Three children that all want to co-sleep........and they all roll over!

[Oscarandelliesmum]

I completely get that I have created this rod for my back but I now have three kids (7, 3 and 16 months) that all want to sleep with me. My seven year old DS is a sweetheart and will reluctantly sleep in his bed and stay there for maybe four/ five nights a week, if asked to but makes it clear that he prefers to be in the family bed and finds it tricky to fall asleep at a normal time. He will go to bed willingly at seven thirty but is quite often still wriggling around in the dark at ten.
My three year old DD will fall asleep within minutes and sleep through if I cuddle her down and she is in my bed. If she isn't next to me she will get up and come through. She also goes to bed happily at a sensible time but complains of being scared on her own.
My sixteen month old is still breast fed (I think the extended BF with all three is partly to blame here) and wakes for a quick tipple a few times a night which is no hassle usually but he has a chest infection and tonsilitis (on the mend now) but we have a had a very rocky month with one winter bug after the next. He is the only one that is a bit of a bugger to get down - wants to party and it often takes up to two hours of work (singing, feeding, ignoring, shh patting in the dark) to get him down so I try to leave it till the big kids are down. Ho hum.
My old health visitor was a bit if an old hippy and just laughed and the co-sleeping shenanigans but that was at baby two when there was physically enough room for everyone to get a decent nights sleep. She has retired and the new one advertises herself as a sleep expert but I have a feeling I will be told to do rapid return for the older two and controlled crying for the baby and I just don't want to go down that road.

I am on my knees knackered (sick kids and now I have a steaming cold) and if I get up to take DD back to bed DS2 will wake up and then they will both howl which will wake up older DS - argh! Also, it will be horrid for them.
If I were loaded I would buy a big nine foot bed and let them sleep where they wanted but we have an old fashioned double, a king size, a single and a disassembled cot.
DH has been away with work for a month now and not back for another two weeks. TBH he is a bit crap with night time parenting and his solution to everything is cry it out and stop breastfeeding ( I want to give DS2 the same two years the others got, plus weaning the little guy when he is so passionately pro boob and ill would be cruel and miserable for both of us).
I have been looking online and everything like Tanya Byron, NHS says to not comfort them etc. I own an ancient Doctor Sears book and the gentle sleep solution but no luck. If someone could just point me in the direction of what to tackle first I would be so grateful. DS2 naps easily enough at one but then wants to sleep till three. One idea I had was to start waking him at six to try and bring his nap time to eleven am and cut it to an hour but whenever I have done this the poor mite just passes out at around five pm and then we have him up till ten thirty.
I think that is the whole sorry tale. Any advice?
Many thanks if you made it to the end

Thanks Hothead,
good to hear of other musical beds out there! Maybe setting up DD in bed with DH could be a solution............Did you night wean your two or did they just decide to sleep through can I ask?

My advice isn't really advice, it's just to let you know you're not the only one! My DC are nearly 5, nearly 3 and nearly 1 and they all like to sleep with me. I'm BFing DS2 so co sleep every night with him but the other two have their own beds. Sometimes they start the night with me, other nights they come in after they've been asleep in their own beds. Sometimes they sleep all night in their own beds (!)

You say you're not comfortable with crying it out and want to keep BFing and if your DH isn't around much it must be hard for you doing everything yourself.

Have you tried the eldest two sharing a room? My eldest two have their beds pushed together so they aren't 'alone' when they're there and they do like it. Otherwise, could you sleep on a mattress on the floor with Ds2 in their room until they get used to being in their own beds?
No idea if these suggestions are along the sort of lines you were thinking?

I have a 4 month old and 4 year old in with me most nights, both start off in their own beds but end up in mine, ur not alone! And we sleep on a sofa bed so very cramped!!

thanks so much for the responses, it's the little shlep of feet in the night as they migrate through, followed by the wriggling and diagonal position adoption that makes it uncomfortable!. I like the idea of continuing to encourage the sibling bed with a mattress on the floor, Vivi.
Hothead - that sounds like hard work - am very glad I'm not working at the moment.
Have found it very heartening to hear everyone's responses. Sometimes the world seems full of people whose kids have slept through from birth. x

Well, the simple solution is to have two double beds and have the kids share one and you and the baby and the husband share another.

That is what we do and they enjoy co-sleeping together.

Another one here! Tbh I couldn't care less if others are happy to let their kids cry themselves to sleep for a few nights (cio), I'm not going to do it! They may have a baby that sleeps through but if that's what it takes I.know which kind.of.parent I'd rather be!

I'm interested in you saying that the king size bed is not big enough because we're looking to buy one! How come it doesn't work? Sorry to hijack!

I'm just popping in to cheer you on! I've no tried and tested advice but was going to suggest the sibling bed idea as well, that's where we're heading. Sometimes I lie awake in the middle of the night, wreathed in my babies, listening to them breathing and feel like the luckiest woman on the planet. And then DD1 kicks me in the ribs and yells "Get OFF my giraffe, you nappyhead!"

The cutest thing about our sibling bed is when we moved the youngest in I said 'oh we will have to buy a double quilt, they don't fit under the single' and my husband turned it lengthways and they fit :)

Will have to buy a new one when little feet start poking under the bottom!

If you are looking for a book with advice, the no cry sleep solution book might suit you.

If sibling bed doesn't work out I would:

a) start with the youngest first (must be tough if you are the oldest and the younger ones sleep with mummy)

b) buy a flowery duvet cover. DS age 4 has got into our bed the past 2 mornings then got out after 2 mins saying 'this bed is too flowery'