I have made a mistake with sharing a bed

[FuglyLurker]

Bah I've made an awful mistake with allowing my 3 year old DS to come into our bed at night, I possibly even encouraged it to begin with . For some reason I was under the impression that it would be lovely snuggly sleep time as a family and now it's become unbearable.

DS comes up to us every night without fail and has done so for the last 3 months. It is having a major effect on the quality of sleep we all get and we are turning into tired monsters. I've decided to tackle this tonight but I am feeling so guilty about the upset that my boy is about to face when I am partly responsible for the situation to begin with.

I know it's perfectly normal for children to sleep in their own beds but I am worried he is going to feel confused and rejected when I tell him he isn't able to sleep with us anymore.

I don't know why this is causing me to feel anxious, I just wish I had nipped it in the bud to start with! Does anyone have any advice or experiences to share? He can be a sensitive chap and I don't want him thinking he's done anything wrong.

My good friend had her boy sleep with her until they moved into a big enough place for him to have his own room. He was a sensitive chap but seems like a lovely well adjusted boy.
Perhaps get him involved in a revamp of his room. If it doesn't work tonight, don't assume it will never work.
How about an electric blanket or hot water bottle to warm his bed.
Look into getting a worry monster for him to write or draw any fears and put them in WM's zipped mouth. WM will Eat them up overnight because he/she is happy to take care of them for you. Cue parent scrabbling about while child sleeps to remove bit of paper from WM.

A room revamp has helped both mine.

We’ve got a Groclock and DD (3) definitely understands as she talks about staying in her own bed until ‘yellow sun’ and the fact that she gets a sticker on her reward chart (just a home-made card so could be done tonight) when she does (which eventually allows her to choose a magazine or something similar - we started with a morning chocolate treat as an immediate reward/bribe but moved away from that as quickly as possible!). Also she doesn’t get penalised for getting up/shouting for us if she needs the loo or is upset or anything, it just means that we say that we’ll only stay a minute with her when we pop her back into bed rather than getting trapped in her room for ages. Seems to be working at the moment... Good luck!

Be consistent
Tell him he’s a big boy and should stay in his big boy bed now

Some great ideas there thank you, I have a sticker chart that we will be opening tonight and hopefully that will help with our end goal, he responds very well to working up to a reward.

His room is also a little bare atm so I'll take him shopping tomorrow for some wall decorations etc to up the appeal a bit. He has loads of teddys that aren't really paid attention to so maybe I could get him excited about one of the larger ones as a comforter at night.

Yes Robin you are right I do need to be consistent, I'm just struggling at the moment with my turn around from welcoming him into our bed and now I'll be telling him it's not okay.

Yep - so easy to feel like caving in the middle of the night and we definitely found (although DD was a bit younger at the time, so just 2) that what seemed to be very clear to her at 6.30pm wasn’t quite so clear at 2am... But consistency in the long term should lead to better sleep for all of you hopefully so it is worth persevering with. The hard thing then is working out whether you can have exceptions that they understand e.g. extra half hour in bed with us on a weekend morning or if they are ill. Don’t think we’ve quite got there with that!

You say it’s normal for them to be in their own beds but for him it’s totally normal to be in your bed. We have such expectations of children to sleep alone when we ourselves like to sleep with our partners. (I don’t mean this to say don’t put him in his own room! I just mean what you have done so far isn’t ABNORMAL :) )

It worked we went to bed last night armed with the new sticker book and teddies and didn't hear a peep from him until the morning! I can't believe the first night went so easily without any tears but it was bliss to have my half of my bed back lol
I'm just hoping the novelty doesn't wear off any time soon.

Yes CrazyCatLady I did normalise it for him, I really liked the idea of cuddling through the night with him but didn't think about the practicalities of sleeping with one butt cheek on the bed. Ah well I gave it a go, and I'm a lot happier now that we've had our first success without any upset for him.

@FuglyLurker well done!!