budd@arizona.UUCP (12/08/83)
OK. I will start by admitting we broke a cardinal rule. When our eldest daughter (now 3) was young and wanted to nurse at night and the house was cold and dark and all, my wife would decide "ah heck" and just bring her back to bed with us for a while. Thereafter, there never seemed an appropriate time to say ''from now on you cannot come into mommy and pappa's bed!''. Well, now she is three. And about one night in three, maybe more often, she still slips out of her bed and comes and crawls into ours. The difficult part is she is quiet about it, and often we don't notice her until hours later, or until morning. Nevertheless, I find this annoying. We've tried closing our door (she sits and screams at 2 in the morning until we open it, and besides my wife is afraid she won't hear the kids in the night if something goes wrong). We've tried putting her in the crib from which her little sister recently graduated. (She then screams at 2 in the morning to be let out). Any advice? (This may just be a transient thing. Up until about 3 weeks ago we didn't have any real problems, as she would almost always sleep through the night. Perhaps she doesn't like the cold weather - although we do keep the heater on in her room at night). --tim budd, univ of arizona, tucson.
mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (12/10/83)
I think kids in bed is great. You don't like sleeping alone, why
should your more vulnerable and new-to-the world 3 year old?
We have always had our children in bed with us (a king) until they
chose not to (which they do).
About the age of 4, our oldest decided she wanted a bed of her own, and
she got one. The 2 year old spends about half of her time in bed with
the older one (which is a nice big bed too) and half with us.
--
spoken: mark weiser
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs
ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@CSNet-Relayrobert@arizona.UUCP (12/11/83)
You said something about the girl bothering you; maybe a larger size bed would fix that. Does it bother your wife as much as you? Anyway, I think it is fine to have her choose where to sleep, since it can get lonely in bed by yourself. My son would often want to sleep in my bed, and I would only say no if I had a girl friend over that night (which he seemed to understand). The last year or so he seems to have grown out of it (he's twelve now), and I might be the one who misses it a bit. Some people in our society probably see this as violating their petty christian doctrines, but forget that. A bed is only rarely used for sex; sleeping with another is a natural and peaceful way to commune.