co sleeping 8 year old DSD

[avocadosarentmiddleclassed]

DSD stays 4 nights a week.
She goes to sleep in her own bed (DH snuggles down and reads with her for an hour or so each night) but then was up and walks into our bed and falls asleep there.
Because she snores and is rather tall and gangly I am often kept awake by the raised eat in the bed, duvet snatching, wriggling and noise.
I am a teacher who really needs my sleep at the moment so don't know what to do.
DH and DSD co-slept until DSD was six and then we all decided that we were all tired and grumpy all day afterwards so DSD should sleep in her own bed but just lately she has started coming into ours.
Im in the spare room bed right now having been woken by DSD getting in our bed.

I don't want to say to DH can you take her back to her room because
a)she might be needing the comfort and I don't want to stand in the way of that.
b) I don't want her to see me as getting in between her and her dad

What would you do?

As a mum of a child with a step mother, Marilyn's post makes me want to weep.
Dd sleeps with me because daddy moved out and she is devastated. She doesn't want to sleep alone. If Marilyn was her step mother I would be banning access, as quite frankly a child doesn't need vitriol and pseudo parenting, they need affection.
I love the fact you let her into bed, and absolutely appreciate it is exhausting. Maybe try explaining it to her? Love having cuddles in the morning, but you are a Giant Child and you kick me all night!!! Big girls need big girl beds, but please come for cuddles in the morning...

catrin . 'You would be banning access ? Really. What about the child's rights to see their father ? My dsc DM thought she would try that trick. The courts thought otherwise. We were so horrible and mean to the children that the first left aged 13 and the second aged 11 and moved in with her horrible stepmother and father, as soon as the courts were sure they could make up their own minds and understand the consequences. Their main reason for moving was because their DM smothered and mollycoddled them and treated them like pawns in a game of chess with their father and refused to let them grow up. Sorry, 8 yrs old is too old to be getting into bed with Parents (accept if feeling unwell) and bedtime should be child reading a book, maybe a quick discussion with Df , tucked in and read until sleepy. The moment you start all the 'soothing' at that age, it will never stop. Step children can also get caught up in the parents dynamic, the 'children come first ethos' can often translate into 'children have it all their way' , that's not how it is in our house. They have a strong base here where my dh and I put our relationship as the strong foundation from which to provide a solid family unit. The moment children start to dictate the terms, the foundation collapses. Children go to bed when they are told, and stay there. Those are the rules. Once they know that, the rest is easy. I don't think they cried themselves to sleep or they wouldn't have been desperate to move in with us. We now have 5 teens all of whom are delightful, happy, self sufficient young people who respect us as we do them.

Would just like to add, that telling a child to go to bed and not having any truck with night time shenanigans does not equate to not having affection. They all had (and still have) a lot of cuddles/affection. The bedtime rules also no longer apply. Self sufficient children can make their own weekend bedtimes, and need no input from parents once they are at secondary school.

Thank you I'm dreading tonight I've felt really tired all day because DSD came in at 6 singing and dancing. I have realised that there are quite a few things I need to address with regards to DSD and DH.. For instance her reluctance to share when she has friends round sand her poor table manners which DH never picks her up on I feel he is making it impossible for me to develop a relationship with her by allowing all of this behaviour. I gave her a sketch book for get birthday and she said 'oh I'll probably end up drawing 1 picture in this then throwing it out' I was so taken aback because DH didn't even encourage her to say thank you. Later on when I spoke to him about it he said he thought it was very astute of her to have recognised that this is what happens with sketch books. :( This is a bigger issue than I first realised. DSD's mum hasn't been with DH since before she gave birth and her boyfriend sleeps in a bed with her and DSD.
I'm so fed up I'm really not enjoying being at my house this weekend.

I absolutely feel for you op. No you shouldn't feel awkward in your own home. I am afraid your Dh is falling/has fallen into the trap of all weekend dads. He feels guilty, she knows it and plays it up to the max. He equates love, with letting her rule the roost. Firm boundaries are required. He will buck against it because he wants his time with her to be happy happy happy and thinks the way is to give in to everything, never criticise, never pull up on manners good behaviour for fear that she will not want to come again. We were there ten years ago. I told him to step up and be a father not a Disney dad. He was hugely defensive said the children wouldn't come. The opposite happened. The children responded to firm boundaries, realised he loved them just as much and also felt much much more secure. Parents run the household, they set the rules. It's your house, you are the step parent. You have to be a team and sing from the same song book. If your dsc were your children with your dh would you put up with this behaviour ? Would he be less acquiescent to every wish ?

Thank you for empathising it's so hard :( he's just taken her up to bed and I now won't see him for an hour or so by which time I'll be even more tired and won't get much of an evening with him.
I need to talk to him em this evening and talk about how I feel (currently searching for teaching jobs in Finland!) only to see the possibility not seriously. I'm just feeling like all my suppressed feelings are coming out today.

It's my point about child-centric households. Just step back in time to our childhoods. One generation. Would your parents have allowed any of this. ? I know mine wouldn't. Bedtime was bedtime. Story time until about 6/7 one story. 10 mins. Kiss tuck in. Sleep. Woe betide any getting up and fussing. Never afraid, just 'the look' . Evening was parents time. I was one of three bought up by my mum and stepdad (very unusual in early sixties) the same applied when we visited dad and step mum. Never once in my fifty odd years have I ever felt not loved and cherished by all parents but all of us children knew the boundaries and felt secure. Children are not your mates, they are children. To be loved, nurtured, cherished and taught how to be self sufficient, thoughtful kind adults. Relationships fall apart when one parent puts all into the children and neglect the relationship. Rock steady relationship, the rest will follow.

I would agree with the above. I know there are different parenting styles, but it's common in sepatated families for kids, in my view, to have all the boundaries blurred and not be allowed to grow up into independence properly.

OK if a kid was devastated like in the other post, then coming back to bed for a couple of weeks might be a way of acknowledging their pain, but to ban a step parent? To let this become the norm into 8 years? Then that it more about a parents unwillingness to do their job, IE provide a safe loving place for the kids to grow up! It can also turn into being a mate not dad/mum to the child, of burdening them with wanting to be the favoured parent etc, just too unhealthy.

It's happened with my DSCs and they are just adults and they are still very dependent, more so than their peers.

I have just been woken up by her coming into our room Im now wide awake

:(

How did your dh respond to your chat last night? Did he step up when she came in at 12:40am ?

He did take her back twice but when she came in at 4am he let her in. I was down stairs at the time (angry from being woken up at 12:40 and unable to get back to sleep) so when I came back to bed I had to perch on the edge. I used the relationship board (title: had a massive moan to DH what now...?) and that kept me from getting really cross.

What happened? Did he get up and put her back to bed?
Pick your battles, I know how hard it is to bite your tongue sometimes but concentrate on bedtime for now.
I've given up on table manners where dss is concerned, not my job to teach someone else's kid manners when the parents obviously don't place value on it.
Things that directly affect you is what you need to tackle first.

X post. As with most threads on this board your problem is your dp.
You've talked about it and he knows you don't want dsd in your bed, not unreasonable. So why is he letting her in? You need to talk again.

op I can't imagine how cross you are. Did you actually have a talk with him last night? Have you asked him what he thinks will happen if he got tough and says 'go back to bed' at 4am. 'Your behaviour is waking your stepmother and I and is unacceptable ' ? I bet he says she needs comforting and won't come and visit if he is stricter. If this is the case then he is a Disney dad, if he isn't willing to step up, things will only get worse. You need to have another talk, don't threaten or deliver ultimatums, (you really can't change other people only yourself.) tell him what is unacceptable for you. (Kids - mine or his in my bed would be my limit) then decide what you will do if this doesn't change. You must be prepared to walk though. Don't stop looking at those work ads in Finland..leave them lying around, circled in red..my push the message home that you are not being 'moany' but actually very uncomfortable in your own home. On the upside, is she back home to mum today ?

Giving in on the third occasion is worse than anything. DSD has just learned that of she's persistent enough she'll get her way in the end :(

Your DP should have been increasingly cross with her for waking him up three times in a night (unless she managed to sneak in without waking him once you'd left?)

Can you use a star chart and offer some sort of reward once she gets a certain number of stars for staying in her bed?

I think you may just have to take more control. If DP ever let's her into the bed you must take her back yourself. Or wake up DP. Set up a reward system for DSC for every night she stays the whole night. Its your bed, you can take control. If you can't carry her back sleep on the sofa yourself until this is resolved. Anything, but don't ever from now on allow yourself and her to share a bed. If DP gives in like he has she will get more persistent, not her fault, she is being taught to keep trying here.

Def take her to a GP about the snoring, as for he rest, up to you but I wouldn't let any child co-sleep ever