Do you sleep with your child/ren?

[breeze]

My DS is aged 3.8, and I have never slept in the same bed as him.

Occasionally when he is ill, we will go to the spare bed (he calls it the sick bed) and I will lay with him until he calms down, then he goes back in his own bed. I have attempted to sleep with him but he such a fidge pants and I end up putting him back.

Luckily when he wakes up in the night, he calls out and never gets up.

I mentioned this to a friend and she thinks that is weird that we have never slept in the same bed. Do you?.

No!!! My DD sleeps in her own bed every night and has done so since she was 8 weeks old. Occassionally, I think it would be nice to have her in our bed when we wake up in the morning - but she just thinks it's play time!!!

So - I'm with you, it's not weird at all and isn't it bad enough having to fight for the room with DH/DP?

hi breeze
only when theyre not well,or if theyve had a nightmare,the second night in hospital after giving birth to ds i slept with him on my chest as he was premature and i thought he needed mummy`s warmth,i woke up to a very angry midwife shouting at me

I don't think it's weird at all. Mr ds is 16 months and has not yet slept with us, and I don't intend to let him. He sometimes comes in for a cuddle in the morning but that's about it. On the odd occassion if he has woken up in the night and been unsettled we have tried to put him in with us, but he does not associate our bed for sleeping - only for having fun and cuddles. I've got nothing against people doing it - my sister sleeps with her dd nearly every night! But it just doesn't work for us. I never slept with my parents when I was a child - in fact their bedroom was always out of bounds unless I was really ill. Wonder what they were hiding!

On this subject, I am a bit confused following the report in today's press on a couple who lost their 2nd baby to suffocation after it fell alseep with them. The article quotes the SIDS foundation as saying that co-sleeping raises the risk of SIDS 50 times and also makes reference to a number of health experts saying it should never be done.

I am the opposite of you both, having co-slept with my two virtually every night until 8 months or so. I was under the impression that unless you had been drinking, there was no increased risk for the baby (and of course you should never fall asleep with your baby on a sofa etc). I had always thought it was the case that in societies in which co-sleeping is common, that there is no greater incidence of SIDS or death by suffocation?.

No I don't think it's wierd, but I do think you have amazing will power to have got to 3.8 and not shared a bed.
Our DS1 slept in our bed pretty much every night until about 2 years old simply because I couldn't stand the sleepless nights going back and forwards to his room. DS2 has been better but still manages to 'win me over' in the middle of the night occiasonally.
Hopefully No.3 due in september will love his or her bed so much that we won't have to give up the valuable bed space again.......although I doubt it!
I say Well Done at never having to struggle with feet, knees, elbows, hands, bums etc etc shoved it you face all night. I'm quite jealous!

My DD slept with DP and I in our bed for the first 10 weeks of her life. She HATED the moses basket (what a waste of money) and was simply too small for her cot. She was exactly the same in the hospital ( we were only in for 12 hours post birth) and REFUSED point blank to sleep in those goldfish bowl cot thingies. We moved her into her own cot at 10 weeks without any problems.

I don't think that it's particularly weird for you to not have slept in the same bed as DS, different strokes and all that.

I have one bedroom that fits one bed, and the walls are on either side so you literally have to crawl off the end to get up, so co-sleeping is not really a choice its a way of life.

I too always been told that it was fine as long as there was no alcohol/drugs involved, bells2, so was surprised by the tone of the article.

I don't really have a problem with it, but then that maybe cultural, in Thailand and actually most of the world children are in the bed for their formative years.

On a personal level I have never been able to envisage carrying a child to term then putting them in another bed or room so soon after birth. I love sleeping with DD, but she is now old enough to be asking for her own room. Hopefully that won't be too far on the horizon.

My sister co-slept til she was 10/11 though, and that didn't make any sense to me.

We had a similar dilemma Pie. Despite having a 3 bed house at the time, the master bedroom was very small and we just couldn't fit DD's cot in with our bed etc. I just didn't feel right putting her in another room at that age, so it was natural for her to share with us. Thankfully we've been able to move into a much bigger house (by virtue of DP's divorce) and so space is no longer a problem, but I really do feel for those families bringing up kids in very small houses/flats etc.

I have tried to sleep with him when ill, but just can not sleep because he fidgets and that.

Might have something to do with the fact that from 5 weeks he started sleeping throught he night and then when not ill he only woke up once in a blue moon, might have been difficult if I didn't have such a good sleeper.

Think it varies on the circumstances. I hardly slept with ds1 at all. Mainly becuase I was paranoid about him dying (!!) and used to want him on his beepy cot monitor thing (!!) Used to bring him into bed for feeding then back in his cot (which was in our room until 6 months).

DS2 - I had relaxed a bit - discovered babies don't suddenly die very often. He would start each night in his cot and would finish each night in our bed until he was over a year old. DH often used to end up in the spare room. It was nice and snuggly. Eventually he got too fidgety so over about 2 weeks I got him to stay in his cot all night. NOw he likes being in there and won't stay in bed with us. I do still bring him in if he is ill (and dh usually moves).

DS1 tends to only settle in our bed if ill. I have climbed in with him in the past though.

There are lots of factors in the SIDS stats. Many countries with lower SIDS rates than us routinely co-sleep (Japan for one) so I think the story is more complicated than sometimes made out.

I did put DS in his own cot in his own room from day 1 (forgot to mention this in the original post) this again though of as weird, but the layout of the house is that even though he was in his own bedroom, he was about 12 feet away.

Just wanted to make it clear, although I can't imagine doing it, putting a baby in their own room/cot at a young age, I think it is entirely down to whatever works for the parents. Some parenting choices maybe open to ethical debate, some are just down to style and preference.

So what ever gets you through the night as Lennon would say

I have 3 children (10, 6 and 20 months) and have never co-slept.

If my 20 month old wakes early at the weekend (say 7:30 and I want 20 more minutes in bed - somehow 8 am seems a lot more reasonable than 7:40!!!) (she shares a room with her 10 year old sister), I bring her into my bedroom but like Northener says it is for cuddles, play and for me to have another 20 minutes dozing in bed (although it is rather hard when she tries to brush my hair, stick a book under my nose, etc.) rather than for her to sleep. I actually wrote a message earlier when youngest was ill asking for assistance in how to settle a baby that was poorly but didn't like being comforted at bed-time - she has always just been put in her cot to go to sleep, never rocked to sleep.

I have friends of mine that co-slept with their children and they never found it to be a problem except they would wake in the morning and find 3 (or 4 or 5!!!) children in bed with them.

when ds2 was first born (for about the first 6 weeks) he would only sleep on my chest!! Now that was a pain- especially as I'd just had a section and would sieze up from being in one position all night. We found out at 6 weeks when he had failed to put on any weight at all that he had a cord infection- once that was treated he was happier to go into his moses basket.

As pie said- whatever gets you through......

bells just realised I repeated what you had said about SIDS etc. Usually these studies have some major flaw. Don't think the 50 times increase would stand up to scrutiny. As you said other countries where co-sleeping is the norm have lower incidences.

I did read somewhere that a bfeeding mother is less likely to roll on her baby because they tend to sleep in different positions (I suppose because the baby will fall asleep on the breast). No idea how rigorous the study was though.

I'm not being flippant about this, but something I have always wondered about co-sleeping (esp when it goes on for years) is how do you have a sex life? When do you get to read books? (I always read last thing at night for half an hour or I can't sleep). How do you have those cozy chats just before dropping off, how do you cuddle with your child between you. I would just worry about waking her up all the time.

To me it seems natural for my dd to have her own room, she always has right from the first night. I do sleep with her occasionally if she is ill, but I go into the spare single bed in her room with her as dh worries that he will squash her.

I just love waking up with her and seeing those big blue eyes and that toothy grin!

I've always liked the idea but it hasn't worked in practice - not enough sleep for me when they were tiny and now that ds1 is bigger he thinks if he's in our bed then it's for bouncing, dancing, using us as an assault course etc so only happens at a civilised time in the morning. Why are babies more likely to suffocate on the sofa than in a big bed with pillows and two grown-ups?

sex? what's that?

Ds2 tended to come into bed about midnight so I'd had my read by then. I suppose I could have had sex by then as well.....

We have never co-slept as such.When my husband is away for work they have a rota for who will sleep with me! 2 bigger ones aren't so bothered these days but youngest ( 9 years) would sleep every night if he could.He has been known to ask his dad to swop beds!!!

This is a direct quote from an essay youngest wrote for mothers day this year:
"I show my love for my mum in the following ways.First i sleep with her.Second I cuddle her.Third I give her big kisses."
As I said to dh I wonder what the teacher thought of that?

In answer to your question breeze no I don't think its wierd .Everyone does what feels right for them.

I seemed to have a built in 'squash alarm' that would wake me up or stop me from rolling on to her. DP didn't have this and so DD didn't sleep in between us. We spooned up - DP behind, DD in front and me in the middle !

Sex wasn't an issue for us as she was only with us for 10 weeks after birth and the one time we did it in that period was when she was asleep we moved her into the moses basket and put her in the hall for 20 mins or so.

With regards to cozy chats etc, we could still do that as DD would sleep through an earthquake when she was that tiny ! Unless you tried to sneak her into the moses basket of course !!!

Jimjams, Sex is what coal comes in if you live in Morningside in Edinburgh.

wsm - that was out usual position until this hot spell when dh was too sweaty and made me annoyed so now I move into the spare room with dd if she waked early.

Well for us co-sleeping has really only applied until 8 months or so but even then, it wasn't every night. So to be blunt the sex issue hasn't been a big deal.

DD (19 months) still goes to sleep in our bed every night and then when we come up, we transfer her to her cot. This reflects the fact that I like to lie down with her to read to her and cuddle her before she goes to sleep and I also quite like to snatch another cuddle before she gets carried upstairs (which incidentally is without a murmur). Also her room is on the top floor of our house which is 51 stairs away from our kitchen!. As it happens DS (4) slept in the bed with me last night simply because he asked to and I always like having him there. Altough I have really enjoyed it, I am actually not planning to co-sleep with number 3 - I'm too concerned at ending up with all 3 wanting to be in our bed at the same time.

LOL Olive

Blimey Bells, 51 stairs ?! You must have buns of steel !!!