Co-sleeping and starting school presented as bad by school

[camaleon]

Our school has recommended parents to stop co-sleeping with kids who are starting reception next September in order to help them with their independence and make it easier for them to start school.

Honestly I have not a view on co-sleeping for the general public. I know parents who do it and others who do not. I believe nobody should tell me how to sleep in general. I would have never thought it was linked to a smooth transition into their reception year and I can easily imagine children who co-sleep with brothers or sisters or grandparents due to lack of space in the house or whatever reason.

Is this a normal recommendation?

You have sex in the bed that you are sharing with your child?

Seriously lucky just about covers it shellye. DS has only just started sleeping through in his own room, and he's 4 next month!

Pretty shocked that a school would advise that - way beyond their remit IMO. Surely it's entirely likely that a child will want or need more reassurance from their parents during a stressful time such as starting school, and cosleeping is such a great way to provide that. I'm not sure that forcing a child who needs that extra support to give it up at the same time as embarking on their school career is doing the child any favours at all.

Quite agree about the bedtimes thing though. I get a right judge on when I hear about people letting their kids stay up til whenever then sending them to school or nursery in the morning. As bad as feeding them a poor diet IMO.

None of the school business, as long child get's good amount of sleep during the night that is all that matters. We personally did not co sleep with our children, expect on the rear occasion when our younger one would wonder into our bed(bad dreams, night terrors an so on) and I have enjoyed those moments a lot having her with us it reminded me of when she was just a baby (DH disagrees), so you see, sleeping and co sleeping it is a such private thing and preference that nobody has right to suggest different ways of doing it.

Ok, I am trying to understand co-sleep. Am totally not on board with sex while child in the same bed. Seriously? No!

And where did I say that? I just thought I'd employ a few Daily Mail tactics to outrage you. I see I succeeded. We have sex. No-one mentioned a bed.

Shelly, babe i doubt anybody is doing it while having the child in the bed
(sitting room, bathroom, kitchen) list is endless.

Me neither!

Am quite happy to try the reading during sex though!

Oh, I see

@ shellye

How odd of the school.

I co slept with my ds1 until he was 4.5 and still co sleep part time with my 3.5 year old. This was a deliberate choice on my part and nothing to do with being lucky/unlucky.

The schools advice seems ridiculous as surely one of the worst times to stop co sleeping would be when your child is about to start school?! It's a big deal for parents and little kids alike so better to keep up the normal routine at home.

Co sleeping or sleeping we can't blame for lambs for our exciting sex life

You can shag somewhere other than the bed.

Would need to be a very short book though!

Meant "poor lambs" (idiotic spelling)

Happy to start co-sleeping if that encourages sex round the house!

Bet the school wouldn't want you to be in there trying to micromanage their teaching- but apparently it is ok to micromanage your home life.

My HV was horrified when I revealed that 3yo dd still regularly ended up in our bed. I told her it was part of my culture - that shut her up. Actually, Swedes do seem to worry less about this one: my db told me they often ended up with 3 dcs+ 2 cats in bed- and him and his partner were not exactly slender either.

Shelly you can always give it go "round the house" co sleeping not required

But Shellye, you don't need to because your dd slept from eleven minutes weeks old.

I was going to Uni after being awoken 6 times in the night, being up since 4.30 am and then on to work until 9 pm. Non sleeping babies are shit. Co-sleeping helps, although those earlier statistics were while co-sleeping.

Way OTT IMO.

DS never co-slept until he started school. He also started wetting the bed.

So I gave my DS confidence and independence - somehow it was lost / taken away.

Separate sleep is also a particularly Western thing.In many other cultures 'family' beds/futons/mats are the norm.

School is being ridiculous & seriously unpc - are they suggesting other cultures are wrong? .

I suspect someone has a bee in his or her bonnet but I'd be worried about any teacher who seems to have so little understanding of the emotional needs of 4 year olds.
Perhaps you could ask for the evidence behind this advice and how it fits with the development of secure emotional attachment?

We don't co-sleep, it would drive us crazy but I'd still be really pissed off if school told us we couldn't- it wouldn't be any of their business, totally ridiculous!

We can't have sex in our room anyway though, even with them in their own room because, ahem... I make too much noise, and wake them up. So sex is a living room sport in our household, which it would be if we co-slept.

On more serious note, I do wonder why would the teacher recommend something like that? Is the school very culturally diverse? We all know that some far and middle Eastern nations have a lot more common sense and favour co sleeping, I wonder if teacher was speaking only to certain group of parents ( if that was the case, that would be even more awful)

For a child used to co-sleeping I'd've thought booting them out of bed and starting school might all be a bit much at once.
I'd be inclined to settle them in school and keep the status quo at home.

That sounds awful Pippi and I do sympathise. If it helps I suffer from insomnia! And sometimes I think there i a lot of luck in kids and their sleeping patterns.