Almost 4 yrd old in our bed!!

[KaranTatt]

Hello ladies,

I'm hoping some of you might have some useful advice for us! We have a lovely bouncy almost 4 year old boy and really we've been having sleep probs since he was about 18 months. He was a real cot climber so we made the decision that rather than to have him fall hald a meter out of his cot to the floor that we would just change his cot into a bed - voila or so we thought......!

He was very quick to start jumping out of bed and coming up to us and we did spend a lot of time returning him back to bed and then being exhausted the next day for work etc. So after a while we used to give up and pull him in with us. Fatal.

He then started to tell us that he was scared of monsters and wanted to move his bed up to our room. So on the quest for a good night's sleep we did this but he still was happy to jump out and in with us. It's been going on like this for ages that we are now at the point that he goes to sleep in our bed and wakes up in it with us squashed around him and more often than not one of us on the sofa. Not at all good! I'm now pregnant again and want to get this sorted now as I don't want him to feel we are pushing him out of his nest once the new baby comes. However, new baby or not he can't stay in our bed but I'm just really not sure what I should do. He also needs me to fall asleep at night as well which can be time consuming so all in all we aren't doing well!

Can anyone help me?? He's such a lovely and loving little boy but I really have to get him back on track! Thanks x

Good luck with that - our 6 year old still like that...

The only thing we have found to work is to bribe him with the wii. The rule is if he comes in with us he isn't allowed to play on the wii the next day. At least we get a night or two per week when he isn't in with us!

Sorry - no advice; just empathy. DS1 (5) comes into our bed approx 50% of the time. In the middle of the night I can't be bothered to kick him out as I intended.

DS2 (2.5) was discouraged from an early age so rarely does. I was always much more disciplined on returning him to his cot after night feeds.

We'll see what happens with DC3. I must say we're pretty relaxed and just assume that he won't be still there when he's 16.

Our youngest daughter was 7 before she started to sleep in her bed every night. It was like musical beds in the end, she got so big that either I or my husband would go into her bed just to get some sleep. Then it stopped. She still came in in the morning to sit between us and have a chat, then that stopped when she was about 9. Suddenly when she was sixteen she appeared again in the morning and just got into the bottom of the bed under the duvet between us and started chatting. We have no idea what triggered this, it didn't last long.
Our approach we long as we all sleep and get a good night's rest does it matter who sleep with who and where.

what about some kind of reward chart? He gets a star for every night he spends in his own bed and then a treat at the end of the week (doesn't have to be an expensive treat).

Same problem here with a 4.5 year old who will only sleep in my bed and we've also got into the routine of needing me to stay with him while he falls asleep.

I've resorted to a 'novelty' bed arrangement to make his bed more exciting - Ben 10 type tent.

Fingers crossed it will make a difference, will also try the reward chart.