I’m a 27 year old single mother and I have a 12 year old son. Recently he’s been knocking on my door in the middle of the night because he can’t sleep and he asks to sleep with me. I’ve been letting him since neither of us really have a problem with it and it’s kind of nice not having to sleep alone every night. However, I’ve heard and seen some things online that seem controversial about co-sleeping with a child past a certain age. I definitely don’t want to negatively affect his development, so I guess what are your thoughts?
My parent spidey senses are tingling. Besides the ADHD, is there anything else happening in his life? Major life change (changing school; new friends, etc)? He may not feel comfortable vocalizing yet if there is in fact something affecting him
Now that you say this, I had a talk recently with him about me wanting to date again and the possibility of a stepdad
Bingo
I did this when I was around the same age as your son. I remember knocking very often for a certain period of time, then at one point I just grew out of it. I would not worry too much about it, if there is no other serious topic that could be a reason for the behavior.
It’s up to you how you raise your kid. Does he have any special needs or other extenuating circumstances? If not, personally I would try not to make it a habit for him. Bring him back to his bed when this happens and stay up with him until he falls asleep again so he can be more comfortable in his own bed. That can be exhausting but I think it would be good for both of you if your son had some good independence skills.
He does have diagnosed ADHD, but thanks for the advice, will definitely try this.
I can sympathize, I was a nightmare for my parents growing up not being able to sleep. Though I usually was caught reading or playing video games instead. ADHD can be very hard to deal with and I wish you the best of luck
I was sleeping in my parents room, on the floor, till I was embarassingly old.
Turns out I had/have Tinnitus and found the background noise of whatever show they were falling asleep to made it infinite easier to sleep.
Holy shit I feel like I had a similar kind of issue and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it before. Childhood tinnitus and sleeping issues. Literally never had anyone else write anything remotely similar to my experience.
I slept on the floor of my sibling’s room instead of my parents. I have always suspected that I had a form of tinnitus even as a young child. I would get paranoid that the sounds of the tinnitus were some other entity in the room and get scared. You know how like you can sometimes “hear” when someone behind you even though they don’t make a sort of obvious sound? That’s how mine has always been for me. For me, it wasn’t that I needed noise to drown it out. It was that having someone else in the room made me feel safe enough to sleep.
My tinnitus if that’s what it really is has always constantly and incessantly warbled in intensity and directionality, which propogates the feeling of something suddenly being there. It’s not the classical “eee” noise that people think of when they think tinnitus.
I remember as a child thinking when people would talk about the “sounds of silence” that they just meant this noise lol.
I’ve never been diagnosed with tinnitus, but I’ve been living with it for decades. I mostly have a low-level, staticky whine, but sometimes I’ll have attacks that are high-pitched, loud, and painful. I will also rarely have bouts where my hearing is muffled and definitely feels like someone is behind you blocking ambient sounds. The in front of you part is probably blocked out by our eyes showing nothing there.
I wouldn’t worry about cosleeping affecting their development.
The only things you have to worry about is you both getting enough sleep, and any shame or embarrassment they have about cosleeping.Honestly I felt like I slept a lot better lmao
I’ll just put this out there: Would it feel less weird to you if it was your daughter?
Anecdotally, I had a friend who crawled up to cosleep with her single mom even as a teenager and student sometimes. Especially when she wasn’t doing well. Being a family of 2 brings you very close together, and also unfortunately, makes you the only super close person in their lives. She liked to cuddle up with friends too occasionally. It never seemed off or weird.
She might be hypersensitive (although this is not a recognized diagnosis), but otherwise, she is developmentally (and sexually) absolutely standard. She’s 33 now and does very well in life and with her boyfriend.
What I mean by that is that it might seem more unconventional to cosleep with someone of the opposite sex who is starting puberty. Being a girl, having a girl friend, and this girl friend liking to sleep with me, another friend, or her mom as company was never weird. All other friends also thought that’s fine. I think that’s that girl privilege where we are more comfortable with closeness. So, if you felt weird if it was your daughter too, it might just not be for you (although you mentioned you slept better). If it’s about the gender (some subconscious bias), it’s still your child. Just your child.
Last but not least, there are more than enough people around the world who share a room or even a bed with family members until a bigger age. A friend of mine coslept with 8 silblings since there was just no room. Especially with a voluntary cosleeping situation, I would rather try to focus on the benefits it gives you two - closeness, connection, a feeling of safety, and knowing you’re there for each other. Also through changes in life.
If it’s not causing any issues, don’t worry about it. If it seems to be causing a dependency or increased anxiety around sleeping alone, then maybe it’s not a good idea. There doesn’t seem to be any consensus among psychologists. Some like it, some hate it. So the best you’re going to be able to do is keep track of how it affects you both and change things up if it becomes a problem.
I feel like you might be over-thinking this. If it’s a recent thing then it’s most likely just a phase and he’ll grow out of it when puberty kicks in. One my best friends has an 11 yo and a 4 yo and they both end up in their parent’s bed pretty much every night. There is nothing weird or unusual about a child sleeping in the same bed as their parent/s, no matter what internet hacks try to tell you.
Why do you think he is asking to sleep with you? I know you said it’s because he “can’t sleep”, but you can also just not be able to sleep in your own bed.
When I was a child (and even sometimes as an adult), I would get scared at night. Yeah every 2 year old gets scared at night, but I’m not talking about age 2. I did it my entire childhood…even when I got to be a much older child. I’m talking as old your son and then even older. When I would get scared at night, I would go into my sibling’s room at night and sleep on the floor. It happened frequently. I did eventually “grow out of it” as another user stated and did it less frequently as I got older.
It might be embarrassing for him to talk about and he might not want to admit it, but do you think it could be something like this?
I’m 30 now and thankfully don’t have those problems much anymore (and I live alone so there is no one to sleep with lol).
He tells me he gets scared at night as well. He also has diagnosed hyperactive ADHD which might make him restless at night.
Might consider trying a weighted blanket
can confirm. I sleep way better in winter because of the heavy blankets vs in summer where it’s just a sheet.
Ok yeah I suspected a bit as much about the scared thing. Honestly I’m not sure what sort of advice to give to help out for that sort of thing. I never told anyone that I got scared at night…just lived with it until it eventually went away.
For me, personally, something like a weighted blanket would not have helped with me being scared, but yeah might help with the ADHD and restlessness part like the others stated. Dunno.
A quick Google search leads me to find out that this is incredibly common even in kids at the age I was and the age your son is. So at least what is happening isn’t overly concerning as something abnormal if that at all helps.
I mean, I’m assuming your kid knows he’s going to be a teenager soon and what that means. You can just talk to him about it like a person.
I don’t think it’ll affect him negatively. It will be good to know why he wants to sleep in your room, so you can know if it’s something you need to fix. If it starts to get uncomfortable you could let him sleep then take him to his room once his asleep (provided he’s not too heavy).
seems unusual, at 13 i already hated sleeping with a family member in different beds, because he was constantly hovering over as a “helicopter parent” who he thought took it upon himself.
