Parent in 10yr olds room

[Phoenix75]

Hi, not sure if this should be in the parenting thread or the relationship one.

I'm looking for advice from other parents regarding a parent whose still sleeping in their child's room whose recently turned 10 and an only child.

I was asked recently by a friend of mine (M) whose partner (F) has been sleeping in the same room as their son for the last 4yrs and if this is normal!! He also mentioned that they hadn't had any sort of sexual contact in the last 3yrs.

I was completely taken aback by this because neither of them (I'm friends with both) have mentioned this, so I had to really watch what I said to him as l didn't want to upset him.

I said that it's not something I'd heard many parents do and does the child have difficulty sleeping? He said yes and their mum would stay in the room with them, but she stayed there all night and never returned to the martial bed!!

I can understand how horrible it is for parents when their kids find it difficult to get to sleep on their own. Of course when my kids were younger (toddlers) and they had difficulty falling asleep I of course stayed in their room until they fell asleep, but I then went into my own bed with my partner.

I think he feels that she's staying away because she no longer has feelings for him and he is struggling to deal with it.

I didn't want to upset him and just said that it would be best to discuss this with his partner, explaining how he's feeling, asking why she feels she needs to sleep the whole night in the child's room etc.

Has this happened to others and how common this is and if it isn't, can it be a symptom of something else, like a breakdown in feelings etc.

I've never been in this situation before so any advice would be great.

Thanks 😊

We do whatever it takes to get the best nights sleep for everyone. Weird social constructs be damned.
Whether that means separate beds or different rooms or whatever.

Maybe you could suggest HE sleeps with 10 y/o all night to give his Mrs a break and a night off seeing to someone else’s needs.

Maybe he (hubby) snores or spends night pinning her to the bed spooning which isn’t comfy.
I think maybe you should just not get involved.
Marital bed 😂😂 haha.

You don’t have any advice to give. So stop.

When my son started at university a girl in the next room had her dad stay in her room for ten whole nights sleeping on the floor, poor guy was broken he said. In the end they both packed up and went home.

So 10 doesn't sound so bad

Agree. Depends on child. My grandson is 13 but didn't stop until he was around 10 co sleeping... he's autistic and needed closeness, slept badly alone..its been slow process but hes in his own bedroom now. Tg lol

You sound over invested in your friends’ lives. It really isn’t any of your business. Maybe he should talk to his wife instead of his wife’s friend. That’s out of order in my opinion to be discussing his sex life with another woman.

No sex for three years? No, that’s not typical. Falling asleep with a child who’s a difficult sleeper, absolutely. Not sleeping in the bed with your partner in 3 years?! No, I don’t know anyone who has done that, apart from one who has health issues. That’s co-parenting, not a loving relationship for most people.

It’s quite disrespectful if you are also friends with the wife that he is talking to you about it. She may not want you to know their sleeping arrangements and he may be making it up or exaggerating.

My 11 yr old is on my bed just now.

Does he fancy you, by any chance?

Do you fancy him?

I would never allow a friend's husband to starting talking shit about their sex life

What the heck! Thats wrong on so many levels.

I think it’s far more common than many people think. My dd is 13 and still sleeps with me.

Sexless relationships are fairly normal. But if he wants sex and she doesn’t it’s not a dynamic that works for them.

Staying all night every night in a 10 year old’s room does not seem normal, though. Even if the DC has difficulty getting to sleep it is not a great for them not to have their own space at that age. But it’s also difficult, if you’ve had a decade of poor sleep, not to do the thing that makes your life easy and to stick with it if it’s working for you.

So I think it could be an excuse to stay away from her DH, but it could also just be a habit that she doesn’t want to change because it works for her and (as is very, very common when kids come along) her sleep was never given the priority it should have been before. One of the biggest reasons women give for not wanting sex in a relationship is being tired and men almost never go to any length to ensure their partners are well rested when they start complaining (even if just to themselves) about a lack of sex after children come along.

As you rightly told your friend when he asked, what he needs to do is talk to her. Nothing else is going to get him the answers he wants or help him address the problems he’s experiencing in his relationship.

This.
Sounds like the wife is being made responsible for everyone's needs and doesn't get a break. Maybe the husband should be suuuuuper mindful of that before continuing to moan to his pal that he's not enjoying an active sex life while his wife is co-sleeping to support their kid every night...

I’ve never heard of a child that age co sleeping, no- if the child isn’t nd or doesn’t have extreme anxiety then maybe it is as people say, that the wife is avoiding sleeping with the dh, which is quite unfair on the child, and horrible for all three of them really. They definitely need to talk (but maybe just say ‘I don’t really know, maybe just talk to your wife’

The NSPCC recommends a child has their own room by aged 10.

It's not that shocking OP?? Obviously the marriage is on the rocks if they haven't had sex in three years? Is your friend stupid? His wife obviously wants to avoid the marital bed. I did the same with my then six year old (who was always a bad sleeper and would come looking for me most nights anyway so she didn't notice anything was up, she was happy I expect!) also - this talk of using the spare room and not "involving the child" surely you can understand that not everyone has a spare room?!

If he asks againtTell your friend to speak to his wife about their marriage in a frank open way, you really can't advise beyond that as you don't know the ins and outs of their relationship.

My mother forced me out of my home by doing this. Her relationship with my father broke down, we only had a 2 bed house and she didn’t want to sleep with him. So she invaded my privacy and forced herself into my room.

I didn’t want to sleep with a snoring sweating menopausal woman. I wanted my privacy. I was a young teen who had periods and other personal things, and I wanted my own space to have a friend over, or study, or watch tv, or read a book with the light on, or masturbate.

So I moved out as soon as I could - she literally forced me out of my home. I still can’t get over her selfishness. It wasn’t my problem that her relationship with her husband had broken down, but I was the one being punished. OP your friend’s wife is being incredibly selfish, punishing her child for the failure of her own relationship.

My DS is 10 and yes I sleep in same room, own beds, for the whole night. I've tried to stop a couple of times to stop but he wakes up multiple times every night if I'm not sleeping in the same room. If it's driven by the child I don't see a problem with it at 10. I started cosleeping because XH refused to get up ro either of our DS and only way I could deal with it was to cosleep with them. It morphed into a way to avoid him because of escalating abuse. I wouldn't have continued though if DS didn't want it.

I wouldn't be surprised if XH talked to others about it in the way this man has. It could be she's checked out of the marriage, or her DH could be abusive like mine, or she's just completely exhausted from a decade of broken sleep. You really can't understand the impact of that, nor how much you'll give up just for a little more sleep, if you haven't been through it. Some children co-regulate and need that parental presence longer than other kids. Has this man offered to take turns cosleeping so his wife gets a night off from being on duty? What is his solution to support her getting more sleep if he wakes when she stops cosleeping or like my XH does he just want her to suck up the extra wakes she'd be dealing with moving back into the marital bed?
Maybe don't judge your friend when you only know one side on the story.

How convenient to throw the sex thing in there...

I would place a bet on him trying it on soon.

If he brings it up again, I would say,'Your sex life and sleeping arrangements are really none of my business, talk to your wife '.

I'd say its highly unusual. Even people who choose to co-sleep, do so in the early years only. It sounds like she didn't start this until her DC was 6, so I'd say that point coincided whith her wanting to avoid being with her DH, perhaps something happened around then that he is aware of?
Are they sharing a bed or just the room? It's going to be odd for her DC the older they get, and if they blab to their mates, they may well get some odd reactions to it that they don't expect, because it will feel normal to them.
Overall communication must be quite dire between them if he has let this go for 4 years without asking the reason. If there's no intimacy in a relationship, there's no point. Hard to say this to him outright yourself though, so I think your advice to talk to his DW was wise. It's amazing it's taken him 4 years.

@Phoenix75 I think it is a bizarre thing for a friend to get advice on, particularly when you are friends with both of the couple. What an awkward position it puts you in. I would be really annoyed with a "friend" who dragged me in to their relationship to this extent. I occasionally talk about sex life with my friends but never when I am friends with both. And the fact you're picking sides?! I find your behaviour bizarre too. It all sounds unhealthily enmeshed.

Both of my kids want to sleep with me. My son ends up in between my husband and I in our bed and my daughter sneaks in during the early hours too. Sometimes it’s easier to let them sleep with you than battle getting them into their own beds and losing sleep

The co-sleeping isn't weird. Lots of children sleep with their parents regularly at that age.
Him discussing his sex life with a woman other than his wife is weird and inappropriate.