Children sleeping in parent’s beds

[questionaboutson]

I am divorced but this was an issue when I still lived with exH.

He used to let the children (I’d say encourage but maybe I’m being mean), sleep in his bed.
i always used to try and get them to sleep in their own beds as much as possible.
(we are from different cultures, not sure if relevant).

anyway, fast forward to now, my 6.5 year old daughter spends every night in her uncles bed when she’s at her dads. My 8 year old son has his father sleeping on the bottom bunk every night. When they’re at mine they sleep in their own beds, every time, unless they wake upset in the night, which is very rare).

totally happy to be told I’m being unreasonable but I really find it a bit ‘icky’ and uncomfortable. Hoping that I’m told I’m wrong and that I don’t need to bring it up with them. (Definitely don’t think anything untoward is going on with uncle - at all, I really just think it’s inappropriate and a bit engulfing/smothering of the dad and brother to be allowing this).

YABU - it’s fine for the kids to do this when little
YANBU - they should be in their own beds

Middle eastern

I don’t really care about what culture they are, what grown man wants to cosleep with their 6/8 year old niece?

Children in parents' beds is fine/normal.

Not appropriate for a child to be sleeping with her uncle though!

If she mentions that at school or to a friend's parents it's likely to be a social services referral.

You asked about two different things - cosleeping with parents, and a little girl sleeping in her uncle's bed.

Oh, do people vote without reading the post?

69% believe they should be in their own beds ?

And OP, social services will hold you responsible if you knew and allowed it

Yeah and I bet CSA is rife in those cultures

What am I reading? How can you not realise this is not appropriate? My girls have 4 uncles that love them dearly and I trust them 100% but no way would any of them want my kids sleeping in their bed because they have a brain and can see it’s inappropriate.

I would not be letting my children anywhere near this situation. Has your daughter said if she is ok with this? ?

@questionaboutson how long has this been going on for OP

Absolutely fine for a child to share with a parent. My 11 year old sometimes shares with me still. Even my 14 year old had a couple of nights in with DH whilst he was taking a couple of GCSEs earlier in the summer. He clearly was feeling the pressure and this was his way of dealing with it. DH and I would much rather he did this and have a good night’s sleep before his exams than being up all night stressing.

I would not be happy about my DC sharing with another relative.

Exactly

I think even if the daughter was ‘ok’ with this adults need to intervene and make the decisions that she cannot safely make yet

I would be horrified to find out my BIL was sharing a bed with my DD. That's deeply concerning. I often shared a bed with my dad at that age but uncle is totally unacceptable!

This can’t go on. I’m a safeguarding lead and if this was brought to my attention at school I’m afraid I’d be contacting social services for advice.
Doesn’t matter whether you think he is gay or or not, she should not be sharing a bed with her uncle. It will be awkward for you but you need to resolve this.
Have you asked her what she thinks about sleeping with him?

This is not a time for politeness.

I hope this is all completely false and you’re a troll. If not you need to take responsibility and stop this immediately.

Please protect your child. This is completely inappropriate

Agree with everyone else - it's fine for children to sleep in with their parents to a point but absolutely not ok for a girl to sleep in with her uncle. Absolutely not. You need to do whatever you can there to put a stop to that. My skin is crawling.

I read the post. I voted YABU.

Cosleeping with a parent is fine, so YABU about that. The uncle thing is not fine and you are severely under reacting to that. To a shocking degree.

Would you all be saying the same thing if it was an auntie sharing the same bed as her niece or nephew? The Uncle might not be keen on sharing the bed but his niece might want to bed share for her comfort. If OP or her little girl doesn't want that to happen, then definitely yes, put something into place to stop that. I know bad things happen but not everyone is evil, sometimes things are innocent. Just my opinion, I appreciate everyone has different views.

My niece came to stay when she was about 7 and she normally cosleeps with her mum. My husband moved into the spare room so she could share with me as her aunt. She had a lot going on in her life (brother critically ill) so we didn't want to make her sleep alone in an unknown house, but it definitely didn’t feel appropriate for her to share a bed with my husband and me.

No probably not as much, however, pretending the risk is the same from a woman and a man is naive at best.

She’s fine with it, she misses her uncle because he lets her sleep in his bed. That’s how I came to understand all this tonight

Totally inappropriate OP. I would ring NSPCC for advice. If they're at their dad's, I'm not sure how much you can actually do to stop it

I’m guessing you’ve never experienced CSA from a family member. If you did or it happened in your family you’d think differently.