Co-sleeping and overnights with NRP

Lieja

I'm looking for some opinion/advice on a situation between my OH and his ex regarding his daughter. I've posted bits of the history on here before but this is pretty new.

SD is 8, and she sleeps in mum's bed. She used to sleep alone at our house with no problems, but for a while my MIL was staying over in her room with her, as we have no spare room, OH works nights, had to work on his night with SD and his ex won't allow me to watch her.

OH has a new job and no longer works on his night with SD, so we've tried to go back to her sleeping alone. This has resulted in tears and upset at bed time (understandably) and we've tried to make the transition as easy as we can, with OH spending time with SD until she's asleep and getting up numerous times during the night. This has been ongoing for only 3 weeks and has gotten slightly better, but is still a work in progress.

Today ex has insisted that OH can no longer have SD for overnight stays. He's obviously heartbroken. I can see why her mum would be concerned that her daughter's getting upset at bed time, but she's entirely unwilling to discuss the issue with OH. She says that SD doesn't want to stay, so she won't be.

What are other people's opinions on this? OH is obviously upset and angry that he has no power to make decisions, but I'm sort of torn between feeling the same, but also understanding why SD is finding it so difficult and not wanting to cause her any unnecessary upset or anxiety.

Thoughts/advice very much appreciated!

happyandcontented

Tbh, I find it odd that an 8 year old is still co -sleeping. I suspect it is a situation engineeered by her mother and it is stunting the development of the child. Does your OH have parental responsibility? If so, does he not have the same rights as her mum? I have no ideas as to how you get past this, unless for the time being your mil would step in?

duchy

Mum is probably really annoyed that you have messed up her sleep and it is having repercussions on her sleep at home and progress at school.

It really doesn't matter if she co-sleeps at home or not......she had a good routine at yours and it got messed up and that is having repercussions now.

She may be feeling you should have made better arrangements and her priority is to get the little girl's sleep patterns back where they should be.
The child's health and well-being are more important than your husband's feelings especially as he isn't consistant with his overnight availability.

If your partner is making it all about what he wants and not in Mum's eyes seeing the sleep as the primary issue then maybe she doesn't see any point in discussing it further-especially if at the time Mum wasn't happy with your MIL taking over the daughter's bedroom.

Ultimately it may make more sense to get the child back into a stable sleeping pattern at home before even thinking about overnight stays again.

Just a possible alternative scenario that might fit what you've told us.

Dad just needs to get over it and put the needs of child above his own wants....which it sounds like you may already see -but obviously getting her Dad to see it when he's angry about "rights" isn't easy.

Lieja

happyandcontented wrote: »

Tbh, I find it odd that an 8 year old is still co -sleeping. I suspect it is a situation engineeered by her mother and it is stunting the development of the child. Does your OH have parental responsibility? If so, does he not have the same rights as her mum? I have no ideas as to how you get past this, unless for the time being your mil would step in?

I find it odd too, especially when you throw two dogs into the mix but there's nothing we can do about the sleeping arrangements unfortunately.

OH has a contact order stating overnight stay once a week, so we've looked into an enforcement order and he's going to get the forms on Monday. The problem is that from looking at experiences online, there isn't a lot of 'enforcement' actually goes on. He's also terrified that she goes back to her stance of no contact at all (hence the contact order in the first place).

I'm just looking for opinions as I'm not sure if enforcing her overnight stay is actually best for SD.

Lieja

duchy wrote: »

Mum is probably really annoyed that you have messed up her sleep and it is having repercussions on her sleep at home and progress at school.

It really doesn't matter if she co-sleeps at home or not......she had a good routine at yours and it got messed up and that is having repercussions now.

She may be feeling you should have made better arrangements and her priority is to get the little girl's sleep patterns back where they should be.
The child's health and well-being are more important than your husband's feelings especially as he isn't consistant with his overnight availability.

If your partner is making it all about what he wants and not in Mum's eyes seeing the sleep as the primary issue then maybe she doesn't see any point in discussing it further-especially if at the time Mum wasn't happy with your MIL taking over the daughter's bedroom.

Ultimately it may make more sense to get the child back into a stable sleeping pattern at home before even thinking about overnight stays again.

Just a possible alternative scenario that might fit what you've told us.

Dad just needs to get over it and put the needs of child above his own wants....which it sounds like you may already see -but obviously getting her Dad to see it when he's angry about "rights" isn't easy.

I entirely see this point of view, but it's not that simple unfortunately. Ex refuses discussion entirely and hasn't once allowed discussion with OH on this issue since it began. The changes to OH's shifts couldn't be helped, and there was no alternative to MiL helping out (which ex had no problem with, she often sleeps over at her house too) as ex won't allow me to look after SD even while she's sleeping. He changed his shifts back as soon as possible, but unfortunately by then the damage was done.

At the moment it appears to OH that overnight stays will no longer be on the cards at all, and he's obviously upset that he's entirely powerless to even be heard.

As above, i do see her mum's POV and don't want SD unhappy but it seems wrong that overnights won't happen anymore for OH and his daughter.

Addiscomber

In my view it does matter that the child is unable to sleep on her own at age 8. She is approaching the age where she will have the opportunity to go on school trips and possibly Brownie trips. The mother is doing her no favours.

Armorica

duchy wrote: »

Mum is probably really annoyed that you have messed up her sleep and it is having repercussions on her sleep at home and progress at school.

Did you read the original post? The sleeping arrangements were essentially dictated by the ex. She won't let the OP look after the SD, so the MIL *had* to stay.

Given SD sleeps in with the ex (does she have her own bedroom? are there financial reasons?) is seems, on balance, the issues are more about the ex than anyone else (SD included)

(OP, how long have you been together?)

Lieja

SD is, in my opinion, young for her age and is babied a lot by her mum and family. She isn't allowed to do a lot and relies on adults far more than I did at that age, but there are obviously personal and social differences that mean I'm not sure I can really judge.

SD has her own room at mum's. Co-sleeping wasn't a conscious decision but just happened when OH and ex split and SD wanted to sleep with mum. She actually has an overnight school trip next year that she's decided she isn't going on, but hopefully she will change her mind by then.

OH and I have been together 4 and a half years, lived together for 3 and a half.

Carmina-Piranha_2

When your SD sleeps at MIL's house does she sleep alone, or in MIL's bed?

Lieja

Carmina-Piranha wrote: »

When your SD sleeps at MIL's house does she sleep alone, or in MIL's bed?

Sorry I should have been clearer - MIL sleeps at ex's house quite often. SD doesn't sleep at MIL's very often, but when she does they're in the same bed.

Carmina-Piranha_2

happyandcontented wrote: »

Tbh, I find it odd that an 8 year old is still co -sleeping. I suspect it is a situation engineeered by her mother and it is stunting the development of the child. Does your OH have parental responsibility? If so, does he not have the same rights as her mum? I have no ideas as to how you get past this, unless for the time being your mil would step in?

I don't think it's odd. My 9 year old would sleep in my bed full time if he could. He insists on sleeping in my bed whenever my husband works away. I don't mention it, and am always secretly hoping that he will forget :rotfl:

Sleeping with another person is nice. Some kids are cuddlier than others, same as adults. My husband doesn't like to sleep alone, but I love it. It's not odd, but it is worrying that she feels unable to sleep alone. My 9 year old went away with school when he was 8 and had such a good time, it would have been a shame if he'd missed out on that purely because he couldn't sleep without me.

The mum doesn't see it as a problem though, and unless she wants to change things then I don't see SD returning to your house at night unless either MIL comes over to sleep there with her, or you vacate the marital bed so SD can sleep with dad.