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

"It's annoying that it's the summer holidays".

Are you serious? You can contact your county council education department and ask to speak yo their LADO immediately.

Your blasé attitude is very upsetting. That's why so many responses on here are like mine.

This post! Do this.

Wow I must be an outlier but I often slept in my old aunty's bed when I was a child. I stayed there some weekends and weeks when my parents travelled for work and she didn't have a spare bed so I would climb in with her. My daughter also slept with me and her father till about 7. My husband slept with his mum for years too. I am more worried about all the dirty insinuations about a little girl and her family member who she clearly loves.

To be fair I wouldn’t let my six year old son share a bed with an uncle either…

People can co-sleep with a baby if they want to, and there are ways to do it in a ‘safer’ way, but it is absolutely not safe. Just because you and others have a different tolerance to risk we should not pretend that doing so is safe because the consequences for those women with less information who might be swayed to follow along that route due to comments like yours are great indeed.

Co-sleepers should give factual advice like: ‘Co-sleeping is not as safe as putting a baby down on its back in an empty cot with a cellular blanket and no pillows but I choose/chose to co-sleep because it was easier for me to deal with night feeds etc’

It also has nothing to do with breastfeeding as it is perfectly possible to breastfeed and transfer a baby to a cot. (In the same room for the first six months)

That may sound harsh but the amount of misinformation about stuff like this is wild and I think we shouldn’t prevent other peoples babies from being protected because we chose to make our own decisions to go against advice brought in to reduce SIDS.

We had this recently. 41 yo male house guest came to stay with us. He brought his 9 yo daughter.

“It’s ok,” said our long term European refugee guest, “they will share a bed”

They didn’t.

my nephew 6 would share with me (Auntie) as an absolute last resort. When he was little he’d come in early hours but I think it was a novelty because I don’t see him often and we’d watch tv and stuff. But when there is the option of your own bed I find it baffling that an uncle would want to share with their niece. It’s really odd no matter what culture you’re from.

What the hell? OP, that’s even worse.
Don’t tell me they are also followers of ‘slam?

I’m Middle Eastern and never have I shared a bed with an uncle. In fact, because our culture is conservative (albeit non-Muslim) it’s more shocking to us that an uncle could sleep with his niece in the same bed. That’s outright taboo.

I’m shocked that they’re saying it’s part of their culture to throw you off - what on earth are they hiding?

Can you get your daughter to explain to you through play what happens in her uncle’s bed? Like doing a role play using teddies or dolls.

It’s obviously completely inappropriate for your child to be sleeping with their uncle in the same bed.

However, I don’t believe it’s inappropriate they sleep with parents. We had one that slept with us every night (as in started in own bed and would migrate during night) until they were 15yo, at which point they were over 6’ and if both DH and I were in the bed it was a very squishy situation. When ours were young at one point we had 4 that would migrate during the night. The last two would have to get in at the bottom🤣. It was crazy. They all stopped in their own time, no issue.

I worked night shift a lot and had no issue about them being in bed with DH, and for a stint he also worked some opposite night shifts at times and he had no issue about them being in bed with me. TBH, was a lot better with one of us not there as it was so damn squishy so it made it ‘a bit’ easier.

I’m totally fine with bed sharing, my kids sleep with me all the time. It’s not appropriate, in any culture, for a child to share a bed with an uncle all the time.

This would be a concern.

What about kids sleeping in nannas bed? Is that ok? Some kids are close to their nans

I voted YABU for failing to protect your daughter.

Op, don't get too worried. It sounds as though your daughter would have told you if there was anything amiss. But obviously do talk to Social Services.

So your kids have their own bunk beds at their dads OP but your ex sleeps in his daughters bed so she can sleep with her uncle?

Same. I'm very much in favour of safe co-sleeping. The scenario the OP describes, however, is NOT okay and I agree is inappropriate.

One of the red flags is that the uncle is obviously happy to let this happen. Whether or not he poses any risk, he should be alert to the sheer wrongness of the arrangement.

I was raped by my mum's brother several times between the ages of 5 and 7.

I have had a lot of therapy and I still haven't had the courage to tell my parents, who to this day think he is a lovely man.

Tell yourself whatever you want but no grown normal man wants to sleep with a 6 year old little girl. He's a pervert.

Really? Any age? It would be fine for eg a 13 year old girl to sleep in the same bed as her dad? Because that would make me feel more uncomfortable than eg a 6 year old boy sharing a bed with his uncle that he lives with.

You seriously think in most cultures it's ok for a young girl to sleep in her uncles bed cmon open your eyes

Aah voted wrong as missed the uncle bit. That’s inappropriate.

just to make you aware OP that the headteacher won’t necessarily see emails over the holidays- our HT is on holiday for a month without access to her stuff and the DSL is also not available as it is a holiday period. Schools aren’t always open. If it’s an immediate safeguarding concern (which this is clearly) then it’s a call to social services, 101 or MASH.

Children are scared. How many adults have come out with historic abuse about family members and their parents had no idea? There’s no guarantee OP’s daughter would have told her.

I actually came onto this thread to defend co-sleeping. I co-slept with my breastfed babies, and my son didn't regularly sleep alone till the brink of puberty. He also occasionally slept with just his father when I wasn't there.
Young mammals sleeping with their MOTHER is completely normal.

I would NEVER let my child sleep with a male relative. This is a bizarre and very worrying arrangement.

I'm perfectly fine with the seeking comfort nd ending up sharing during the night.

I think my issue is sharing a bed with an adult not mum or dad off the bat? I know both of mine end up in bed with their grandparents in the early hours of the morning when they stay, I suspect the same if they ever stay with mine or dh siblings.
I feel uneasy about a child who has been put to bed and then her uncle getting into bed with her when he goes to bed, that doesn't sit right. But if she was to wake up at 3am and go and get in his bed for comfort, I'm ok with that? It's hard one to decipher.

@Spookyspaghetti but you are spreading misinformation. If co-sleeping was inherently dangerous, Japan, with one of the highest co-sleeping rates in the world, would not have one of the lowest rates of SIDs.
Telling breastfeeding women that all co-sleeping is dangerous may increase the rate of unplanned, and riskier, co-sleeping.

Sex is relevant here. Male and female relatives do not pose the same risk to children.