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Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners
Sleeping with parents at age 4?
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Our daughter is 4 years old and still comes to our bedroom in the middle of the night to sleep. We feel that she is too old for this but simply cannot get her to sleep in her own room throughout the night. -
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Dr Carla Rogers
Psychologist
Are you ready to make some changes? I don't have a magic wand, I can't fix all your problems, and when we work together you're … View Profile
Hi there,
Whenever talking to parents about this the first question I always ask is “Is this a problem for you?”. The reason I ask is that some parents don't mind their child coming into their bed at night or co-sleeping through the night, but feel that they ‘shouldn’t' be letting them and that their child ‘should’ be in their own bed. The decision to change the behaviour is based on societal expectations or those of close family and friends.
Having asked that question - if you and your partner do wish to change this behaviour then there are two approaches you can try - and it's quite possible you've tried one or both - feel free to respond and let me know what has and hasn't worked in the past.
1. The ‘easy does it’ approach: I think of this as a slow progression and it's the one we used with our daughter. We put a single mattress on the floor in our bedroom and if she came in during the night then she settled herself on that and that's where she stayed. After awhile it's possible that your 4 year old will realise that while you are happy to have her near you, your bed is your bed and she may end up staying in her own. We used this approach after exhausting ourselves with the second approach which is ….
2. The cold turkey approach. this is the one we as parents are often told to do. The walk them back to their bed approach which for us culminated in a total of 16 ‘walk backs’ one night before I decided it just wasn't worth it.
A couple of other things I want to raise, and again this is from a personal experience with our daughter. Is she sleep-walking? We tried to treat this as a behavioural issue for months before we realised that she was actually still asleep and didn't even know she was coming into our room. She now sleeps in her own bed (she grew out of it after about 6 months) but still ends up in our room at least once a week - we've learnt that we can just ask her to go back to bed and she will. Go figure!
The second issue / question - which I'm sure you've done - is have you asked what the problem is - asked her why she comes into your bed at night. Her answer may give some clues as to how to approach this.
Thirdly, sleeping in the same room as siblings can help if that's an option. Historically, as much as we try to fight it, humans were built to be in ‘packs’ and many children still struggle with the ‘being alone in their own room’ concept.
Whatever route you choose to try, I promise you that this won't last. I know it's difficult and exhausting and can cramp your style, but she is still young and she won't still want to be sleeping with you when she's 10 ;)
Please feel free to ask any questions or email me at carla@hereandnowhealth.com.au if you need any more suggestions if these don't suit you.
warm wishes
Carla
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