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?

Should have said if it's easier on everyone to bed share.

Sometimes you all just need to sleep. You can encourage them into their own bed when they're a bit older and more able to understand.

Attachment parenting, oh dear....................

It’s really a very modern idea that children should be under such close supervision and in such close contact at all times and this is beneficial to them.

Um yes, partly because children used to be raised by a huge extended family that very few people have anymore.

The importance of "peers", particularly in early childhood, has been vastly overstated in recent years.

BTW attachment parenting (done correctly) isn't necessarily about keeping your child close to you 24/7, it is about responding intuitively to the needs of your own child, recognising they are an individual person and it is impossible to apply a blanket catch all method to all children. Different strategies for different children.

All attachment theory says is that children respond positively to responsive parenting.

That means you can have your baby in a next to me crib, or basket, or bedside cot, to sleep in and they will be fine.

If you choose to move them into their own room before six months chances are they will also be fine. I personally don’t because I couldn’t live with myself if he was not fine, but I recognise it’s a tiny chance.

I have no issue with people choosing to co sleep but I personally don’t like it. I find it very stressful and it doesn’t solve a lot of the problems it claims to. I have no idea how safe co sleeping is any different to a baby in a bedside crib like this one

How would you know if he “wasn’t fine”?!

Children tended to be ‘raised’ by older siblings, more often than not, and sent out to work at around six years old!

The old ways were not necessarily the best!

And what does “wasn’t fine” look like??

Sorry egghead I’m not being difficult but what do you mean?

Children tended to be ‘raised’ by older siblings, more often than not, and sent out to work at around six years old!

Not in my culture they didn't. In my culture you were raised by your parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents and your best friends were your cousins (of all ages).

And most children did bed share with their parents, that was normal and pretty much expected.

I can’t comment on your culture because of course I don’t know what it is and besides I wouldn’t presume to be an expert, but if we are looking to child rearing attitudes between the fifteenth and early twentieth century and thinking they are something to model today’s approaches on I find that a bit bizarre.

Even when I grew up (1980s) children were hit, hurt and humiliated as a form of discipline. Not every child but there were some pretty dubious practices going on.

And bed sharing was common due to poverty. There’s an awful painting which I think might have been Hogarth showing a parent rolling on a baby

I have no objection to co sleeping but it really isn’t something beautiful and warm that originated in the seventeenth century and our callous 2020 ways have got rid of!

but if we are looking to child rearing attitudes between the fifteenth and early twentieth century and thinking they are something to model today’s approaches on I find that a bit bizarre.

I'm with you but don't you think it works the opposite way too? E.g. with people saying "oh parents these days just want to watch over their kids 24/7/kids these days have no respect/ in my day you ate what you were given" and so on.

My two "modern day parenting" bugbears, personally, are:

• parents being WAY too permissive over their children being aggressive/unkind to other children or animals. We are totally zero tolerance with our son on this but many others don't seem to be. E.g. we were at the park the other day and my son (5) was on the slide waiting patiently for his turn. Another kid about the same age literally shoved him out the way. That's totally normal behaviour for children BUT his mother just said "oh dear that was unkind" and then proceeded to let him do it again and again! If my son had done that he'd have been out of the playground.

• conversely, NOT paying enough attention to their children. We have a local park with a stream (a fairly deep one) which kids love to paddle in. I'm always amazed at the amount of parents who seem to think it is totally acceptable to let their very young children play in water utterly unsupervised.

Bed sharing I really couldn't care less about one way or the other and I don't see why anyone else would either.

There’s no way your point two is a modern parenting thing fourbells. Children used to be way less supervised than they are now.

There’s no way your point two is a modern parenting thing fourbells. Children used to be way less supervised than they are now.

Absolutely. I personally think they still aren't supervised enough though. You only have to spend an afternoon in the park to see it.

I hate that as well but I’m not sure it’s particular to this era. I remember some very aggressive children I went to school with.

lavenderandwisteria

It's the way it is dealt with I object to rather than the behaviour itself.

@JackieTheFart

I said neither of those things I don't believe all children are scared of being alone in their room at night or that they're crying themselves to sleep.

But the idea that you have to teach a baby to sleep in their own room or they never will is ridiculous. You don't see many teens climbing in bed with mum and dad.

I remember as a child not wanting to sleep in my own bed, I remember thinking about monsters in the wardrobe or under the bed, and I remember sitting in bed knowing if I got out and went to my parents they'd be cross and send me straight back to bed. I wasn't being taught to be independent I was being taught how not to be an inconvenience.

Its the same as using cry it out methods, its not teaching a baby how to self soothe. It's teaching them not to bother crying because nobody is coming.

I think everyone should do what works for their family. I coslept with both mine from birth. They both had their own beds and rooms from age 2, but usually I let them spend all night with me because I found it easier, and I slept fine in a double bed with them. DD mostly slept all night on her own from about 6, DS from about 11, but I didn’t particularly push them out. DP is a terribly light sleeper, and much prefers sleeping alone, so sleeps in a double in his own room.

@everderose, I had similar experiences as a child. I had very vivid nightmares (many of them Doctor Who related) and would often wake in the night absolutely terrified, but had been trained to stay in my own bed. With hindsight, my parents would have been horrified if they had known just how frightened I was, nearly every night.
I would never want my children to feel that fear, and think they couldn’t come to me for comfort.
I don’t know whether it was because of the co-sleeping, but as far as I’m aware neither of them ever had a nightmare.

But I think the issue with the above scenarios is not that you had your own beds but that you were afraid to get out of them.

That’s so different to a baby in a bedside crib who is still tended to every time he wakes or a young child who knows if they wake and are scared or wet or thirsty they can go to their parents.

Unresponsive parenting is not the same at all as a parent who doesn’t co sleep.

DS went into his own room at 14 months but he'd been in his own bed in our room until then. We decided to move him when we started bothering each other. DS would wake up when we came to bed and occasionally through the night. Every time he woke he would cry for us. I changed nothing other then the location of his cot. He's still cuddled to sleep and put down asleep. I've seen him on his monitor wake up, he just gets himself comfy and goes back to sleep. He knows if he needs us he just has to make a noise. We usually wake up to "daddy". He doesn't seem to be unhappy with his change of location.

@EverdeRose no you’re right, you didn’t say those things.

But they’re a damn site closer to your first post than the one you followed up with!

@terfinginthevoid exactly that!

I also found that with co sleeping, I could just reach out with my hand if they stirred or cried at night l, without even completely waking up every single time and being able to fall back asleep.
Originally I also didn’t want the baby monitor in the room as that was far more noisy. And both of mine were good sleepers and still are. They hardly ever had bad dreams and sleep extremely well.

Most people I know don’t make the child sleep alone, I don’t either.

It is weird yes. Especially for babies when their breathing kind of syncs to the mother’s during sleep.