Bed time

[Theoneandonlybear]

Hi, my nearly 9yr old son will not sleep in his own bed and point blank refuses to. Over the years we have managed to get him to but then something happens that'll put a stop to it. For instance, we have not long moved house and for the 1st week or so he slept in his own bed. Before Christmas he was really poorly and the wife was worried sick about him so he ended up in our bed so she could keep an eye on him, he's been in it ever since.
When we tell him it's bed time we get a load of abuse from him, he cries, tells us his bed is uncomfortable (new bed and mattress)
When he does go up, one of us has to lie down with him or lay on the floor and we can be up with him for a good few hours or we end up falling asleep in his room. When he does fall asleep and we try to leave it's pretty much a given that he'll be awake in half an hour and it starts all over again.
Has anyone got any advice please on how to deal with this?
Thanks in advance

Any help with this would be much appreciated as we are generally having problems and are at our Witt's end

This may be really counterintuitive but let him go to bed on your room if he's ending up in there anyway.

It will take all of the fuss and attention away from bedtime and once he's had a few good nights sleep and has got into a pattern of going to bed, you will probably find that he chooses his own bed soon anyway.

My DD is the same age (just 10 actually) and sleeps in bed with me despite having a very lovely bedroom of her own with all the calming lights and stuff accumulated over years of trying to entice her in there.
She needs company that's all. I'm prepared to say there'll come a time when she doesn't want to sleep with me but I want her to make that decision, being forced to do it seems very harsh and potentially traumatic.
You could try setting up a small sleepover party? I've heard that can break the cycle

We tried the sleepover a couple of weeks ago with his cousin. They both ended up in our bed and we were on the sofas. Not even sure how it happened to be honest

Dear god. He's 9! There needs to be some consequences to him choosing not to sleep in his own bed.

The choice needs to be sleep in his own bed or his video games console or whatever he likes is removed.

He needs to literally be sleep trained like a toddler so that you can put a stop to this nonsense.

I totally agree. It went way past a joke ages ago. He slept in his own bed last night all the way through and it was bliss. We're going down the bribery route and it seemed to work

I disagree your creating an anxiety around bedtime that will only get worse. This isn't an area that needs discipline it requires love and support. I'd let him stop in your bed then encourage/reward if he goes to his own bed . Make his own bed feel like the safe place to be.