My daughter has wanted to go to sleep in my bed each night for a month or so now. When I went to bed, I would carry her into her room and she would resume sleeping there. Occasionally, she would make her way back into my bed overnight and I would wake up with her elbow in my face or something similar.
Last week, my son started leaving his room after going through the bedtime routine to fall asleep in my room too. When my daughter goes to bed (about an hour after my son – even though they are twins, I want to make sure she and I have some special mommy-daughter time every day, especially if my son’s needs have been very high that day), I have to half wake up my son to take him back to his room. The first two nights, I picked him up out of my bed and carried him but he’s a VERY tall 7 year old and therefore too heavy for me when he’s asleep too. My daughter then goes to sleep in my room and again, when I go to bed, I have to carry her to my room.
The last couple of nights, they have BOTH climbed into my bed overnight, on either side of me. I wake up throughout the night with either my son stimming beside me on my right, or my daughter elbowing or kicking me on my left. Both are cuddling into me and very quickly, I overheat because they are both little furnaces. All I want to do is kick the covers off but I can’t because then they’ll get cold so I do this gymnastics kind of thing and pull the bottom of the covers up without waking them up, and have my feet escape.
I finally got lovely beds for each of my kids but haven’t been able justify spending the money on buying myself a real mattress. My parents were very kind last year and bought me a beautiful dark wood with leather headboard bedframe and boxspring. They knew that mattresses are very personal and what is comfortable for one person is not comfortable for another, so they left that to me to buy for myself. My kids both have comfy and well supported beds now but apparently my daughter prefers my bed because it’s “soft and comfy”. Not sure why my son is preferring my bed.
Please understand that one of the benefits of being a single parent is being able to sleep wherever you want in the bed. If you want to sleep on one side, that’s fine. Sleep on the other side, that’s fine too. If you want to sleep diagonally across the bed, no one’s there to make you move. If you kick off all the covers, only you (and the cat) get cold. Now I’m stuck, sandwiched between two smaller beings than me, and somehow they are both taking up half of MY bed, and yet I’m stuck in the middle with less than my share of MY bed.
Perhaps I’ll just move to one of their beds when they make their way to my bed each night. Musical beds sounds like fun!
Kids in bed. My daughter is 7 and she still wants to sneak in mine at night. I have heard everything imaginable.
That’s how old my kids are (twins)…7yo.
There are also things that you can do to help your child. Especially with younger children, a security object such as a favorite stuffed animal or a blanket can help a child feel relaxed and safe in bed. Other things that can help are leaving a low nightlight on in your child’s bedroom and teaching him relaxation techniques. Have your child imagine a relaxing scene, such as a being on the beach or watching a sunset, will help him relax after a scary dream. Children can also use their imagination to help them settle down and fall back to sleep. Have your child imagine a different ending to the nightmare, hang a dream catcher over your child’s bed which helps catch the “bad dreams,” or have your child draw pictures of his nightmare that he crumples up and throws away.