How many of you co-sleep with a child over 2?

[Rockbird]

Shamelessly making myself feel better here DD is 2.2yo and we co-sleep and have done since she took a violent aversion to her cot at about 5 months. It was laziness on my part really. I'm not a middle of the night person and it was far easier to take her in with me that have a 3am battle at the cot.

It only bothers me in so much as I am a very light sleeper and she keeps me awake just by being there. Having said that, sometimes DH takes her and I head to the spare room and I really miss her. Everyone in RL thinks I'm crazy for not having her in her own bed. Not too fussed about that, each to his own. But I wondered how widespread this is.

Me!
dd is 6.

I also think it's a lot more widespread IRL than you probably think, it's just that a lot of people maybe don't always do it, or the child starts off in their own bed and then comes into the family bed etc etc. There's also the terminology. We're used to hearing the term co-sleeping on sites like this, but RL people who don't use these sites, often do it, without giving it a name.

If I asked my SIL, for example if she "co-slept", she'd look at me like I was a loon, she wouldn't know what I meant. If I said "where do the kids sleep" she'd say the youngest slept with her and dh (the youngest is 4) whilst the other two, (8 and 11) now shared a room, but used to sleep in the family bed.

Me. Dd is 5. I try and get her to start the night in her bed but she always ends up with me. Ds is coming up to 2 and still breastfed but I wouldn't even consider doing it with him as he is far too wriggly and thinks if he's in my bed it's time to play. He definately needs the peace and quiet and dark of his cot.

raises hand
my DS is 2.3, he has his own bedroom and bed and I do go through phases of trying to get him to go to sleep in there and stay in there throughout the night, but I rarely have the energy required to do consistently. He'll sometimes go to bed in his bed and sometimes in ours but he's almost invariably in ours by 2am.

We have no. 2 due pretty much any time now so it will be interesting to see how things change when that happens. I did a big drive to try to get him to stay in his own bed a few weeks back and thought that it was v important that we achieved that before the next one arrives - didn't really make much progress so now we're just going to go with the flow and see how things work out and make changes if/when we need to.

I'm really hoping no 2 is a fan of his/her cot - otherwise we're going to have to get a bigger bed.

It's definitely not something we planned or something I'm particularly proud of but it seems to be the right thing for our family and fighting it never feels right or worthwhile.

Luckily we have a massive bed although it doesn't seem to make any difference as DD always ends up with her arm down my top and her feet in my pants anyway

She doesn't even have a bedroom. We decorated what we laughingly call the nursery but she spent 15 minutes in it once and screamed the house down. Therefore it's the house equivalent of Miss Haversham and we're keeping it new for a possible dc2. We have a spare room that I have started buying bits and bobs for with a view to doing it up for her but it seems a bit pointless.

But it is very good to know that we're not the only ones. I think it's a good point about the terminology. Too much time on here and BLW, co-sleeping and the like become part of your language when the wider world has never heard of them

Well DS is now 8 and a half and spends maybe 3 nights a week in his own bed and the others in mine. DH is in spare room!

I hated co-sleeping when he was a baby and he was great at sleeping in his own room and bed. Then we moved house and country when hw was 3 and he gradually started coming in to us. Ended up that I would take him and go into the spare room so as not to disturb DH too much. Then we moved house again when he was 5ish and I think DH slept in 'our' bed maybe once or twice! Then he moved into the spare room. DS has gradually started moving into his own bed himself but will sometimes still come into me during the night.

The daft thing is I miss him if he stays in his own room all night! End up getting up once or twice to check on him.