DSD sleeping in our bed

[Emotionalmama]

from the outset just want to put it out there that me and DH’s ex do not get on at all but I get on exceptionally well with their daughter (4). She stays with us every other weekend and her mother always always always has something to complain about when she stays, mostly lies to be brutally honest. DSD stayed last weekend and got into our bed between me and DH and her mother has went mental saying it’s in appropriate for her to stay with me and DH. i didn’t think twice of it, I’m due our own baby in a few months so was a little bit of a squeeze but we all slept well and throughout the night. Is this inappropriate?

This thread is insane. No one should be cosleeping with children who are not their own. Step parents are not parents and should have similar boundaries to aunts, uncles, grandparents and nannies/babysitters.

Hold on I usually agree with you but

Op has a right to sleep in her bed. In her house. That's a very fair hill to die on.

DSC is joining them in her and dps bed.
If DH wants to sleep with a toddler because they are sick/need comfort he can join them in DSC bed if he wishes.

Idk about many blended families but op has a right to sleep in her own bed. Let's not play with words making it sound like heavily pregnant op is insisting she sleeps with DSC 😵‍💫 for what the joy or to piss mum off ?

It's because DSC wants to sleep with their parent and chances are they are doing that because they also do it at mums house.

@Kiwisarenotjustfruit

"Giving birth makes you the child’s mother. You are nothing to those children. You’re just the woman their now fucks.
You should not be anywhere near children if you can’t respect their mother."

If anyones wondering is where the term golden uterus comes from, it's comments like these.

Giving birth to children doesn't automatically make you a mother. Children have two parents and op is in a relationship with one of them and it's not the mother. She is respectfully not the boss of dads house.

Respect is earnt not demanded. No matter how many paddy's people have about it.

Dad controls what goes down in his house re the kids. What mum wants is irrelevant if she hadn't created a mutually respectful relationship with dad and sm where they can talk about things.

Christ on a bike I'm grateful for my ex and my Dd sm mum now. More than ever it would appear.

Also just before anyone comes at me.

I actually hate co sleeping, and would avoid it like the plague at the best of times. I certainly wouldn't be encouraging it heavily pregnant.

However if dad wants to co sleep with DSC for whatever reason he can do so and should do in DSC bed.

So I agree with mum's statement about cosleeping but I can't agree that a heavily pregnant op should be forced into the sofa to enable it.

Quite 👏🏻

Giving birth is the bloody definition of ´mother’.
A step mother is not a mother. (She may be a mother to her own children of course).
You do not let children sleep in bed with you unless they are your own children. Basic fucking safeguarding.

*Op has a right to sleep in her bed. In her house. That's a very fair hill to die on.

DSC is joining them in her and dps bed.
If DH wants to sleep with a toddler because they are sick/need comfort he can join them in DSC bed if he wishes.

Idk about many blended families but op has a right to sleep in her own bed. Let's not play with words making it sound like heavily pregnant op is insisting she sleeps with DSC 😵‍💫 for what the joy or to piss mum off ?

It's because DSC wants to sleep with their parent and chances are they are doing that because they also do it at mums house.*

Couldn't agree more. I find it unbelievable that anyone would genuinely expect OP to be the one to leave the bed in this scenario.

@hourbyhour101, I think you still agree with me, I put in a previous post on this thread that the husband should be getting out of bed and squashing into his child's bed. I absolutely don't think the op, or any step parent should be displaced.

It's also not the op's attitude that I don't like, she's doing the right thing, reflecting on it and questioning it. It's the posters who are so adamant that it's perfectly fine that are bothering me.

I thinks it's easy when you don't like someone to automatically dismiss them, the op is rising above her dislike of the mum and questioning it, which is truly admirable when faced with someone who will argue everything.

This is spot on.
OP should be not be being chucked out of her own bed. Not at all.
I’m just profoundly shocked that people on this thread cannot see a difference between her things that are pretty normal for a parent-young child relationship that are not appropriate for any other level of adult/child relationship.
I would expect and trust any adult that I had left in charge of my 4year old child overnight to closely supervise bathtime for example. But I would be pretty horrified if they thought it was ok to get in the bath/shower with the child. Similar thing for help with toileting/getting dressed. If course a toddler/young child will need some help with these things, but I would expect a step parent/grandparent/other relative to maintain their own privacy when washing/dressing/going to the toilet themselves.

I completely disagree that it's inappropriate.

This is OP's husband, not a boyfriend. It's a stable, long term relationship and OP is in this child's life as a parental figure.

I have a stepdad who has been in my life since I was 18 months old. If I had a nightmare as a child, my parents (i.e. mum and stepdad) wouldn't think twice about letting me sleep in bed with them.

There was nothing inappropriate about it at all, and it would have been really odd if my dad had kicked up a fuss about this. My stepdad was my parent as well.

If it was a new relationship with OP then it would be different, but this is a married couple and in that situation a step parent is like a parent. It's not inappropriate at all.

This is not true at all.

I have a stepdad who is my parent in every way. (I also have a dad, so it's not just because my dad was not on the scene).

Step parents can absolutely be parents.

I'm more of a mother to my DSD than the one who gave birth to her. Plenty of women give birth to babies and then abandon them or rarely see them, or have them taken away for safety reasons.

Yes giving birth technically makes you a mother but we all know it takes more than that to really be a mum. People think nothing of calling absent fathers "sperm donors".

Even if a child does have both biological parents in their life, a step-parent can still be their parent.

My DSD refers to her mum as her "other mum" so she clearly sees me as a mother and to be honest that's the only opinion that matters.

I think people rate the relative importance of genetic motherhood, pregnancy and birth and looking after the child when they are born differently. You should be careful about saying things like ´I’m more of a mother than the woman who gave birth to them’ because your stepchild may grow up to disagree with you. Or not. But it’s not something you have control over.
The biological sides of motherhood are important to me personally. I get quite angry when that is minimized. I do think pregnancy and birth confer a intimacy of a mother/baby or small child relationship that is not equivalent to other care giving relationships. I would treat a step child or foster child differently to my own children because of this. I would not cosleep. I would not bath with them and I would not be naked around them. I would respect the child’s need to know and understand their story and their feelings towards their mother, even if I found her life choices tragic or reprehensible.
I appreciate that some mothers do not fufill the ´taking care of the child’ aspect of motherhood adequately or even at all, and that this requires other caregiving adults to step into the massive void this leaves, and that both women in this position and the child abandoned by their mother may choose to call the adult ´mum’. I would never dream of contradicting a child in such a position or the adoptive/foster/step mum.
In the OPs case, I stand by my position that her partner/husband should be putting her stepchild back in bed and not allowing co-sleeping because she is not that child’s mother. Step parents should not cosleep with their stepchildren.

I'm more of a mother to my DSD than the one who gave birth to her. Plenty of women give birth to babies and then abandon them or rarely see them, or have them taken away for safety reasons

There is no indication whatsoever that the child's mother is anything other than a mother, has abandonned her child, rarely sees her or has had her child taken away.

That is so offensive to so many people who live in alternative family structures. Like adopted families, or step families where the other parent is actually absent, or families who live with other relatives.

I didn't say there was in this instance. I was replying to the claim that stepmums aren't mother's.

Why? The adults in alternative family structures have to acknowledge the role the child’s biological parents play in the creation of their family unit. What that looks like exactly is going to depend on the individual situation. But you can’t just erase it.
Step parents should not bedshare with step children. Hard line for me. If we want to be brutally honest about it, it’s more of a safeguarding danger for stepfathers than stepmothers, but it’s a pretty straightforward boundary to have in place that will protect both the child and the stepparent, whatever their sex.
And relatives other than the parents and perhaps close age siblings (until maybe 10 if opposite sex) should not bed share either. I would be equally outraged if my own parents let my kid sleep in bed with them. Not ok. Hard line. Children should not bedshare with anyone other than their parents and step parents don’t count.

It's absolutely fine if you don't feel comfortable doing certain things around a child that isn't biologically yours but I don't think it's fair to expect others to behave in the same way.

Maybe because of my personal experiences, I don't put too much value on biology. I've donated my eggs so likely have biological children out there in the world but I would never think of myself as a mother because of this or have any want or need to meet these children. My DH was abandoned by his biological mother as a baby and adopted. My oldest DSS is not biologically my DHs but he has raised him since 2yo and is very much his dad. More so than the man who walked away from him. My parents foster and have fostered 2 kids for 8 years. As far as I'm concerned they're family and I call them my brother and sister. I have friends who had to use a surrogate and a donor to have their twin girls.

So in my experience, family is much more than biology.

@Kiwisarenotjustfruit I understand that it's a hard line for you and I think that's fine, but equally many people don't feel as strongly. I really wouldn't be bothered if a close family member, ie grandparents/aunts shared a bed with my DDs. Well, I would from the perspective that I don't cosleep myself and don't want it encouraged. But not because of what their relationship to the child is.

Why is it that it being in a bed makes it weird? Would mum feel the same if you were laying on the sofa reading her DD a story/watching a film and DD climbed on top of you/up next you and cuddled you, lying down? If she fell asleep on you like that?

I think OP and her partner need to acknowledge this is a hard line for her stepchild/his child’s mother and not co sleep. Ignoring her viewpoint will destroy her ability to trust them and any chance of a positive co-parenting /mum+step mum relationship.
I find your perspective odd and a bit frightening to be honest. But there was child sexual abusive in my husband’s wider family and that has destroyed any potential for me to trust anyone with that level of intimacy with my children beyond my husband himself. Having trusted family members or caregivers show they can care for my child while maintaining those boundaries (eg. Telling the toddler no, grandma isn’t going to get in the shower with you) is something that makes me feel much more comfortable about leaving my babies in their care. Unfortunately child sexual abuse is quite common so I would have thought more people would agree with my boundaries.
I have also worked closely with children who are not my own (babysitting, summer camps etc) and so I do have experience being in loco-parentis but not being the child’s parent and it’s a totally different relationship and those boundaries are so important as a professional. I don’t really understand why a step parent would ever accept a step child sleeping in their bed as it’s so counter to all the safeguarding rules that such professionals are taught.

I personally don't think it's inappropriate but I would urge you stay out of this OP and allow your partner to deal with this. He can find out from his ex why she feels this way and see if they can reach an agreement or compromise on it. I'm a stepmum to a girl (now 11 but was 6 when I met her ) and she has gone through phases of getting into our bed in the past when she was younger. Her mum has never had a problem with it, but she's had stuff to say about other things that go on at our house. I tend to just stay out of it as much as possible and respect mum's wishes (unless they are something blatantly wrong/harmful to her). The reason for this is because this is what I would want in her shoes. When you have your baby, enjoy being able to raise them your way. No-one can never take that away from you. x

Nope. Nope. Why should the pregnant OP be leaving the bed. If the parents have a problem then the parents sort it out. It's not for the OP to be relegated out if her bed ffs. Dad can sleep in dds bed or on the floor in her room.

The app is going to presumably by SM for life. I would want nothing more than for my child to feel comfort and lived enough to be able to snuggle them. People are so wrapped up in their own selfish world that they fail to put the child first big the dc wants comfort I would absolutely want them to have a SM/SD who actually cared enough about them.

Thanks for all the replies. With all due respect to some people I'm not the new love or new girlfriend, I'm my DH's wife and DH and ex split up when DSC was a baby so she can't remember them together, she's only ever known me and her father together.

It's interesting and not getting at anyone, although I can see some posters are a bit triggered by this which they're within their rights to be (no need for foul language though I'm more than just the woman my DH is intimate with), how the hypothetical replies from parents differ so much from actual active step parents.

I know some people in my own family struggled with me taking on a DSC but in my opinion and approach, it's another person to love her and try and be a good influence on her. I've never tried to take over her mum's role or place nor exert any inappropriate influence. I recognise she's biologically nothing to me but I care about her dearly and we are a massive part of each others lives so whilst I may have no 'claim' as such, I do feel I have a massive responsibility to do what's right by her. She didn't ask to be born into this non nuclear family like so, honestly just trying to do my best.

It's interesting how there's so many different viewpoints, I personally know that I rarely slept in with my mum and dad unless I had a nightmare and when I stayed in my granny's house I stayed in bed with her. Honestly didn't think twice of DSC jumping in, we were all exhausted, it's not a regular thing just been playing on my mind because her mother raised it. Again, thanks for replies.