Does anyone else not send their children to grandparents for sleepovers?

[nosleepoverss]

My child is 3 years old and he has never had a sleepover. Both sets of grandparents have asked about it and I just don’t see any need for it. We co-sleep, he still breastfeeds to sleep most nights and I don’t want him to sleep anywhere else/away from us and I see no reason why he should 🤷‍♀️ Surely I’m not the only one? 😂 I imagine he will be asking for sleepovers in a few years time but right now I just see any need for it?

IME, because of the "it's a bit weird" attitude, women soon learn who their kindred spirits are. Only a very few people knew I was still BF - people that didn't judge. I also had no need to talk about it with anyone. It was just something we did.

I wasn't implying you were thick, and it wasn't particularly aimed at you. That literally is what people seem to think, that people who are still breastfeeding at 5 are going to have young adults 'running up to them' asking for milk in public places.
(and similarly, that people who don't send their kids to grandparents at 2 for sleepovers are going to have 18 year olds who have never spent a night away from mummy)

However, by saying you find it a bit weird you are perpetuating the damage that things like the 'bitty' sketch did.
You probably do know people IRL who did it, I certainly didn't shout from the rooftops that I was doing it and I doubt many of my friends were aware. Getting treated like you're doing something weird and wrong puts one off sharing.

Are you generally interested why the OP is still breastfeeding at 3 .. or being adverse?
The OP was asking about sleepovers.. gosh don't be so judgemental.. l breast fed mine at bedtime until age 4.
So OP mine didn't sleep over until about age 5.. but they saw them each week and had days out with them etc.

I'm not going to comment on breastfeeding except to say I think whipping it out at the zoo to "comfort" a 5 year child who had fallen over /was tired /sick (as a pp said they did) is overkill. Most 5 year olds are not comforted by having a boob put in their mouth and drinking milk. Their are a myriad of ways to comfort a child that don't involve bf.

4?????

Sometimes, and yes - both child and GP love it. Sad for anyone who can’t or won’t make the allowance.

My 3 year old has gone regularly for sleep overs and grandparents’ and has done from 11 months. She loves it there and is well cared for. It’s meant I can go to work dos and even go in a two week honeymoon when she was two (also breastfed, I pumped for 6 months beforehand and froze so that she’d not miss a single portion while we were gone for two weeks). Me and my husband need our space sometimes and we love the independence it’s built in her. She actually asks for sleepovers there now!

BUT, each to their own. If it would disrupt your routine (which sounds like a very happy one) then it’s absolutely not necessary.

Me - my parents live in another continent, and my in-laws are always travelling! we see both about once a year - sometimes twice.

I've never known of a child weaning between 3 and 7! That is madness!

You've had your horizons broadened with this thread. Always good to learn somethings new.

My DD3 sleeps over at my mum’s maybe once every 6 weeks or so.

My DS10 once or twice a week. 😂

DS10 loves it there, she lives 10 minutes away from us and he has his own room and set of friends there. He just does as he pleases but it will stop once he gets to grammar school in Sept 26 as we live directly beside the train station whereas she is slightly more rural. He may choose to stay a weekend night.

For balance, my parents are 56 and very young and able for them. We all WFH and are flexible, DS10 obviously goes to primary school and DD goes to pre-pre school and then from September will be pre school before starting primary school in Sept 26.

I was exactly the same with my own grandparents growing up - I flitted a lot.

perhaps you would hear more about such things if you didn't dismiss them as madness.
Maybe try 'how interesting, that's not how I did it' next time you hear something you think is different, you might find more people are willing to openly share experiences if you at least pretend not to think they're freaks.

Lots of posters saying it's just not needed/don't see why, to let their kids stay at grandparents. I just hope you feel the same when your daughter in law has the same opinion on your grandchildren.

Understandable if grandparents can't be trusted or aren't interested obviously.

On breastfeeding, I fed mine til they were 2. My youngest is 5 and I couldn't have him still breastfeeding at this age, absolutely not. And I'm not uneducated as some ppl have implied about those with a different opinion.

The only reason to do it would be if you wanted a night off with his dad eg to attend a wedding

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of my grandparents. I very much hope my GC can say the same about me. I slept at my GP's and my GC does sleep overs at mine.

The extended family sharing child raising is the norm in most of the world. Ironic the extended breast feeders here want to use that norm as a stick to deny another norm, grandparent carers.

Happy flitting! Fab. Lots of loving family members. What a wonderful, secure extended nest you/they are growing up in.

It’s really not as odd as you seem to think.

Well, maybe in our society in this age it’s unusual, but I think it’s our society that’s out of step with the natural weaning age of children rather than anything else.

It’s developmentally very normal for children to breastfeed until that age.
It’s actually quite surprising that this seems shocking to quite a lot of people on MN, of all places.

Nope not madness at all. Many do but will just never share because of comments like yours.

Maybe it's just me but I am not the pushy type and will not be bothered at all if my future DIL wasn't keen on sleepovers. My MIL has respected the way me and DH choose to raise our DC and I will do the same for mine in future.

Since about 3 weeks old

Less so now older and out doing their own thing

Don't see why people are so against it though unless there's a massive back story
Surely it's just a non issue if they do or don't. Don't think anyone outside of immediate patently would bat and eyelid or care

Let me understand this. A child weaned at 7 would be EB?

It is incredibly rare for a child to be breastfeeding at 7 and of course a 7 year old can't exclusively breastfeed. When you look into breastfeeding beyond 2 years most who are self weaning would have done by age 4. At that time it's likely only 1x a day in the same way toddlers have warm milk in a sippy cup or a pacifier to bed which nobody bats an eyelid about btw.

Not exclusively breast milk at that age. Of course not. Maybe just before bed or something. 7 is very late to wean though, even among those who extend BF but 3 - 4 is not unusual at all in this group.

If only any bloody grandparents would have offered but sadly I think we have had maybe five or six nights out where he has gone to on grandmother

DS is 12

So 'weaned from the breast at 7', not 'weaned at 7'. That makes more sense.