We try to emotionally scaffold DS9's sleep anxieties with various techniques used at various times including co-sleeping, cuddles at bedtime, and moving his mattress to the foot of our bed. Sometimes the techniques are used individually. During growth periods, all 3 are utilized. I really hate to ask this question because I tend to follow DS's lead on how to meet his emotional needs. But at what age are these techniques considered inappropriate? DS is emotionally immature, can one judge based on emotional development versus chronological age?

Of course, answers will vary, as we all come from different family and community cultures, with regard to co-sleeping and related practices.

For our family, actual co-sleeping fades from the repertoire just before puberty. Mattress at the foot of the bed is still an available tool for us during adolescence (for others, it probably depends a lot on how frequently it is used, and how you and your partner feel about its impact on adult time). We also use another intermediate strategy, which is sitting in the child's bedroom, next to or on the bed, keeping company. And I see no reason ever to end cuddles at bedtime, as long as mutually desirable.

Our DD10 and DD11 show up at our bedside after nightmares, and when they are stressed. It's rarer and rarer with the 11 year old, and she asks, "Am I too old to sleep in your bed?" I know they will soon decide it's not ok to sleep with us. I just hope they always snuggle at bedtime!!!!
My brother in law was not born in the US, and he is baffled by the backlash against co-sleeping. It is common in his country (as with many around the world).

DD11 has always been a terrible sleeper so we have tried just about everything except the mattress at the foot of our bed - no way she ever would have stayed there. With melatonin she is falling asleep easier and staying asleep but is still very, very active in her sleep. For years the routine was one of us laying next to her reading, turning off the light and staying there until she fell asleep. Clutching us. Occasionally there were short periods of time when she would let us leave after reading or even put herself to sleep without us reading but these tended to be short lived. We would find her walking around the house or hear her throwing herself into the wall as she rolled around in her sleep. We would hear talking, laughing, shouting, crying in her sleep. It was never restful and she frequently asked to sleep with me "in the big bed". We were willing to do almost anything in an effort to get her the sleep she needed.

I have spent the last year focused on identifying exactly what her multitude of LD and physical issues were and trying to determine if anything could be done about any of them. In the process we weaned her off migraine meds, got a clean bill of health on the anxiety and identified several new areas to remediate. We also got her school program functioning well to meet the needs of both her E's. In other words we are in the best shape we have ever been on this 2E journey. And yet DD decided on non school nights she was going to sleep with me. Period. I figured she has so much she has to deal with it was not a battle I was going to wage.

The first night of summer break she climbed into my bed declaring it a non school night - and she stayed the rest of the summer. At the age of 10 1/2. DH is very active overnight and never sleeps through. He watches tv, does artwork or even goes to campus to grade or work on a project in the middle of the night. When he gets tired he will fall asleep on the couch for a while. No he is never really rested but DD being in our bed didn't really affect him too much...

So now I have an 11 year old who only wants to sleep with me. Did I ever think I would allow this? No. But I'm not fighting her. I realize that while still restless and active in her sleep she is waking up seeming more rested. On the nights she has slept in her own bed recently she has more often than not woken up with me - not always remembering how she got there. She seems to sleepwalk less this way and if she sits up in her sleep she just lays back down rather then getting herself up to walk across the hallway to find me.

I figure pretty soon she will reach the age where she doesn't even want to acknowledge having a mother let alone wanting to spend time with me or sleep in my bed. While we have a good handle on things now I realize she still has a mighty full plate coping with all her challenges and if this makes things easier for her I'm willing to go with it. She is quite independent during her waking hours and always has been but when it comes to sleep she feels more comfortable having me there. She has no trouble sleeping over at friends' homes and wants to go to sleep away camp this summer so I'm thinking we're ok.

I realize you are dealing with a boy so that might change things, ie less likely to let an 11 year old boy sleep with me than an 11 year old girl. But at 9 I'm not so sure.

HTH

Portia, sent you a PM.

Have you considered a weighted blanket ?

Some may find a microwaveable heating bag or microwaveable heating pad to be comforting, especially when placed near the bottom of the sleep area to gently warm the feet. They can be purchased or instructions can be found online for making them. They are often filled with organic material such as dried corn, beans, or rice.

I feel for everyone with this issue! Unfortunately I have no good suggestions, just sympathy.

I still sit with my kids (DD11 and DS8) for them to fall asleep. DD was able to fall asleep on her own for a while, but then developed anxiety and would panic without me (or DH) sitting on her bed. She also has a sleep story she listens to, lavender spray and a night light. She's also a night-owl and doesn't typically fall asleep before 11pm - and we have tried many things to push this back.

DS8 'needs' to have my arm on him to fall asleep - fortunately he goes to bed earlier and faster than DD. But he still does come to our bed in the night - although this has been gradually been getting later, with more time spent in his own bed. I've tried taking him back to his bed but I'm either too sleepy to pull this off, or I end up sleeping uncomfortably in his bed with him.

Our psychologist suggested that if we wanted things to change we should gradually move out of the room at bedtime (ie. sit further away on the bed, then not on the bed, then by the door, then outside the door). Have not been able to implement this yet however. :-(

I could have written pemberley's post. We have all the sleep issues and most of the related behavior that she mentioned. What I have started doing this summer with my 8 year old DS is to sit with him at bedtime and do some guided meditation and deep breathing with him - I talk to him about an imaginary place (like the wide open ocean) and ask him to imagine swimming in those waters while taking deep breaths in and out. I will change the locale very often to keep it from getting old. It has greatly helped to calm him down and he falls asleep in 30 minutes while it might have taken an hour+ before.

I cut off all screens for him because our pediatrician thought that he might be more sensitive to the blue light from screens - we noticed a huge difference in calming down during sleep time without iPads and laptop use.

I ensure that he has hours of physical activity - almost 3 hours of outside play (school recesses, school basketball, daily PE etc) followed by one after-school sports class that is rigorous and monitored by a coach (includes conditioning as well as cardio). On Sundays, when we take a day off his sports routine, there is more restlessness in sleep. We also hike and bike as a family when we have some downtime. That adds to his weekly exercise as well as reduces anxiety levels.

I believe that kids will reach a stage where they can fall asleep by themselves (I am an optimist!) in their teens. Until then, we need to scaffold the ones with severe sleep problems.

ITA regarding the importance of physical activity and cutting off screen time at least 1 hour before bedtime.

I also agree with the physical activity/screen time cut-off. I regret it every time when I fail on this.

Also for our DS8, we do NOT do a bath just before bedtime. It is not only not soothing - it absolutely winds him up what with all the sensations and water experiments and interesting trains of thought you can have when you are totally underwater except for your nose. Bath must be before dinner on bath nights or else we just skip it. Don't know if this would apply to your child.

Also - we saw a dramatic improvement in willingness to go to bed on his own when we got a dog that sleeps with him every night. In fact the dog helped in about a thousand different ways....

Occasional melatonin helps when we've GOT to get him to sleep and routine is all messed up. But I have to give it to him early in the evening or there's no getting him up in the morning.

To answer your question more directly - I can't see that any cut-off of necessary scaffolding would be the right answer, partly for a kid we all know is highly asynchronous. Lack of sleep only makes everything worse. If the scaffolding starts to feel wrong to you and/or your child, probably the right answer is re-investigating why it's needed. I say "re-investigating" because I have no doubt you're constantly working on this and all the other myriad stuff your kiddo needs!

Portia, I think your loving approach is just fine. As adults, we are inclined to sleep with our spouses, which is both physically and emotionally comforting. It is a sign of the perverse attitudes in the west that we (and I say that generally, not with respect to participants in the thread) expect young children to achieve solitude where we do not.

DS4 co-sleeps with me at night, and falls asleep with either me or DH for naps. (We're a family that retains naps well into childhood.) He is able to stay asleep 2ish hours on his own for naps alone after being smuggled to sleep. He can't fall asleep alone. At night, if I leave for more than 2ish hours after settling him, he will sense my departure and sleepwalk in angst, crying. If I stay, he will happily sleep 10+ hours. The world--including some close family--think DS "should" be able to sleep alone by now, and that my continued cosleeping with him enables disordered sleeping.

Right. Where "disordered" means DS getting sufficient restful sleep in the presence of a loved one, without frequent night waking, distress, or parasomnias. And "healthy" sleep involves the opposite.

You are an excellent mother, both for sensitively giving your DS what he needs and for evaluating thoughtfully how his needs might change.

ETA: I should add that DS' bed is a double in his room, and I always join him in his room. That way, when he starts to crave more sleep autonomy, it's one less adjustment for him to have to make. When DS feels strong emotions and needs a private break, he feels comfortable going to his room (of his own initiative) for quiet solo time to decompress because of the positive associations of our being there. YMMV .

'Nother co-sleeper here. DD is 7, with no end in sight. I was agnostic about co-sleeping when I had her, but it quickly became clear what was and wasn't going to work for this particular child. (I'm a single mom, so that makes it easier.)

guilty here too, going to have to figure something out soon though as at least one of my kids is nearing the big P

Ds6 doesn't settle well at night but me being there doesn't seem to help. Recently i have just given up. He goes to our room when Ds g oes to his. As long as he is quiet i leave the door open so he can see me and he reads and plays quietly in bed. After 2 or 3 hours he goes to sleep. If i fight it i have an unpleasant evening and he goes to sleep at the same time. Both ways result in a kid who is hard to get to school but only one gives me time to myself and gets stuff round the house done.

I'll offer an opposing view, with trepidation. While I understand that having a poor sleeper stinks, and we all feel drawn to nurture our children, I have seen this issue wreak havoc on a lot of marriages. (In my experience, usually someone isn't psyched about this arrangement...often it's dad.) For this reason alone, I think it's usually a good idea to try to work on gradual withdrawal from the need for parent presence. Marriage and solo adult time matter.

That said, if you are genuinely HAPPY sleeping with your child, okay, but if you dislike it or are doing it only because you don't know what else to do...research shows that this is a real strain.

FTR, I have one child who has not had much of a problem with this and another who still would prefer sleeping with us, but he goes to sleep alone and sleeps alone. Sometimes he needs a little extra nurturing and snuggle time at bedtime. We have used relaxation scripts and lavender spray and he has a very set routine.

Oh dear - was that the counselor?
No idea of any legal implications, but I imagine that kids coming to their parents' bedrooms for comfort is not all that unusual. I have a friend at work who I regularly commiserate about with this (her kids are grown up but the one boy came to her room as a teenager).

Not sure if you need a counselor with special needs experience so much as one with an open mind!

The legalities depend on the state, sometimes the county as well. In our area, foster parents must provide a single gender room. However, some nuclear families, due to space limitations, may have children of different genders in one room. In general, it really isn't a legal matter unless/until someone reports you for "questionable" behaviors.

As for co-sleeping, onset of puberty would probably strike most Americans as inappropriate. It is my observation that these days a lot depends on what is acceptable among their immediate peers plus most kids know to self-censure what they share by age 9. It is likely that your DS will outgrow this need on his own as long as he can just as easily go to his own room/bed and that option remains an attractive alternative with its own advantages.

This is a brilliant idea - it might work especially well for my DS who has a lot of anxiety about being alone in his room. Alas, we cannot have a dog because of allergies, but, I can see how it might have been a wonderful solution if it were possible.

Reviving this thread with some updated information. DD11 recently got a FitBit - she wanted the one that monitors her sleep as well as the number of steps she takes. Just got the first weekly summary. She has been averaging 25 waking a night. Twenty Five!

Also while appearing to be asleep approximately 10 hours per night she has been logging only 8-9 according to the FitBit. I guess when you wake up 25 times you lose a few minutes each time and that can add up...

I knew she was restless but never expected numbers like these. I don't recall her sleep walking during this time period but she did talk, laugh, throw herself about and stand up (on the floor not on the bed although she has done that in the past).

So what to do with this information? Bring it to her pediatrician? Her neurologist? Just hang on to it?

I'd be very dubious about sleep data from a Fitbit. Devices like this one monitor how much someone moves. People in even a deep sleep can move a lot, so the watch can provide misleading information. Some watches claim to use heart rate to measure deep sleep, but they aren't necessarily accurate, and they aren't marketed to children (who have faster resting heart rates than adults, especially ages ten and under).

If you're very concerned about your DD's sleeping habits, you might want to talk to her pediatrician, who in turn might order a sleep study if something seems amiss.

I also am dubious about making changes on the basis of a FitBit, but I do think that it warrants talking to her pediatrician about it, and possibly scheduling a sleep study.

oh lord my dd is a horrible sleeper. I've learned to lie to her pediatrician because he was very stern with us when i admitted to co-sleeping. Bad move!

but she isn't typical. it was one of the first signs for us that she was atypical. We tried CIO at the insistence of her ped, and it did not work even a little. she just stayed up all night.

the best thing for our family is to all sleep together. though we recently got a kitten that i am trying to train to sleep with dd, as i am hoping that the companionship will lead to her feeling safer

We did a sleep study a couple of years ago looking for possible REM Disturbance Disorder. It was the middle of winter and the heat wasn't working in the facility so they piled her under a TON of blankets. It was so heavy that she didn't move an inch all night. They thought I was crazy with my claims of all her sleep activity. Since that experience I have looked at weighted blankets but they are super expensive. I found a plan to make one but I don't sew... Still I know I have to try to do it.

Last night's FitBit report showed waking up twice and 22 times "restless". The night before awake once and "restless" 16 times. I'm thinking the weekly report must combine these numbers. No way did she really "wake up" 36 times in one night - right?

Still less than 9 hours actually asleep each night. Clearly something is up especially since this matches up with all the activity we have seen over the years. I think another sleep study is needed. DD is a good sized 11 year old - really the size of a small adult so I think the FitBit is likely a pretty good indicator even if not 100% accurate.

I have an update too. After major issues at school caused at least in part by exhaustion the doctor prescribed melatonin (only way you can get it here). He now goes to sleep much more happily. He still talks, giggles etc in his sleep but he grinds his teeth and throws himself round lesd.

Hey Puffin - would you be able to tell us your dosage and kiddo's weight? I am wracked with worry every time I give DS8 melatonin, because I never know if it's the right thing to do, and if it is - how much is the right amount. But really, sometimes it's the only way to break an awful downward spiral for DS. Anyway, you'd give a ton of comfort if you could share info about your script.

Of course I understand if you don't feel ok with that.

Thanks,
Sue

FWIW, my DD12 takes 2 mg most nights. She weighs almost exactly 100 lbs (45 kg). We started her on 1 mg, and it worked for a few months, then stopped working for her. 2 mg is generally still OK, a couple of years later. Her pediatrician says she can take up to 3 mg, and says that she is pretty conservative about dosage - many doctors are ok with up to 5 mg for kids, but she thinks that's a little too much.

Thanks a million ElizabethN!

FYI The neurologist/sleep specialist DD saw a couple of years ago started her on 3 mg of melatonin and said to use it every night. It worked great for a few months and then was not so effective. We tried 5 mg which did the same thing - worked for a few months then not so effective. A parent here posted that she was told to go to a micro dose - 300 mcg - and it worked better for both her and her child. I have not found the 300 mcg in stores but have to order it online. It has continued to work (falling asleep faster and staying asleep albeit with all the restlessness I mentioned) much longer than the higher doses did. And I definately feel better about using a smaller dose.

Great info Pemberley. As a data point for others - we give 1.5mg. DS8 (almost 9) is about 60 pounds. The 1.5mg is sure-fire, though I give it quite early, at 7:30pm targeting a 9:00 sleep time. Usually this is a couple nights per week - but frequency always increases as the school year drags on.

Thanks,
Sue

he will be able to sleep ... all on his own ... one day ... until then - follow your gut instinct ... there is nothing in-appropriate about having your children in your room at night - i fact most families on this planet sleep in one room at night ( only in so called " developed" countries children have their own bedrooms). It is a cultural thing to have kid's bedrooms- millions of strong independent men slept with their families :-)

When my kids were small and we co-slept I received plenty of well meaning advice regarding sleep " habits" : I should just let them cry it out - they would eventually learn - co-sleeping would make my kids co-dependant - or my favorite : they will NEVER learn to sleep on their own ...
I believe no child goes to college still nursing or sleeping in their parent's bed - and every child will become independent on heir own schedule ...

Enjoy the precious snuggle time with you son and ignore others ... How you sleep at night is between you and your family as long as everyone gets sleep things are ok :-)- think of the million other families all over the globe that are all sleeping in one room :-)

I'm a decades-long insomniac so trying to instill good sleep hygiene has always been an obsession for me in my efforts to prevent this suffering in my kids. I've found guided mindful awareness meditations to be helpful w/ my DD5 and heck, they work on me too which shocks me as I've been on trazodone to sleep for as long as I can remember. Probably the best tool in my toolbelt has been the "Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems" book. Many who haven't read the whole thing don't realize that it addresses issues all the way through adolescence. It's evidence-based (which I love as a science geek). I refer back to it all the time when we go through a hump or when something unusual happens. I had to adjust my daughter's sleep phase recently b/c she got on a path of going to sleep later and later and then found it hard to fall asleep at an appropriate (for her) time so I followed his tips to move it back into place. Usually when I've had problems to address I've found I need to look at the whole 24 hr cycle and exercise/diet as well.

Best of luck! Sleep issues are the worst.