Bedsharing

Someone on a forum asked "For those who bedshare: How long do you plan on doing it? My son is 2 1/2 now and we're still bed-sharing. Everyone says that's too old but I'm not really keen on forcing him to sleep alone when he clearly wants to sleep with me." and this next part is what I wrote in reply.


We will be sleeping upstairs in what will become our daughters room (As our king size master bed downstairs is high off the ground and has sharp heavy solid furniture, thus dangerous for bedsharing.) but what we plan to do is sleep up there on the full size mattress on the floor and eventually when she is ready I will move back downstairs when she is able to go up and down stairs and seems ready for it and then we will have an open door policy where she is always welcome in bed with us downstairs. I think age limits are dumb. I know my mother had an open door policy and that even at 14 years old I would on occasion want to just go up to her room and sleep in her bed because it was just nice to share a bed with someone at night. I could and 99% of the time would sleep in my own bed in my own room on another level of the house no problem, but it was always nice and positive to know that I wouldn't be banned from bedsharing simply because society says I'm too old. You are never too old to enjoy family time, day or night, in my opinion. The world needs more bonding and connection and love and security that comes from this sort of arrangement. Families need to chill out and spend more time together, and bedtime is a great opportunity for it. 

My mother and I would sometimes start the night together in her bed to talk and hang out and just lay and hug and talk until we both got so tired that we finally went to sleep. It gave us a chance to connect and check in and it helped teach me a lot and allowed her to stay involved in my life (Not easy for a single mother working 3 jobs, thus why night time bedsharing was great for us as we did not have a lot fo time during the day). 

So for me, I feel it will be nice especially with my husband in the picture. I am a housewife while he goes out and works and so I feel that night time will be good for him and our daughter as a way to connect and spend more time together at the end of the day and be able to talk and bond. Especially on weekends as already he will wake up before mad, roll over, and just feel my belly and talk to it for a while before getting out of bed. We also have two cats who will come in bed with us and sleep and in the mornings we will just lay in bed as a family and pet them and love them and they purr happily. It's really nice to wake up to happy, loving furbabies, and so it will be the same with our daughter. 

Nothing better than to wake up and the first thing you see is someone you love more than anything in the world. Wake up, see them sleeping safe and sound and happy right there and just curl up and hold them close. Time goes by SO fast and eventually it will be rare for your child to want to be in bed with you, so just enjoy it while it lasts because you can't get those beautiful nights and wonderful mornings back ever. Children WILL and DO grow up and become healthy, functional, independent adults, but until then? Let them rely on you, and want to be near you. It means they love you, trust you, feel safe and secure. It is a wonderful thing to have a strong bond and secure family, and it occurs day and night. When you look back, you will miss those nights and mornings and wish there were more of them, you will wish you could go back and enjoy them again and again, but you can't, so just enjoy them while they last. Live each day as it comes, and enjoy every moment because they fly by and are out of reach faster than you can imagine.

Bottom line is, if it works for your family and everyone involved is happy with it, forget what anyone else thinks or says and just do what is right for you and your child.