Do your kids still sleep on your bed?

[ZacK]

Shera:

My baby is sleeping on his own during daytime and his daddy sleeps with him every night at baby's room. From my observation, he always wake up in the middle of the night to see if his daddy is around then goes back to sleep again.


Actually some children are more ready to sleep on his own than others. I guess only time and trial and error will solve our problems :oops:

I'm caught in the same situation. My son is 5 and will ask me without fail everynight to sleep with him in \"baby's\" room. If I do not answer, he'll keep asking until I agree and if I say no, he'll refuse to go to the room to have his bedtime story (read by po po)

He is always awake in the middle of the night to check if I'm still in his room. I have tried sneaking back to the masterbedroom or not going to his room altogether. It was usually a case of \"all hell break loose\" when he'd come storming into our room wailing that I was not in his room :roll:

It does not help that mummy gets a migraine the following day if she has interrupted sleep ... So most of the time the masterbedroom is mummy's room :oops:

We have been conditioning him that he is of the age to sleep alone etc and he knows that he should as I know he is embarrassed to tell his friends that he is not sleeping alone yet :oops:

Anyway number 2 is on the way and we do not know how that will affect our sleeping arrangements. One thing though, my boy is extremely close to me and I like the bond that we have

[Jennifer]

My elder boy started sleeping in his own room when he was in K2. The younger one (P1 this year) only recently. I am sleeping in the same room with him.

[winth]

My 5 year old starting sleeping in his own room since 2 and my 18 month old, since birth. I have a baby monitor in the room in case my toddler wakes up for feeding.


The children will sleep together with us in the same room only occassionally. For us, I want my children to enjoy independence and understanding that we as their parents need our own private time and privacy too.

[BlueBells]

This is a tough one, and definitely no easy way out. I know people whose whole family (yap, parents and 3 kids) all sleep in the same room because they couldn’t get the kids to move out, and the oldest one is 11 years old!!


Like winth, I use a baby monitor too. In fact, I have 2 because each girl sleeps in their own room. I did have a little tough time with the younger one, but it was resolve after we bought her a day bed. Turn out that she doesn’t like being confined in her baby cot.

[winth]

[quote]This is a tough one, and definitely no easy way out. [/quote]
Hi BlueBells,

You're right. As a parent, we will definitely feel close to our children and sometimes I still wonder if I have been too harsh to let my '2 babies' sleep separate from us. To a lot of parents, they would think that it's still too young for children. Most of my friends (who have young children) were sometimes looking at me with disbelieving eyes and mocking at me how heartless to not sleep with my children. It is definitely not easy thing to do.

My MIL learnt it the hard way though. Just to share. Her 3rd child slept with them (on the same bed) till he was 10 years old. At 10 years old, he got too BIG to sleep on the same bed, so my MIL had to sleep on the mattress on the floor. At 11 years old, the boy was forced (literally) to sleep in his own room, where she had to resort to locking her master bedroom to keep her boy out. It was an unhappy episode.

Meanwhile, when the boy slept in the same bed with his parents, his parents lost lots of private time together. So, loads of issues left unsolved, negative feelings left pent up and it cost them their intimacy. My FIL turned to extra-marital affair (a few, actually over the years, one after another). It seems like my FIL has finally left his last woman, but we don't know for sure. And my MIL is always suspicious and negative. Everyone in the family was affected, so whole family breakdown and became cold and lifeless.

My husband and I learnt their lesson and we strategised on every single step to ensure that we balance our family and marriage life. We made sure we had lots of time with children and loads of private time to discuss about child development, feelings, trips, finance etc.

To me, being a kiasuparent also means being a super-kiasu wife because a healthy marriage = healthy family. Having a functioning family is the best gift a child would wish for.

Just my 2 cents worth. I wasn't aiming at anyone here when I share this bec I know most parents have various strategies in bringing up their children. Please don't 'stone' me bec of my story. :oops:

[ZacK]

winth:

[quote]This is a tough one, and definitely no easy way out.

Hi BlueBells,

You're right. As a parent, we will definitely feel close to our children and sometimes I still wonder if I have been too harsh to let my '2 babies' sleep separate from us. To a lot of parents, they would think that it's still too young for children. Most of my friends (who have young children) were sometimes looking at me with disbelieving eyes and mocking at me how heartless to not sleep with my children. It is definitely not easy thing to do.

My MIL learnt it the hard way though. Just to share. Her 3rd child slept with them (on the same bed) till he was 10 years old. At 10 years old, he got too BIG to sleep on the same bed, so my MIL had to sleep on the mattress on the floor. At 11 years old, the boy was forced (literally) to sleep in his own room, where she had to resort to locking her master bedroom to keep her boy out. It was an unhappy episode.

Meanwhile, when the boy slept in the same bed with his parents, his parents lost lots of private time together. So, loads of issues left unsolved, negative feelings left pent up and it cost them their intimacy. My FIL turned to extra-marital affair (a few, actually over the years, one after another). It seems like my FIL has finally left his last woman, but we don't know for sure. And my MIL is always suspicious and negative. Everyone in the family was affected, so whole family breakdown and became cold and lifeless.

My husband and I learnt their lesson and we strategised on every single step to ensure that we balance our family and marriage life. We made sure we had lots of time with children and loads of private time to discuss about child development, feelings, trips, finance etc.

To me, being a kiasuparent also means being a super-kiasu wife because a healthy marriage = healthy family. Having a functioning family is the best gift a child would wish for.

Just my 2 cents worth. I wasn't aiming at anyone here when I share this bec I know most parents have various strategies in bringing up their children. Please don't 'stone' me bec of my story. :oops:[/quote]I do appreciate your sharing and in reality what you have touched on are very real issues. My wife does confide in me at times that she feels she has a live-in boyfriend instead of a husband :oops:

For us, my wife and I make a point to have our nights out at least once a week to catch up and give each other time to discuss any issues. Well just making the best of our current situation.

[winth]

Hi Zack,


Thanks for the share and really thanks for not bombarding me.

I wonder if anyone follows 'SuperNanny' Series? It's where I've learnt all the useful stances for managing my children.

In the show, it shows children (daily behaviour), then SuperNanny intervenes, then shows children (changed behaviour). The program usually talks about how to handle children's bedtime bec it is a problem to most parents of older children.

I especially like her 'after that' method. It involves informing the child what happens 'after that'. E.g. After you have your dinner, you rest for x mins. After you rest, you go for your shower. After you shower, you will go to the bedroom to get changed. After you change, you will read book with Mummy. After you read book with Mummy, you will go to bed. Mummy will have the lights off, and after that you go to bed. It is done systematically and the parent keeps talking to the child, so that the child will know this is the routine, the key to this technique is to keep to the routine, like bedtime at 8pm so that the child will not get surprises.

In her 'bedtime technique', once mummy lights off. Usually the child will protest and come out of bedroom/cry. Parent then tell the child it's bedtime, and calmly brings child back to bed. Third, fourth time for as long as it requires. Patience and Calmness is required from parent.

It works wonders! You might want to watch the SuperNanny (now it's new season at ArtCentral) and learn some stances from there. Now, SuperNanny new season she concentrates on family games that they can play with, so I'm learning new games there too. Inexpensive and Value-adding.

Hope you find it useful.

[ZacK]

Hi Winth,


Hahaha why shd you be \"bombarded\"?? Because what you have highlighted is not baseless

Yeap I did catch SuperNanny once awhile when time avails. I do agree that:

- Kids need be told what is expected of them (which I used on my son)
- Kids need to follow a routine as operating outside of their norms will stress them. My boy is a real stickler for routines, anytime his routine is broken, he'll not be agreeable :roll:

Unfortunately for me, his routine is to have me sleeping with him. So this is something I'll have to break and re-establish a slightly different sleeping routine for him.

Thanks again for sharing

[Luanee]

My 6-yr old girl has been sleeping in the same room with us (different bed). Now she has a 1-yr old sister to sleep with but problem is the younger one still need night feeds so it be quite troublesome if we move both of them to their new room. I am hoping the elder one can sleep on her own as we moving to new place and be buying a new bed with pink bedsheets for her. Keeping fingers crossed

[ZacK]

Hmm the presence of kids does add \"spice\" to married lives but also present real issues like lack of privacy for husbands and wives in many cases.


I guess we (dads and mums) must make a more conscious effort to go for pte dates away from our beloved young ones to keep the spark alive