Children still in my bed

[batoutofhell]

I know I should have been firmer about this but the children have got used to it know and bad mother alert so have I .
My ds is 5 and my dd is 3 and they still want to sleep in mummys bed.
My poor dh sleeps in the spare bedroom and to be honest it has become a habit for us all.

As far as sex goes I get into bed with him in the spare room,do the deed have a cuddle and ethier go back to my bed or fall asleep in the spare room .The children then come to find me early in the morning or in the middle of the night has been known also.

I know ,I know,I need to get some kind of routine together to get them out of this.
I moved my dd from her room into ds's room thinking they might stay in their beds if they shared a room,but no just does'nt work.

Any suggestions or have I left it too late.

Incidently maybe their are some of you out their who things this is fine and promote co sleeping at this age.

Bump

if its not affecting your relationship with your dh then i don't see the harm in it, they will gradually take to sleeping in their own beds, however if you want your bed back so to speak then you could start a routine and see how it goes.

bat, how do you feel about it? Surely it only needs changing if you and / or DH feel things are bad as they are?

If you want to change it I'm sure you haven't left it too late. I think personally that it will simply be a matter of you telling the children that you and daddy want to sleep in the same bed now, there isn't room for you all so they must stay in their beds. Then I guess it will be a matter of simply returning them during the night until they get the message....maye backed up with reward charts if they like that sort of thing....or re-decorating bedroom so that it's 'their' space....

haven't done this myself so am kind of just brainstorming, ignore me if no good!

Bat, I agree that this is only a problem if you want your bed back. Otherwise, as long as everyone gets enough sleep, there's no harm in it. My youngest DS is 8, and he sometimes still comes and gets into bed with us in the early hours. He's too big to sleep with us all the time, so we have changed things so everyone has to start off in their own beds, and if we play musical beds during the night, so be it! We find DS2 goes for a couple of weeks of staying in his bed, then has a week where he'll come in to ours on a couple of nights. It just seems to be naturally decreasing, without stressing anyone out. HTH.

bat _ i thoroughly sympathise with your position currently listening to my dh battling with 24mo ds as we are attempting to teach him to fall asleep on his own. we are using withdrawl method and he is not happy! neither are we but he has been waking in the night and only goes back to sleep if we sit in room with him. have 4mo dd in bed with us and fidgety toddler (v big for his age) = v poor sleep for all if he joins us in bed. ds only moved to own room at 18 m as prior to that we had been in one bed flat. he is happy to be in own room but just needs to learn how to fall asleep!

bat _ i thoroughly sympathise with your position currently listening to my dh battling with 24mo ds as we are attempting to teach him to fall asleep on his own. we are using withdrawl method and he is not happy! neither are we but he has been waking in the night and only goes back to sleep if we sit in room with him. have 4mo dd in bed with us and fidgety toddler (v big for his age) = v poor sleep for all if he joins us in bed. ds only moved to own room at 18 m as prior to that we had been in one bed flat. he is happy to be in own room but just needs to learn how to fall asleep!

Thanks everyone for your responses.
I thought I was going to get a hard time.
Some good ideas there to go away and think about.

Too be honese DH would like his own bed back but does say he gets a good nights sleep without being disturbed by the children.

I had read somewhere that in some European countries children stay in their parents bed until a late age and is considerd the normal thing to do.

I was going to try the rapid return technique but is difficult with two.You get one settled and
the other one runs off.Have tried them falling asleep downstairs and then carrying them up to their own bed but they always seem to realise they are not in my bed and wake up!!

Why don't you do one child and dh the other. Sure you will have several fairly sleepless nights but if you are both firm about it and do not even once let them back they will get the message after a week or so. Good luck!