14mth old sleeping with me - will I regret it ??

[Bruised]

Talk of sleeping in the same bed forever - my bother-in-law's kids sleep in the same bed as their parents and they're twelve and fourteen. They've just never learned to sleep on their own. On my last visit home, I volunteered to babysit for a night while their parents were out and ended up with the two kids in my bed while my three year old slept by himself, like he's used to. That was a bad night for me and I'm still so thankful that my son is fine about keeping to his own bed!

[Bruised]

Typo above - I meant to say "brother-in-law" (though the original version might be more truthful, especially after babysitting his kids).

[exactly]

who's to say what works for your family...mine was a kicker and sometimes i used to put her back in her own bed during the night.  sometimes she started out in her own bed and came to mine at night.  somenights i insisted that she stay in her own bed the entire night because i needed a little rest.  but for the most part it was comforting to have her in bed.

it also helped if i stayed with her until she fell asleep after story time, many times i fell asleep with her and that was all she really wanted but got up thirty or so minutes later and went to my own bed.  

when she got too big around 10 she would just bring in a sleeping bag sometimes and sleep in the same room

up until last year she still wanted me to 'visit' her at bed time and rub her back to help her sleep...this year at 12 she can't stand to have me come in and say good night even at the door.

perhaps the best thing is to have him be in his own bed some nights.  can you imagine the rejection he will feel when all of a sudden he is kicked out in august...and then the family drama every single night.  find a good medium...

on a side note, even as grown ups with kids of our own we sometimes used to go over to our parents early on sunday mornings and hang out On their bed with them talking, watching tv, reading the paper but my mother got tired of dealing with king size sheets and got a smaller bed.  we still get together on sunday mornings just the bed is too small now :-{

[azriel]

I think the main problem you will run into is the lack of intimacy that you and your husband will have if you allow your child to sleep in bed with you every night.

You will have to sneak out of bed and hope you don't wake up your child and go to another room whenever you want to be intimate.  No spur of the moment whoopie, it all has to be planned out.   You will also miss all those nice moments when your husband just snuggles up to you at night because you will have a baby in between you all the time.

I think pulling your baby in bed with you every now and then is fine , but I don't think in the long run it's that great an idea.  My first child slept with us until she was 3 and I didn't make that mistake with my second child.

[Ni night]

Thanks folks...  Yes the old midnight romp did cross my mind and wasn't sure how to handle that one.

For now this is all great advice and I will wean him out of the bed slowly and let him in on special occasions.

It is so gorgeous when they wake up in the morning and they are so happy and want to pull your eyelashes and hair as you sleep but alas I should be careful what I sow here....

Thanks again.

[globetrotter]

We used to have a Sunday morning lie-in with our parents (ah, the memories ...)

And isn't it wonderful to wake up and find they've created havoc while you've been sound asleep?

My bubs has slept in his own cot since he was born, but he sometimes goes through patches where he wakes up crying in the night, and we're just too groggy to do anything other than bring him into bed with us. Problem is that bubs is a very restless sleeper, and apart from tossing frequently, insists on either crawling right onto our headboard, where we worry about him hitting his head, or sleeping with his head down by our legs (and if we move him, he goes right back), so he's in danger of being kicked or of falling off the bed. He's inherited his restlessness from hubby, so I also worry about hubby rolling over and squashing him. So, although I do love hugging him while we sleep, the nights he's in with us aren't the most restful. If your baby's like mine, I'd leave him in his own cot / bed.

Currently, I'm trying to get bubs to learn to fall asleep in his cot, instead of going to sleep on our bed and being transferred. He does fall asleep - eventually, and after a bit of whingeing, especially if I leave the room.