How old is too old to co-sleep??

[Crazydoglady04]

My partners little girl is 6. She started staying with us every weekend when she was 3 and has had her own bedroom since she was 4 and has slept in her own bed at our house since then. Around the time of doing up her bedroom we spoke to her mum who said she still slept in bed with her, but she was going to decorate a bedroom for her and get her in her own bed before she started school in September.
Fast forward over 2 years and she still co-sleeps with her mum/nana/grandad at home and still does not have her own bedroom.
Everytime they go on holiday and we don't see her for a week we go back to square one of getting up repeatedly for hours in the middle of the night because she refuses to stay in her own bed.
So my question is, what age is too old to co-sleep? We feel like 6 is a bit too old now, and she should be able to self sooth and fall asleep on her own which she cannot do. Her mum says she doesn't want to upset her daughter and she'll start sleeping in her own bed when she's ready.
The most important thing to us is that she has consistency but we seem to be on very different pages with her mother.

6 is not too old and you don't need consistency between the houses you can't have different rules. There's nothing wrong with her mother wanting to wait till the child is ready. My ds had own bed from three but I often ended up in with him and stayed till he feel asleep each night, till at 7 he had a big jump in maturity and was fine alone. It feels like you want the cosleeping at 6 to be objectively too old so you can say the mother should be on the same page as you but it isn't.

Sorry - you CAN have different rules.

My DD 10 still sleeps in bed with me, and has done since she was a baby. She has always had her own room but doesn't want to sleep alone. She'll decide soon enough that she needs her own space!

^^ this is what we did. We never did co-sleeping. Both DCs (now in their 20s) went into their own rooms at a month old and we had very few nights of disturbed sleep after about 6 months. Only if they were ill one of us would sleep in their room with them.
It works really well for us. Maybe we were lucky, maybe not.

I think you also need to take into account that she is moving homes, it's not unusual for a child to behave one way in one home and then to regress when they are back in what they consider their 'home' even if both parents believe that both houses are home. Its not fair to compare that to children who don't have to do that, have two parents to share the sleepless nights etc.

Mum is likely to be dealing with sleepless nights on her own, sometimes the path of least resistance is needed to maintain sanity as a single parent.

Dd stopped by the time she was 8. She always had a bed though

My dd co slept until she was nearly 10. Had her own room and bed and one day just started sleeping in that by preference. Yes I was single but I'd have preferred her to sleep in her own bed. Certainly wasn't me being selfish. She used to sleep in her own bed at her dads.

She started staying with us every weekend when she was 3 and has had her own bedroom since she was 4 and has slept in her own bed at our house since then

So your issue is that she sleeps with her Mum at home, not that she sleeps in bed with you? In which case you can’t control what happens at her Mum’s house.

Six is still so young, I don’t see anything wrong with her still sleeping with family at that age. When she’s older she’ll naturally want more independence, it doesn’t need to be forced upon her now. What do you mean by self soothe?

It’s hard but not impossible to have different bed time rules at yours and her mums.

you know she’s capable of sleeping alone at yours as it’s only really an issue when she’s been away for a prolonged period so it’s not unrealistic to push for it.

I would suggest getting a little stricter when she’s up and expecting someone with her at yours (unless she’s poorly etc of course.)
Walking her back to her room and tucking her in with a kiss goodnight. Next time she’s up it’s just tucking her in and saying goodnight. Then the next time it’s just walking her back and saying it’s bedtime. Next time just walk her back in silence and so on and so on.

once she realises she isn’t getting the outcome she wanted, she’ll give in and go back to sleeping alone. It isn’t cruel as some posters would have you thinking and if everyone else can get a better nights sleep it’s healthier and happier people all round.

I think 6 is fine to still sleep in parents bed, my 4 year old does occasionally. She should have her own room though then she has the option of sharing or not.

I personally don’t think it’s anyone’s business. She’s a small child. I know children who slept through from birth then started coming in around 5/6. I know others who’ve coslept from birth and stopped around that age. Im still cosleeping with my 4 year old.
I was definitely climbing into my mum’s bed at 12 years old after bad nightmares 🤣
I wouldn’t worry, it’s whatever works for the family.

I dobt think k she'd too old but she should always have her own room.

I also don’t agree with this whole ‘self soothe’ nonsense. During the day if she got upset by something she’d go to you for comfort. Surely the same at night?

People never use to admit their children co-slept.

Also when I babysat both relations and friends children, it was quite common for children to co-sleep with an older sibling once they weren't a toddler for another 2-4 years.

Basically the parents would kick them out at 1-2 years old and they would end up in an older sibling's bed.

Also with kids who decide not to co-sleep they often want to and do share a room while small even though there are enough bedrooms in the house.

I actually know same sex kids, who are now adults, who shared until the older one left home because they wanted to rather than because they had to.

My 9 year old son still co-sleeps and my oldest did intill about 12 ( had no issues getting him into hes own bed when I said it was time )

My children are almost 10, and 6.5 and I would co-sleep with them every night if I could!

They sometimes sleep with me if they’re feeling unwell or we’ve stayed up late to watch a film and I love it. There’s something very maternally instinctive about it, it just feels me very natural and very comforting to have my children asleep next to me.

DS is 4 and gets in with us most nights. He doesn't have his own room as we only have a 2 bed and DD is in room 2 and he will wake her up too much. But he does have his own bed in our room and is encouraged to at least start the night there. I think I will be more strict around age 7. Hopefully when we move he will stay in his room anyway!

This

My 7 and a half year old DS has JUST reached the point where they are happy to not co-sleep. Space at night, praise the Lord!

Sounds fine to me. I don't know why people get so opinionated about it sometimes

‘Self soothe’ just means that they can go to sleep by themselves without having to be fed, rocked or cuddled to sleep. Totally fair enough if a different approach works best for your family but it’s not nonsense and it definitely doesn’t mean that if actually upset because of say illness or a bad dream that an older child wouldn’t be able to seek out comfort.

Thank you all for the opinions. It isn't that I want the mother to be in the wrong, or that I want there to be an age that is too old, I just don't have a child myself so the only bases I have for my opinion is past experience. Myself and my brother didn't co sleep as children we both had our own bedrooms from being young, if we woke up from a bad dream or were poorly we would get in with our parents, but apart from that we had bath, book and in our own bed. So that is the norm for me, my partner is the same.

So it's more just curiosity is the fact that she screams for her mum everytime she gets out of bed a worry? Or that she regresses to baby talk.
Is co sleeping in one home but not the other having an affect on her? Or is having two routines okay for her. We've discussed her mum sorting out a bedroom for her at home but it's been 2 years and her mum will happily say she's in no rush for her to leave her bed, so that is a dead end as we have no control over what goes on in their house.

We go through the motions and get her back into a routine with us, it's frustrating feeling like we're starting again, but we understand she's a small child and having two houses is hard. I, myself just wasn't sure if it's the norm to still cosleep at this age as it isn't something I've personally experienced and all my friends/family with young children also have their own rooms and sleep on their own.

My friends 12 year old boy always goes in mums bed they don't even start in his room.

Maybe self soothe was the wrong terminology? I just mean I feel like she should be able to fall asleep on her own. If she wakes up in the night for a drink, she should be able to have a drink and fall back to sleep. However she will come to us to tell us she needs a drink, then we take her back into her room she has a drink of the water next to her bed and then we have to help her go back to sleep. Obviously if she is upset/poorly/has a bad dream etc we comfort her

We all self soothe as we all wake multiple times a night we just don't remember it. A baby hasn't learned to do that and will take longer to do so if never allowed to try