I’m a 27 year old single mother and I have a 12 year old son. Recently he’s been knocking on my door in the middle of the night because he can’t sleep and he asks to sleep with me. I’ve been letting him since neither of us really have a problem with it and it’s kind of nice not having to sleep alone every night. However, I’ve heard and seen some things online that seem controversial about co-sleeping with a child past a certain age. I definitely don’t want to negatively affect his development, so I guess what are your thoughts?

  • dingus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    11 hours ago

    Why do you think he is asking to sleep with you? I know you said it’s because he “can’t sleep”, but you can also just not be able to sleep in your own bed.

    When I was a child (and even sometimes as an adult), I would get scared at night. Yeah every 2 year old gets scared at night, but I’m not talking about age 2. I did it my entire childhood…even when I got to be a much older child. I’m talking as old your son and then even older. When I would get scared at night, I would go into my sibling’s room at night and sleep on the floor. It happened frequently. I did eventually “grow out of it” as another user stated and did it less frequently as I got older.

    It might be embarrassing for him to talk about and he might not want to admit it, but do you think it could be something like this?

    I’m 30 now and thankfully don’t have those problems much anymore (and I live alone so there is no one to sleep with lol).

    • liyah27@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      9 hours ago

      He tells me he gets scared at night as well. He also has diagnosed hyperactive ADHD which might make him restless at night.

      • dingus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Ok yeah I suspected a bit as much about the scared thing. Honestly I’m not sure what sort of advice to give to help out for that sort of thing. I never told anyone that I got scared at night…just lived with it until it eventually went away.

        For me, personally, something like a weighted blanket would not have helped with me being scared, but yeah might help with the ADHD and restlessness part like the others stated. Dunno.

        A quick Google search leads me to find out that this is incredibly common even in kids at the age I was and the age your son is. So at least what is happening isn’t overly concerning as something abnormal if that at all helps.