How to reassure DH that DD won't be spoiled.

[Jenica]

My husband thinks our daughter is never going to want to sleep in her own bed if we keep letting her sleep with us and I'm trying to convince him otherwise. DD is only 11 weeks old right now. She starts off every night in the bassinet next to our bed and after the first night-time nursing she sleeps with us. I think her sleeping in the bassinet or her crib will be a natural progression. Since she starts sleeping every night in her own space I figure once she's sleeping through the night she will naturally just stay in the bassinet or crib. DH thinks we are going to end up being one of those couples on Supernanny with a 5 year old who won't sleep in her own bed. To get him off my back I told him fine we'll put the bassinet on his side of the bed and when DD wakes up hungry he can pick her up and hand her to me to nurse, stay awake until she's finished, then wake her up putting her back in the bassinet, and spend the next half hour rocking her back to sleep. So far the bassinet has stayed on my side of the bed We both like the feeling of her sleeping with us and DH loves having cuddle time with her in the morning while I get dressed. He just keeps having people tell him how it's impossible to get the kids out of your bed once you let them in. So does anyone have stories to the contrary that I can reassure DH with?

[lynsage]

Even if Supernanny never went to those people's houses, eventually the kids would have moved to their own beds. If it were true that people could never get kids out of their beds once they co-slept, everyone on Earth would have slept with their parents until adulthood until pretty recently in human history, and even now we'd all be hearing about it. Which we're not. When they're ready, they go.

Mine went when she was four. We moved her to a sleeping bag on the floor in our room, which she slept in for one night before moving across the hall to her own "big girl bed" voluntarily. We left the sleeping bag in our room for a couple of weeks so she knew she could come back if she needed to, and when she never did, we got rid of it. I'm sure we could have done that at an earlier age if we had wanted to.

I have never seen a family on Supernanny that had no other discipline/communication issues besides co-sleeping or the parents having to lie down with big kids to get them to sleep. The issues with co-sleeping on that show are just part of the overall picture of things not being right with the family or them not having any kind of consistent disciplinary plan.

[fruitfulmomma]

We were told the same thing when my oldest was born.

I've bedshared from basically the beginning and I only have one out of five that are still in the bed with me. We never kicked any of them out but once they got their own beds and/or saw the older kids sleeping in their own beds they went willingly. The longest I've had one go was 4yo. He was my oldest. The girls have all gone around 2-3 years old. The 19th month old still sleeps with us but she likes to snuggle in bed with the other kids as well.

Both my mom and mil bedshared at least some of the time with us and dh and I both sleep okay like adults without our mommies.

[mistymama]

My ds moved easily and happily into his own room at age 2. It wasn't his idea 100%, but he was already falling asleep on his own in my bed, so we made the transition and it was very easy.

I fully plan to co-sleep with our new baby on the way as well. Its such a short period of time that they really need you at night, and it does pass by quickly. I look at my big old almost 8 year old and wish I could have kept him in my bed even longer - I probably wont boot this one out at age 2 unless he asks.

[mistymama]

Sorry, double post

[lmk1]

The hardest thing when you have your first kid is all the "tough" parenting advice you get from well meaning people who are really worried about how spoiled your kid will become if you let him do a,b,c. Yes your dd will want to sleep with you for a while, heck, your dh wants to sleep and cuddle with you too, no? It feels good to share sleep with other people. At some point she or you will decide it's not for you anymore, and that is the right time to stop doing it. And no one likes to tell you this, but most kids whether they get to "officially" sleep in the family bed or not, will come to your bed when they wake up in the middle of the night. Just ask those parents who are telling you that their kid has his own bed from birth, if their kids don't come visit at 3am. Or if they don't wake up with night terrors or are afraid of monsters under the bed and need mommy and daddy to come and scare the monsters away at night (not saying that co-sleeping kids are never afraid of monsters, just my impression that they're less fearful of night time shadows since their protectors are right there with them).

[Adaline'sMama]

I do the same thing, with putting her in a sidecar until her first nightime feeding. The best thing we've done is deciding together to just not tell people unless they ask. When they ask, I tell them and when they respond with unsolicited advice, I simply respond with, "Well, she is going to sleep with me at least until she is weened from nighttime feedings. DH is building her a toddler bed to put on the floor in our room, because we've decided to go cribless. It will have a twin mattress so I can lay down with her there.

I felt like we were going to have this issue with CIO, so I did some online research and presented it to him, while flatly stating that we would not be participating in that method. I feel like sometimes once DH realizes that there is some kind of "method" or "program" behind something he's a lot more responsive. I explained AP to him and got on the APInternational website with him and since then, he pretty much doesnt question the methods I choose. Now that he's realized that there is an actual parenting style that goes along with my desicion making.

[Tway]

Originally Posted by lmk1

The hardest thing when you have your first kid is all the "tough" parenting advice you get from well meaning people who are really worried about how spoiled your kid will become if you let him do a,b,c.

Forgive me for momentarily hijacking this post, but this was definitely the hardest part of motherhood for me at the beginning. My MIL, who really is very nice, kept saying we were spoiling DD by holding her so much. It annoyed me no end!

Then I found out she does all the laundry in the house and even irons her youngest kids' pyjamas--and those kids are 19 and 20! Ha! Who's spoiling their kids now?

[nelson]

When DS was exactly 24 months, for the fun of it we asked him, "Do you want to sleep on your own bed in your own room?" He very excitedly said "yes!" I was shocked, but we set up a little mattress on the floor of his room for him and he never looked back. I actually will go to bed at night sometimes and miss cuddling with my toddler, I really didn't expect it to happen so fast. When my DH is out of town, I will have DS sleep in the family bed and he is fine and then when DH is back, he goes back into his own bed no problem. I realize that if your baby is only a couple of weeks old that 2 or more years of cosleeping may sound like way too long, but it goes very fast. I did start to feel cramped at the end there, but I really have great memories of sleeping with my LO and so does my DH, who, like your DH, was not always on board until he realized that everyone slept better when we all slept together.