what age for dad sleeping in bed with daughter

[rainbowprincesschapell]

i am a single parent to a 5 year old -the dad was removed from the home at birth but she's always had contact. she sleeps two nights a month at his house . her and i bed share and with the warmer weather she wears a nightdress so she gets fresh air to her bits 😬
she has told me that this happens at her dads too and she bed shares with him and when i say they're here private parts she said he dad said well mum didn't send any bottoms! i don't know what to think at all. i think at 5 years old he shouldn't be sleeping next to her bare private parts and i bring too protective? i can't broach the subject at all as he's reactive

Yes. I focused on regularly rather than occasionally. Up to 40% in UK bed share occasionally with about half that doing it all/most of the time. Either way, it is really quite a frequent and unremarkable event and does not deserve the opprobrium of MN misplaced superiority.

Absolutely! My dad sexually abused me as a toddler when I didn't know the words for anything....I doubt knowing the anatomically correct words would have made a difference! 🙄

Some hills aren’t worth dying on just send her with some

Totally and completely normal!

@rainbowprincesschapell
Thank you for coming back to the thread.
I an glad to see that some of it has been helpful to you. I'm sorry there was so much derailing at times.
♥️♥️

Well it is common that men who abuse women often abuse their children aswell.
(I work in safeguarding)

People always talk about using 'correct anatomical terminology' on here but I have honestly never heard a child or parent using the words vagina, vulva, Penis etc in real life.....I think the main thing is that the phrases aren't obscure and are things that everyone would understand the meaning of eg; 'willy' 'front bottom/back bottom' and 'bits' or 'private parts' are all pretty obvious what they are referring to.

There are, and should be, boundaries that are distinctly separate between how mums are with their children and how dads are and, yes, this is specific to sons vs daughters.

My dad never abused me. Neither he nor my mum would have allowed him to sleep with me, with no pants, in a dressing gown even if the skies were raining down the fires of hell with heat. They would have both told me that it was inappropriate, if the situation arose, or the question asked.

So, you will have to set the boundary with clear communication to your ex or with your child. It's okay to say something like, "When you're with daddy, make sure you sleep in these pyjamas I've sent for you," and you can even let her pick some out so she can tell him that she likes her new pyjamas, picked them out and then no drama and you feel better and all is well.

Hope this has helped.

Yeah, this is weird for me, too. Especially at the age of 5.

It's one of those things that people have got more aware of, I think.

In my mum's generation, it was considered normal for newborns to have their own rooms, and people didn't realise there was a genuine benefit to having a newborn sleeping in the same room as mum and dad, because all the focus was on the idea of inculcating good habits for a child and making sure the baby didn't wake the parents and learned to sleep through. It was also considered a good idea to put the baby to sleep on his or her tummy.

We now know a bit more about safe sleep, and we're also less concerned about the idea that a very young child ought to be trained into habits that will be of least trouble for its parents. Little children sleeping with parents is quite good for the child, so more people will talk about doing it.

You sound delightful.

Actually, no, not according to another poster in this thread.

Since my attention was more caught by the details here, rather than the core question, I'll add something else.
Sorry, OP, but I find your writing unclear, so I may be mis-reading it.
But when you say "with the warmer weather she wears a nightdress so she gets fresh air to her bits" I've been puzzling over that. I'd never worn a nightgown in my entire childhood, only pajamas. Not only are nightgowns entangling, but are likely to creep up in the night and leave your behind in the breeze. But maybe you meant something else.
But I've also never heard of anyone needing fresh air for their privates. Never heard of it, never seen it recommended in print. Is that as odd as it seems to me?

Little children of five?

The OP was concerned about boundaries but doesn't see that she is not allowing her child to develop the expectation of privacy in bed, or giving her child the chance to choose her own bed over a shared bed.

Both the OP and her ex need to allow this child to have her own private space to sleep in. It's fine to run into mummy's bed if frightened by a dream or a thunderstorm, but a child of five has definitely reached the age when she needs her own space and a healthy degree of separation and independence from parents.

My own DCs emerged from childhood without the emotional or psychological scarring some people here believe to be inevitable from exposure to correct anatomical terms.

Agree.

It's beyond belief that this knowledge hasn't made its way into the day to day decision making of family court judges.

Decisions made are supposed to be based on the best interests of the children, but too often decisions are made on the basis of the rights of biological fathers regardless of violence, cruelty, or any other past history of DV/ abuse - history that would rule out adoption of a puppy in the majority of cases.

The vast majority do not cosleep with older children, as shown by your statistics. 10-20% bedsharing means 80-90% not bedsharing. This means the non bed-sharers are in a distinct majority, and bed sharing is therefore not normal.

OP,, its unfair to put this all on a 5 year old child She needs to cover her private parts with you too, so that's the norm and she doesn't have to know to do it different at her dad's. 5 year olds often co sleep, again if you want it to be different for Dad I'd start getting her used to her own bed now.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne

‘Children need to know the right anatomical words for their genitalia.
It keeps them safer because they can much more easily describe exactly what's happened, if there has been sexual abuse’.

No words can change the past. Helping them describe an extremely traumatic event after the event will clearly not make them any safer.

Yes, little children of five.

I don't see any reason to think the child doesn't have her own bed when she wants to sleep there. Of course, if she didn't, that wouldbbe a concern.

If you look at the stats, you'll see about 1 in 10 children co-sleep regularly, so it is pretty normal and certainly nothing to worry about. Of all the things to pick out of the OP's post, this is not the one.

I don't think that's how I would interpret those stats.

'Normal' is usually a range when it comes to children's behaviours. If one in five children shares a bed, that's pretty normal. You would expect, for example, to find four or five children in a reception class who were sharing a bed with mum. It's not something a child is going to feel odd or unusual for doing, which is the key thing.

IME older generations tend to demonise this sort of thing, because they parented at a time when even sharing a room with a newborn was discouraged, and they have the idea that it's somehow important for a child to be alone at night from as early as possible.

Yes it’s more when they call a cookie or mini moo as I’ve heard a few times

Excuse me if I don't take that as gospel.

I used to work with an incredibly respected, compassionate and skilled doctor. He was well-liked and extremely good at what he did. He referred to vaginas as foofs. No one was confused about what he meant, so I think if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

🤣🤣🤣