4yo sleeping in our bed - advice please

notanewuser

2012
"Children in the UK are among the most pressured, unhappy and commercially vulnerable in the western world," Ellyatt says. "The cultural and environmental tensions are unprecedented. And in this country more than others, we have focused away from children and the family, and on to work and the economy." The new group, she says, "doesn't necessarily have the answers. But what we can't say any longer is that we don't have a problem."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2012/jun/27/why-british-children-so-unhappy

jetplane

notanewuser wrote: »

I think your alleged "horror" at the thought says more about you than me, to be honest.

We offered her a dummy but she was having none of it. Can't blame her - we evolved the thumb sucking in the womb as a source of comfort. Perhaps in a few hundred thousand years they'll come out with little silicone plugs instead.

Whoosh :rotfl:

It's not alleged. And of course thumb sucking is natural and healthy and not babyish and practiced by well adjusted children born and nurtured by educated and well informed parents. And anyone who disagrees with this is an oaf, phew :cool:

jetplane

notanewuser wrote: »

I don't mean like Big Brother. I'm lucky to have a very solid group of friends with children close in age to my own. We met at antenatal classes. We're very close and are happy to ask for/give advice and support when needed. They're like sisters, even though we have done things differently (2 are still breastfed at night at 4+, one is homeschooling etc). It's not much different to the support networks that other cultures have where sisters, aunts, etc help raise children together. Many animals do it too.

Have you never heard the saying "it takes a village to raise a child"? How many tragic events have happened without anybody knowing because we're all so fragmented in our society nowadays. I commented to the dad of a boy my daughter is in school with this morning that they live less than 100 yards behind us but we never met before the kids started school.

I agree and a network supports, encourages and enables a mother giving confidence where it may be lacking. But not everyone has that network and without it you may need to turn to a forum like this and criticism, whether outright, disguised or underlying will quickly diminish a mothers confidence.

jetplane

notanewuser wrote: »

2012
. And in this country more than others, we have focused away from children and the family, and on to work and the economy."

I also agree with this and there lies another stick to beat a mother with, damned if you work, damned if you don't. But let's not go there

Janepig

notanewuser wrote: »

I don't mean like Big Brother. I'm lucky to have a very solid group of friends with children close in age to my own. We met at antenatal classes. We're very close and are happy to ask for/give advice and support when needed. They're like sisters, even though we have done things differently (2 are still breastfed at night at 4+, one is homeschooling etc). It's not much different to the support networks that other cultures have where sisters, aunts, etc help raise children together. Many animals do it too.

Have you never heard the saying "it takes a village to raise a child"? How many tragic events have happened without anybody knowing because we're all so fragmented in our society nowadays. I commented to the dad of a boy my daughter is in school with this morning that they live less than 100 yards behind us but we never met before the kids started school.

What if you have friends who don't agree with you though? Who bottle feed!? Tell their children off!? Give them dummies!? Go to church !? Generally those whose parenting advice you don't agree with and who don't take your advice? I wouldn't raise my children the way alot of my friends do but as long as they're not being abusive then it's not really my business. Unfortunately my mother passed away just before DD was born and although I'm sure she'd have had some sage advice for me from when she raised me and my brother, I'd bet alot of it would be frowned upon now. Although knowing her she'd have actually bitten her tongue rather alot!!

Jx

notanewuser

Janepig wrote: »

What if you have friends who don't agree with you though? Who bottle feed!? Tell their children off!? Give them dummies!? Go to church !? Generally those whose parenting advice you don't agree with and who don't take your advice? I wouldn't raise my children the way alot of my friends do but as long as they're not being abusive then it's not really my business. Unfortunately my mother passed away just before DD was born and although I'm sure she'd have had some sage advice for me from when she raised me and my brother, I'd bet alot of it would be frowned upon now. Although knowing her she'd have actually bitten her tongue rather alot!!

Jx

Again, i've never said that we don't tell DD off.

I have friends that parent in all sorts of ways. There's never any issues with choices because a) I have clever friends and b) they think about the decisions they make. Relatives are a different story but I don't have to see that much! They do sometimes ask for advice or reassurance and I always explain why something is probably as it is, and why my advice is to do such-and-such. It's entirely up to them whether they take it or not. I can't really do much more - can anyone?

Janepig

notanewuser wrote: »

Again, i've never said that we don't tell DD off.

I have friends that parent in all sorts of ways. There's never any issues with choices because a) I have clever friends and b) they think about the decisions they make. Relatives are a different story but I don't have to see that much! They do sometimes ask for advice or reassurance and I always explain why something is probably as it is, and why my advice is to do such-and-such. It's entirely up to them whether they take it or not. I can't really do much more - can anyone?

Ah, they say that you can chose your friends but you can't chose your family! I just can't imagine that you'd chose to be friends with someone who did things completely differently to you, clever or not. Have you got any friends who follow Gina Ford? :rotfl:

We'll have to return to the boards in twenty years time and see how we've all got on!

Jx

Spendless

CathG78 wrote: »

I co-slept with my son from being born and ended up with the same problem. In the end, purely from desperation, I told him that as he still slept in my bed, he wasn't allowed to start school because he wasn't a big boy. I also told him he had to tell his friends that he wasn't going to school because he still slept in with mummy.

He stopped that night and hasn't done it since.

Cruel? Yes. Efficient? Yes.

If I'd said that, my son will still be in bed with me now, he's almost 15 years old. School hasn't turned out to be a place he adores.

He eventually outgrew coming into our bed. Still working on him liking going to sleep.;)

notanewuser

Janepig wrote: »

Ah, they say that you can chose your friends but you can't chose your family! I just can't imagine that you'd chose to be friends with someone who did things completely differently to you, clever or not. Have you got any friends who follow Gina Ford? :rotfl:

We'll have to return to the boards in twenty years time and see how we've all got on!

Jx

There were 2 in my antenatal group who stayed with the group for the first year and did Gina Ford (and formula-fed from the start). It did get quite difficult when one could never ever meet for lunch because that was nap time and baby could only sleep in his cot (the rest of us just let them sleep in their prams or slings or on our laps). Once they returned to work things sort of petered out with them - they wanted to meet up for wine in the evenings and we were all with baby then. I think it was the split between extended time off and straightforward maternity that was the biggest reason for the split. We cross paths occasionally and things are still perfectly friendly though!

One of my nephews was/is Gina Forded to within an inch of his life. The whole extended family struggles to deal with that.

jp1964

notanewuser wrote: »

We've evolved little biologically since we lived in caves. We didn't tend to erect stud walls to separate our young from us. Hence the biological need they have for connection. (Society may have changed but the basic needs are still there.) Look at tribes that don't live in the societies we do. They have entire families in one room in one hut. Children in the UK are some of the unhappiest in Europe/the world. I wonder how much of that is down to the encouragement parents face to go against the biological imperative pretty much from birth.

Indeed, we didn't in the cave dwelling times live in houses with partition walls and it was the norm for the young children to co sleep with the rest of the family, but that does not necessarily mean that this is a significant reason that UK children are stated to be more unhappy than others in Europe and the rest of the world!

Presumably this includes war zones and places where children don't get enough to eat, live in grinding poverty, often having to work and be exploited, or die from disease, hardly on the same level, and presumably these kids are not going to be as happy as those living in safety and relative good health, regardless of whether they sleep with their parents?

That UK unhappiness (presumably taken from a survey or study?) is clearly down to many other factors in the mixed up, frankly corrupted and often skewed society that we live in, where the simple lives and priorities of other societies just don't figure (wrong, but that is how it is) and clearly all the much happier children in the rest of Europe don't all live in a one roomed hut or cave!

All very well to suggest that children should not be separated from parents for sleeping if they don't want to be, and that this might cause harm (depends on the individual child IMO and the individual's viewpoint) but not as easy to go along with this when the parents have to be up for work in the morning and little one wants to play all night!

This is the society we have to work with, clearly if what you say applies throughout our societal norms these days, its also not ideal for mothers to send their children into childcare settings either when they would have been with their mothers all day in the cave dwelling times, but its simply not an option for those who have to work, they have no choice if they want to be able to function and thrive in our society.

I reiterate my statement that I know my daughter did not suffer harm from being left to cry for a short period of time in a controlled way, knowing that we had not abandoned her (we returned every ten minutes or so to put her back into bed) and that we would come back. Once she was asleep there was no issue at all with waking in the night, this may well have been different had she shared our room and/or our bed.

A consistent approach, calm reassurance and clear and firm expectations that now was the time to sleep in her own quiet, peaceful and familiar room, and that Mum and Dad would be there when she woke up in the morning and that they loved her and cared for her, means that she is not an unhappy person at all.

As I stated in my post, this worked for all of us for the short time that going to sleep at night was an issue for our daughter and ourselves, and the issue was consequently short lived. Of course, I am not advocating that anyone else ought to be the same, all families are different with a different dynamic and approach.