To think that a child of almost eleven should really not still be sharing a bed with her parents?

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Every night. No SN. Apart from the fact that this is just plain weird, what must it do for the parents' sex life?

At this rate, probably. When she slept over she asked if I was going to sit with her until she fell asleep. Err, no, I said.

Poor thing, perhaps you should have her over to stay more often and get her in training for sleeping on her own (and give her parents the night off!)

I feel sorry for her too - to the extent that maybe professional help is needed. My 4 yo cries out because she is lonely at night sometimes, and does come in our bed if she;s had a bad dream, but otherwise she just gets put to bed. This girl is approaching puberty and should be craving her own space, not still having childish fears.

bet the dad was extatic the night she came for that sleepover.

I don't think it's healthy tbh. And by allowing it I don't think her parents are doing her any favours.

How will she cope if she ever decides to go to uni, on school trips, etc?

Of course it's nobody's business, but as parents part of our job is to raise our children to be independent adults, and at 11 a child should have a degree of independence, which it seems she doesn't, and her mother isn't rushing to encourage.

Sorry - that sounded a bit harsh. More that she should not still need to be comforted to sleep at that age.

Perhaps she does have a sn?

Actually I think the parenting culture in developed countries fetishises 'independence', sometimes to the exclusion of more useful values like nurturing and comfort. But it's all a matter of opinion.

I know a couple with a dd like this but not quite as bad - she is 12 and still sleeps in their room but she has her own bed. She also has tantrums if she doesn't get her own way. She rules her parents.

How did the girl cope on the sleepover at your house?

The trouble is where does intimacy go if there are 11 year olds in your bed?

No spontanaeity. No having fun and rolling over to drop off in each others arms after a fun session.

There's alwasy the sofa I supoose but it's not really the same IMO

I agree policywonk, but we live in a developed country and this girl has to exist in a developed country where the expectation of those around her is that she should be able to go to sleep by herself by the age of 11 in order to experience what is considered a "normal" childhood. (and please understand, I use the term normal in the widest possible sense of the word)

Children who sleep by themselves at the age of 11 are still nurtured and comforted, but they are also able to access things like school trips, overnight stays at grandma's house, sleep-overs at friends houses (along with the giggling, midnight feasts and High School Musical sing alongs.) This helps them to grow in confidence, self-esteem and independence.

She may find herself being excluded from these sort of activities by her peers and this could make her even more dependent on her mother; not a healthy cycle to be in.

"I cannot imagine why it would be unacceptable for her to sleep with us if she wants to!"

Soapbox - it's called parental intimacy. That's why.

There are ways round it but having spent teenage years having sex in cars and on sofas I would not be pleased to be back doing that!

I slept with either my parents or my brother until I was 13, they all hated it but did because I was too scared to sleep on my own. I don't think it was healthy and I wouldn't encourage it. at Mrs Tittlemouse comment about coming up to puberty what the hell has that got to do with it?

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I co slept with ds but he goes to bed in his own room now and he comes into our bed early hours now, only 3 years old though. DP doesn't mind his arrangement.

If this is every night I don't think it's healthy - simply from the girls POV, confidence, independence...why can't she sleep alone?

Intimacy is also an issue I agree, I would really miss those nuggly couply moments. Our step sons are this age and I feel very 'conscious' if they are staying over, and they sleep at opposite end of house!

The puberty comment was that surely she's starting to reach the age where she wants to explore her own sexual urges, and that's going to need privacy too. Don't see why that's .

nell, I take your point, but with the best will in the world, the things you list don't seem terribly important to me.

I'm not saying that all 10-ear-olds should sleep with their parents; but I am saying that if this particular 10-year-old wants to sleep with her parents, and derives a lot of comfort from doing so, then I don't think it's anything for other people to get het up about. I certainly don't think that it means that she's strange, or that her parents are strange, or that they can't have sex. And if there is a decision to be made between a young-ish child in need of comfort at night, and an adult man who wants his child out of his bed so that he can have sex without having to use his imagination to think of different times/locations, then my sympathy is with the child.

I presume the puberty comment was related to the fact that in our culture it is fairly normal for pubescent teens to start shutting bathroom doors when they have baths and bedroom doors when they get dressed. Certainly in my house that change was child led not pushed by parents.

Perhaps tittlemouse meant that bedsharing everynight all night would be even more unusual post-puberty for these reasons - not for anything unpleasant!

Well presumably, when the girl does start desiring privacy, she will ask for her own bedroom (which her parents will gladly provide, by the sound of it).

This is why my mother never let my brother and I have sex with our boyfriends/girlfriends at home - she always said it was nature's way of telling you it was time to leave home

I misunderstood you Mrstittlemouse.

I agree that is not healthy. I said that I co slept with parents until I was 13. What I failed to mention is when I was 13 I started sleeping with my cousin who was living us until I was 18, she moved out and I then realised that at 18 I was too old to sleep with my parents and so I moved in with dh so I wouldn't have to sleep alone! .

Now I love the bed to myself and look forward to dh working away from home. I do still have to have the light on though!

Absolutely, policywonk.

The sleeping with her parents is obviously meeting a need of hers. And IMO and E (not of 11yos, but still) meeting a reasonable need (and this on seems to me to be reasonable) with minimum fuss is the best way to ensure a natural outgrowing of it.

Why are people so morally condemnatory of this sort of situation? The phrase 'really shouldn't be ...ing', the verbal equivalent of pursed lips and shaking heads, always crops up somewhere.

No problem.

I suppose that this girl can't sleep on her own. That's the problem. So it's going to be very difficult for her to move to her own bed, even when she wants/needs the privacy for herself.

Policywonk, those things on the list may not be important to you, but they are important to most children aged between 10 and 16.

This girl obviously has insecurities about sleeping by herself; this in itself is not unusual if it were not for the fact that she is 11 and entirely dependent on her mother's presence at bed time.

Now as MrsS said initially, she is not a particularly clingy child, but these insecurities run the risk of spreading to other areas of her life if she is unable to join in with the social and educational experiences of her peers. She will miss out on bonding experiences and find herself being on the outer boundaries of friendship groups purely because she was not able to join in with anything that took her away from home overnight.

policywonk - i agree with you - BUT...

I do think that by 11 most young people have internalised selfsettling and selfsoothing to some extent.

But perhpas (not in this case as none of us knows the details) where there is an 11 year old who sleeps every night in her parent's bed (and expects other people's parents to stay with her while she falls asleep) there may be something in her nurturing environment which is preventing this next step into maturity.

That might be that she has not been helped to develop the confidence to settle herself; it might be that there is a parental dynamic going on that involves an 11 year old sleeping between two adult parents (I don't mean child abuse - I mean a power struggle or "need to be needed" or the like).

It doesn't alwasy involve "a young-ish child in need of comfort at night".

gagarin and nell, I do agree with you that there might be a problem in this case. I suppose my only real point is that there also might not be a problem (at least on the girl's part).

Gagarin has a point. The dad of the 12 yr old I mentioned is fed up with sharing the bedroom but both mum & dd are quite dramatic characters & he's very low key & will never force an issue. Essentially neither parent wants to upset the dd (to avoid tantrums), they meet her every need and the mum is always saying how she & dd are like best friends, they shop in the same shops now & go to beauty salons together.