My husband and I are desperately in need of help. Our DD is 6 and still co-sleeping. While that isn't ideal for us, and we both had expected that she would have moved out of our bed by this point, this isn't the main issue.
The issue is that she cannot go to sleep without having one of us lying right next to her so she can feel our presence. If we move from that position before she has gotten into a deep sleep, she will stir from her sleep and we'll have to wait it out all over again. Once we are able to leave her, she frequently will wake herself up from sleep crying when she discovers that we are no longer next to her (sometimes 2-3 times until one of us decides to finally go to bed). Her little sister (3yo) sleeps in the same bed and doesn't have this problem and it is not enough for her to have her little sister there - she needs one of us. She seems to have a hyper-sensitive ability to sense when we are not right next to her and purposefully wake herself from sleep.
Sometimes, it isn't a problem because I end up going to bed at the same time, but many times I can't stay down with her because the evening time is the only time I have for myself (I homeschool, so the kids are with me 24/7 - evenings are the only time to plan curriculum, connect with my husband, do things I want/need to get done).
We've tried several things, one of which was allowing her to stay up as late as she wanted and go to bed when she wanted. Because we homeschool, we have flexibility with a schedule like this, but I can't allow her to sleep in forever in the morning, and we were then finding that because she wasn't getting the sleep she needed, she was cranky and fighting with her sister all day, much more than she normally does, and it was disruptive to being able to do any homeschool lessons.
We've tried sitting next to the bed while she falls asleep, but that just seems to upset her more and she takes much longer than usual to fall asleep.
We've talked her to her about it, and she will often blame it on a fear of monsters, but we both believe this is just something she has latched on to as an excuse for this. To us, it seems like a case of extreme nighttime separation anxiety.
My husband (and truthfully, myself) have lost faith in the arguments for co-sleeping. I had always believed that by giving her what she needed (being with us in bed, being with her when she falls asleep) that she would eventually grow out of the need for these things and be confident and independent, but instead it now seems she has a psychosis about falling to sleep. If we knew that somehow, in just a few more months, she would reach that magical age when this is behind her and she is fine falling to sleep on her own (and, gasp, even going to sleep in her own bed!), I think we could make it. But I'm realizing that things may not change for another few/several years - and we need to figure out something else that works for our family and point our DD in a positive direction with regards to sleep.
I hope you mamas out there can offer some perspective, options, hope!
