Bed Situation

My almost 7 year old daughter sleeps on my floor amost every night. She will occasionally sleep in her bedroom but would rather sleep on my floor. I don't make a big deal out of it and it doesn't bother me.

You comment that, "From the time he was born, I never had him in our bed, or our room for that matter." Perhaps since birth he didn't signal that he wanted the closeness of cosleeping or bedroom-sharing with you, so he wasn't getting it for his first four years. However it sounds as though he wants it now, and I think it is because he actually needs it so he is secure enough to venture into his next stage in development. Before moving to the next stage in their development, children often regress in the areas where they may not have gotten something that they actually did need when they needed it. I think you've got a litte fellow who wants to snuggle with his parents and believe me, he won't want to for very long. Before long he'll be a Kindergartener or First-grader who is too cool to do baby stuff like that. Enjoy it while you can!

M. ; its ok for him to sleep on the floor it wont hurt him , my kids would do that too, one time i could not find my child, in his bed or anywhere, but there he was sleeping on bathroom floor, sometimes they just really tired and crash whereever they can, i used to put a small crib mattress under my bed all made up, and they would come in my room , i could lean over and pull it out and lay them on it , and hold their little hand if they needed it, or rub their backs, that way you got your space and yet their needs of being with you is also met, have fun and enjoy life, dont fret the little stuff, just know they love you enough to want to be with you , enjoy it, they grow up so fast, D. s

If it was just to your bed, I would say he is waking up and wanting to be close to you. Since he is going back to sleep on the floor, even the bathroom floor, maybe his bed is too soft and he isn't as comfortable in it.

This reminded me of when my little brother was always crawling in bed with my parents when he was young. He would lay at the foot of the bed. One night my parents pretened to sleep through it and would move around "accidently" kicking him, not hard, just bumping him. They said he jumped up and exclaimed "well.. If this is the way YOUR gonna be, I am just gonna go sleep in my own bed!!" and he never came back in.

M. this can be just a stage they go throught. I remember the knees in the back and his but in my face. But visiting with him about it and telling him he needs to stay in his own room. Is there a special poster or something u can use as a reward for staying in his bedroom so many nights and keep building up the length of time.
This too should pass when he is 16 he won't want to sleep in your room any longer. lol But I know this can be a real pain. And I was always too soft hearted to not let them climb inbed with us. L.

My son is 2 years old and he slept in his own bed from day 1, however, he was next to me in a portable bassinet, then in crib next to my bed. Now, he sometimes cries and when I put him in my bed, he goes right back to sleep. So, sometimes it is just a need to be close to you that draws them to your bed. They feel safe and secure knowing that you're there too.

Our oldest did this for a long time. The advice we got was to let him sleep with us, and after he'd reach deep sleep, just move him back to his own bed. He'd usally go back to his room peacefully and contentedly stay there until morning, unless he was sick or actually scared of something in the first place. In those instances where he was scared we would let him stay with us. Even with this, he eventually grew out of needing to do that.

I think giving him the sense that if he really needed to be with us when he felt it was important, gave him a sense of security and really eased any fears he had about being alone. I think it allowed to gradually ease into being able to be alone.

I have two children (almost 4 and 5) and we place their "patches" under our bed. We have told them they are welcome to come to our room anytime BUT they must not wake us up (unless emergency) and they must sleep on their patch. The patch is simply a folded thick blanket. It took a few trials, but now I simply wake in the morning and don't even know if/whenthey came in. It's worked for my sleep.

I agree with the previous post. Ask him why he does this. Then, talk with him about other solutions. My youngest started this behavior as soon as he was able to get out of bed on his own and it continued for a long time. A friend at the time suggested we put a latch on the boys' door, but we were uncomfortable with that for several reasons, mostly because this seemed like it would just create a whole new set of safety issues. Our son was waking for 2 reasons. 1) He was having growing pains in his legs and 2) his brother was snoring and waking him up. We worked out a plan with him so that he would start waking my husband or I up and we would go back to his room with him to help him get settled. We also started playing a cd of rain (Other white noise would work too) in their room while they were sleeping. It helped drown out the sound of his brother and soothe him back to sleep. Good luck!!!

If he is a twin, it really makes sense that he wants to sleep with someone else. Can your twins share a bed?

Have you asked him why he does not want to sleep in his bed. There is a reason and more then likely he will be able to tell you something.

* Can't fall back asleep, so tries to sleep somewhere else
* Bad dreams
* Something in his room scares him (makes a weird shadow he doesn't like etc.)
* Afraid he will wet the bed
* Maybe he feels something crawling or biting him in bed
* Nosies (even if nosies have been there all along maybe now they bother him)

I would not suggest to him there is anything wrong, so don't say are you afraid of something, because then he will think that there is something to be afraid of. Just ask why he can't sleep in his room/bed.

If he says that there is nothing and just wants to sleep somewhere else tell him that to get the best sleep he needs to sleep in his bed. If he ends up sleeping on the floor in his room no big deal, at least he is in his room, unless he is extremely cranky then you should try to get him to stay in bed.

Is he one of the twins? Are the in seperate rooms, is this a recent change or did the behaviour start after you supperated them. In that case maybe he just misses hearing the other one sleep, comfort thing. Or if the twins are in the same room maybe the other one sleeping paterns (breathing ect) are waking him, he can't fall back asleep and finds another place he can fall asleep.

Hope you find a solution!

M.,
My 4 year old daughter does the same thing. It was so strange because one day she just started coming in our bed, sneaking on the end of the bed where we can't even feel her. She had NEVER slept in our bed before but shortly after she turned 4 we kept on finding her in our bed. I think it is just a stage and I don't think it was anything we did. What we started doing was making her ask if she could sleep with us, and it sort of helped. Also we put her baby sister in her room which helps a bit more and basically just let it happen the couple times a month it does. We have discussed that she needs to go back to bed when we ask her to without fussing and that seems to help a bit. We just hope it doesn't start happening with the younger kids, we don't have THAT much room! Good luck!