to think a 7 year old can sleep further than 1 room away from his parents

[wasabipeas]

To cut a long story short, DH has recently got back in touch with his old flatmate from college via facebook and found out that he is living in Singapore with his wife and 7 year old DS.
They were due to come back to the UK for a few weeks, and were angling for somewhere to stay, so DH offered for them to stay with us for a couple of nights when they arrived and also before they leave.
Their DS has never been to London before and they want to do the sights. Staying with us saves them having to book a hotel, and we've got a couple of spare beds so it wouldn't be too much hassle for us.

They arrived as planned on Thursday night. Our DCs were already in bed, but we made them a bit of supper and had a chat.
They then both went upstairs to put their DS to bed.
Our house has got a quite higgledy piggledy layout and all the bedrooms are on slightly different levels with a few stairs in between. The bedroom we'd offered their son is on the first floor, and their room is an attic room.
A few minutes later, the friend came downstairs to say his DW wasn't happy with the sleeping arrangements and didn't want to be that far away (?) from her son in the night. Would it be possible to change rooms.
Which meant them sleeping in our room, which is next door to where their son would be.

In the morning, we were all up and out before they woke up, but when we got home that evening, I asked if they slept ok
"yes, but we were woken up quite early by the shower going in the bathroom"
Errr, yes, that will be DH getting up for work.
I then asked if their DS had slept ok. And yes, he had slept very well and they even had to wake him up this morning.
So I assumed that as all was well, except them being so close to the bathroom, we could have our bed back, but no, the wife was still unhappy because if he needed them in the night, he would have to climb up some stairs.
On Saturday, we thought it would be quite nice for us all to go out together for the day (our DCs are similar ages to their son) but they wanted to take their DS to London on his own. And then they had to catch a train up to Manchester.

DH is a bit down in the dumps that they had no intention of catching up with him, the DCs are wondering why this little boy didn't want to play with them and I'm fuming that I get kicked out of our bed, give them 2 nights of B&B and don't get so much as a bottle of wine as a thank you.

They were supposed to be coming back to stay the night before they catch their flight back, but I'm tempted to tell them to book a hotel
AIBU?

[hunkermunker]

You have to let them stay again, or you'll never know if they were going to bring you something to say thank you/be less mental.

[cory]

dd used to have a lot of anxiety problems that always got worse in the night

but I would have solved that problem by taking her into my bed for the stay, not by inconveniencing my hosts

[StealthPolarBear]

I can undersatand that the DS might not want to be too far away -you have no idea what might bother him, but their comments were rude, and agree that's their problem - a mattress on their bedroom floor would have been a more sensible solution!

[cornsillk]

The mum could have slept in the double bed with her ds if she was worried. That's what I'd have done. Very selfish.

[Tambajam]

I would also want DS to be close to me in strange house. It would be likely he'd wake up and wander the corridors in the middle of the night. But I would probably work out a compromise where DH goes downstairs after a while and moves DS upstairs or we all share upstairs.
I wouldn't expect you to leave your room.
I certainly wouldn't complain about the shower the next morning and I would give and gift and want to spend time with friends.

So I don't think the child needing to be near parents is unreasonable even at 7 but I do think a lot of their behaviour is unreasonable.

[Morloth]

How rude, I would ask them to book a hotel.

DS still sometimes gets a bit scared if he is too far away from us at night in a strange place, but I would probably have just popped him into bed with one of us, while the other went and slept in his room. Without saying a word to the kind friends who were letting us stay at their home for free!

I can't believe you gave them your bedroom and they still had the nerve to complain.

[loobylu3]

Even if they have a particularly anxious child (perhaps the product of the over protective mother) they could have dealt with the situation in a more polite way. How rude of them to ask you to move out of your bedroom (and how incredibly kind of you to agree) and then complain about the noise! Definitely don't let them come back. Perhaps you could say that your DCs and you found it disruptive and that you are busy!

[rupertsabear]

That's very rude, but you can't really uninvite them now. I'd put a mattress on the floor in the guest room for the child, and wouldn't plan to spend time with them or look after them.