge part of the way they perceive themselves as parents and they talk about it a lot.

Just seems like that on this thread there are two camps and neither one wants to rtf or listen to the other.

I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge we all do things differently. I just resent the people who cite independence as a reason for leaving a small child alone at night if they don't want to be alone.

@Kitkatchunkyplease

I don't care where other people's children sleep. Honestly. I have some friends who Co sleep in big family beds and that's fine for them, great! But it seems to be a huge part of the way they perceive themselves as parents and they talk about it a lot.

I've found this too but on the other hand I guess you wouldn't know about the ones who quietly get on with it! The other day a woman in the playground managed to get in the fact they cosleep in the first four sentences of our small talk

Selfishness , there are no negative benefits to children co sleeping. They will move to their own bed when they are ready.

We used to keep some mattresses and blankets on the floor of our main bedroom. If a child or children came in during the night they could lay down nearby and sleep knowing we were right there. It gave them comfort and let us keep sleeping. This changed our lives and yes I think kids need this more than being separate.

@avocadotofu

We don't. I agree with you it's very unnatural from an evolutionary standpoint and most countries in the world children still sleep with their parents. It's a very western thing to have kids in their own room from a early age.

Interesting; do you have stats on this?

[quote Dontknowowt]@Egghead81 This is my third child. I am a 40 yo experienced mum and my kids are 11 months, 11 years and 14 years. Bedshared with them all and zero regrets.[/quote]
Round of applause?

I took the route that gave everyone the maximum sleep, which mostly involved bed sharing and bed hopping. DS2 slept with me some nights until he was 10. DH would sleep in another room.
These things seem important when you have young children, life is busy and everyone is tired. Like most parenting choices I don’t believe there is a right or wrong.
DS is a fully functioning independent adult now. I really don't accept that having a bit of flexibility aboùt sleeping arrangements has any long term effects.

@Pinkblueberry

I struggle to understand what we don't just do what children want. It was a more a case of I felt like we were going against nature and that's why many struggle with this.

My DS currently thinks it’s great and natural to wee in his potty but wants to shit in his pants... suppose I should leave him to it then and not try to encourage him otherwise. He would also like to eat chocolate as a main meal and watch 300 episodes of Duggee back to back. Here’s me going against his natural instincts - I’ve been getting this parenting thing all wrong.

🤣🤣🤣

My ds would never go to school and definitely never do homework.
He'd live off McDs and ice cream.

@flashylamp yes I feel exactly the same way. Lots of people piped up early on to say their kids became naturally independent despite cosleeping. Loads of us have given good examples of why the independence strategy is a myth.

I still think that the parents needed intimacy, space, sleep are valid reasons for not cosleeping though.

Not all "good" parenting decisions are compatible with each other. Being a "gentle" parent with the patience not to shout/hit/lose temper might require you to get a good night's sleep, for example, and that decision is just as legitimate as another family that decides to cosleep as part of their parenting method.

I agree OP. We spent so much time trying to get our eldest to sleep in his own room and literally nothing worked. I could have spent that time sleeping by just letting him come in with us much sooner. My second child was also a terrible sleeper but we took a much more relaxed approach. We got so much more sleep once we stopped stressing about sleep. If they slept in their own bed all night, great, but if they didn’t then they just came came in with us and went straight to sleep.

It's not quite that cut and dry though. Kids might want to bedshare because they need to feel safe at night. There's more than one way to meet the need but it does need meeting. Lots of people think if it's not about food, water or warmth that it can be ignored. Needs can be emotional too.

Well exactly. That's what I've been saying. I think you haven't read my posts (properly).

Because I am separate from my child and the thought of being with them 24/7 makes me claustrophobic?

I refuse to have my whole self consumed by my child, and this means retaining the right to things like a separate bed, my own space etc

Modern western lifestyles require that we get enough sleep to function at a high level and don't facilitate napping during the day to catch up.

Also we don't live in larger family groups. Historical patterns where children slept with others often likely involved children sometimes sleeping with older siblings, grandparents etc so mum & dad would have got more of a break.

Plenty of children don't mind sleeping in their own rooms? Mine have always done and go to sleep happily every night (they are 4 & rising 2). They have learned through toddlerhood that their beds are safe and comfortable and that I'm only across the hall if they need me.

Because lack of sleep literally makes me want to die. I'm a horrible person when I don't sleep and if the kids were in my room, I wouldn't sleep at all. A good rested sleep is crucial for a child's brain development, so they sleep in their own rooms in their own beds.

DS2 would only sleep next to me as a baby/toddler and he was 3.5 before he would begin the night in his own room. Even then, he'd inevitably wake and crawl in with me every night at some point. He'd go straight back to sleep on my bed and didn't disturb me, so I preferred this time o me trying for hours to get him back into his own bed while he cried!

He's almost nine now and has mostly stopped waking in the night and coming through. But once a fortnight or so he will creep in and snuggle up. It doesn't brother me at all. He obviously needs it emotionally (it got more frequent when lockdowns started, school was cancelled and the news was all awful, then gradually settled again). It's not harming anyone. I sleep better this way and so does he. I very much doubt he'll still be doing it at 13! It has helped him feel secure enough to gradually become more independent.

His big brother, on the other hand, had to go in his own room just before 6m old as I was waking him four or five times a night just being in the same room! I can count the number of times he's woken at night since on two hands (he's 15) and he has never wanted to crawl into my bed in the night! They've been brought up the same, just different personalities and needs.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I had a partner in bed with me too and it disturbed their sleep? And I do think kids should have their own bed and space to escape to when they want. My friends just have a giant Japanese style 'family bed' they share with their three kids. This was always the plan before they even had kids. What if their kids decide they don't want to sleep next to Dad snoring away?

My children came in the early hours of the morning regularly.
It's a part of normal development imo. I always used to let them come into the bed, often I didn't even wake up- fortunately we have room for a big bed, which I made sure we bought when I was pregnant because I remembered going into my own parents' bed as a small child.

My one rule was you have to lie still and go to sleep - any wriggling, talking or otherwise disturbing others gets you taken back to your own bed.

Dd2 came in regularly every night until around the age of 5, Dd1 was I think a little younger and stopped coming regularly at about 3 and a half.
But basically they both just stopped coming.

Letting a young child come into your bed doesn't mean they'll still be coming into your bed when they're older.

We are the only species on the planet that makes their young sleep away from them.

Complete tosh!

We are the only species on the planet that makes their young sleep away from them

It’s true though, you know how you always see flies cuddled up with their children?

@TheVolturi

We are the only species on the planet that makes their young sleep away from them.

The majority of species on the planet are invertebrates who don't do any parenting whatsoever.

Even plenty of mammals will leave their young alone for extended periods.

But honestly who cares what other species are doing? We're the only species that wears clothes or learns to read or cooks food. I doubt you'll be going outside to live as much like a squirrel or a wild boar as you can any time soon.

I was a pain about going to bed as a child and would always try and sleep in my mum's bed. She eventually let me and I stayed sleeping in there for quite a few years.

It hasn't stunted me - I now sleep alone, and prefer not to share a bed. It did make me feel secure as a child though.

It would be harder for couples though.

My son went into his own room at 6 months, we had a baby monitor and he was being breastfed, so I was in there a fair bit. We only moved him out of our room as we had friends staying in the spare bedroom that husband slept in (he was working). He needed his sleep.

But it turned out son slept way better in his own room, and so did I. We were waking eachother up.

That's why we put him in his own room - but we didn't 'make him' as such. I still went to him when he cried, I could hear him really well on the baby monitor, so he wasn't 'awake and alone'.