I was wondering at what point we should cut this off.
First a little backround story: My fiance has primary custody of his 3-year-old daughter (4 next month). She spends 9 days a month with her mother and at least one weekend a month with her maternal grandmother. They all share a room and/or bed with her at night. To my knowledge, she has never slept in a room by herself in her life.
When my fiance took custody, we put her in her own room. This went well for a while until she wasn't with us for a week. (My fiance works a second shift job and I caught the flu so she stayed with her aunt until I was well enough to take care of her.) When my step-daughter came back, she refused to stay in her own room. We ended up putting her bed in our room and slowly weened her back into her own room. First, we'd have her fall asleep in our bed until it was our bedtime then moved her into her own bed. Then we had her fall asleep in her own bed and stayed with her until she fell asleep. Then we put her in her own bed and let her fall asleep on her own.
Now her bed is back in her own room. She gives us problems with falling and staying asleep and is now looking for any reason for us to get out of our room and see her (i.e. telling us she needs to use the bathroom when she doesn't).
I was just wondering at point it's not okay for her to be in a bedroom with us anymore. I've heard other people saying that it can by psychology damaging or she'll never learn to be "independent" and stuff like that if she stays in our room. Is this true?
I don't know, my kids slept with me or in my room until they were ready on their own to move out lol. My middle son stayed until he was 6. He's very independent.
So you just give/teach her the independence in another way, that's all. If you can have a bed in both places that would be nice. Put her in there as often as you can, but if she comes back to the bed in your room that's fine too.
I did co-sleeping with all my children (well, #2 didn't want to and #3 did well with the ferber method at 3 mos); #1 slept on the couch with me until age 6; #4 I coslept with until 3 and even now (several months later) I am still getting up multiple times a night, but things are getting better. It was a long drawn out process from sleeping in our bed to sleeping with me in my arm chair to me sleeping in his bed after he woke up at night and now, he goes to sleep and stays in his own bed waking me up for help to get back to sleep or bad dreams.
It's completely up to you and your judgement of her personality. I was happy to co-sleep with my kids, because it made breastfeeding much easier and I got more sleep when they were really little that way, but I tried to end it as early as I could without feeling like I was doing emotional damage because sleeping with a toddler is not sleeping it's trying to rest while they sleep near you.
Mine never ever slept with us ever. If they were sick, or scared they were welcome to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but never in our bed ever.
From what i know as with other parenting styles there are good results and bad results. Most co-sleepers i know are very confident during the day and will play by themselves/interact with peers with minmal parent involvement. Many countries have family beds with no damaging effects on the child.
I wouldn't worry about damaging your child. Lots of people co-sleep on here and all around the world. And I know a grown man who had trouble sleeping, so he went every night and slept right outside his parents door when he was a boy probably about that age. And he still turned out quite independent and a very normal adult.
Personally, though, *I* wouldn't want a share a room with a child and I would be looking for ways to wean her back into her own bed. I want a full night'ssleep and plenty of snuggle time with my DH without interruption from a child kicking us at night. Plus, with m being pregnant and needing a body pillow in the bed, our bed is already overcrowded as it is :)
She's cheating on him
- HeadKrobe8789
on Mar. 6, 2013 at 2:26 PM