Co-sleeping gone bad!?????

Ok, so I watched the House of Tiny Tear-aways on foxtel the other day (kind of like a big brother situation for families with problem toddlers and they have intensive psychology input to help them sort the problems out - for those who don't know what I'm talking about).

There was this family - the mum, dad and three kids. The oldest kid was 7 years old, and then there were two younger kids, think around 5 and 3. Anyway....... this family had been sleeping on the lounge room floor all together as they had grown out of the family bed.
The first night of the stay in the house the kids all had to sleep in their own beds in their own rooms. The 7 year old took 1 hour 40 minutes to stop crying and got out of bed 40 (yup, 40!!!!!) times. She was screaming her head off. Crying like a crazy thing - but even an outsider like myself could see that it was protest crying, there were no tears and she was able to hold a conversation whilst screaming!! The toddlers were asleep within half an hour - they were actually ok about it all. LOL

And the psychologist (who was watching behind the scenes) said "this is why you MUST sleep train your children". (really??????)

Thoughts? Does co-sleeping always have to end up like this? Please tell me noooooo!!!!!
I'm a little freaked out by this!

I'd really love to hear your thoughts!
Sue x

Don't watch these shows :lol:

We fully coslept with our son from the day he was born. After a few months he started having his first sleep of the evening in the cot next us but still spent most of the night in our bed. Eventually when he was sleeping all the way through he just stayed in his cot and we moved it over the hall into his own room.

I think it's really distressing that this family didn't enter into any transition for the poor children! How shattering for them :( One thing I remember from a sleep seminar with Pinky McKay is when she said that whatever you do to transition your child do it slowly and gently- you have helped create this habit and you should be responsible for helping to change it. Going gently our son as his has matured and changed has been stress free for us- his bed is a happy place.

Meow, thanks for the response, and I totally agree with you. DH and I have a beautiful plan to transition missy when she is a little older (in a few months time) doing it exactly the way that you have done. Slow and steady wins the race!!

I never usually watch these shows, but DH and I were channel hopping yesterday morning when missy was napping and we thought it would be funny to watch it. Won't be doing that again! We were totally freaked. LOL

Thanks
Sue xxx

no.
and you don't need to sleep train. you parent you kids, train your dog.
anyway, you can gradually transition your kids out of your bed when you're both ready to do that. DS has always just needed us when he's uncomfortable or has somethign else going on, which was most of hte first 18 months or so, but only rarely now.

Hehe, Marcellus we must be on at the same time! Just replied to another post.

Totally agree. I have to say, sleep training must be a UK thing (maybe generalising a bit there, so sorry if anyone is annoyed by that comment - I'm from the UK!) but lots of my friends back home keep trying to get me to do the controlled crying thing. Um, no thanks.

Australia seems to have a much gentler approach to parenting - again, a total generalisation but all of the gentle books I have are written by Australian authors and the crying it out methods are all UK "experts". And this program is set in the UK.

Interesting.

Charlotte stopped sleeping with us (as in, that was her bed, all night etc) at around 6 months as DH was having probs sleeping with her in the bed.

However, would still come in after her 2am feed and sleep the remainder with us.
She continued to co-sleep partially with us until she was about 18 months old. This was due to circumstance more than desire, but none the less, she now comes in after 4am or whenever she wakes up, has a cuddle and now not BF, we get up and have breakie.

However, I would not continue to cosleep until 7 or even 5 for that matter, and perhaps this is what the woman is referring to. We had to "train" Charlotte to sleep in her bed, her room, and we are now going through a resurgence of protest about this lol which requires more "training" - or more politely, return to older methods, like sitting with her and dealing with her waking through the night.

Not keen on the training phrase as it does seem to suggest CC or CIO techniques or that sleep training should be done from a young age. Realistically for me, if it becomes detrimental (ie family is sleeping in the lounge) it is no longer healthy and is affecting the family, and gone too far. But getting (some) kids to be happy sleeping on their own, in their own beds and effectively doing it, does require repetition and education of the child.

Oh no..... someone forgot to tell my kids 'the rules', lol!
DD2 coslept from birth and literally cracked it at about 9 months until she got to go to her own cot!!!
DD1 has been a horrendous sleeper and only started cosleeping at about 2.5/3 - she has just started to sleep through the night and stay in her own bed about 2/7 nights. She is super clingy - this has lessened heaps with her cosleeping.
xxx

I'm similar to LimeSlice - We co-slept with DS until he was bout 6 months, he then slept in his cot. He does co-sleep with us when he's sick because he's constantly crying and his bedroom is in the back of the room. Nowerdays, he goes to sleep at 10pm on DH, we move him into the cot at 10:30pm and he generally sleeps in there till he wants a feed (or to be cuddled) at 4:30am and after that wake up comes back with us.

So far, it's working brilliantly

wow, that sounds a bit crazy & harsh! i guess those shows thrive on finding extreme cases - but it still can make you freak out!!

we're still co-sleeping here & honestly i didn't think we would be - i had hopes that DS would be in his cot by now & sleeping all night or with just 1 or 2 wake ups. but apparently he's not on the same page :lol: so reality means that i co-sleep with DS & now i've thrown any ideas of what age we should stop out the window. i came to realise that every child is different & i truly believe it would be detrimental to my little man to force him into sleeping in his cot. i do believe that he will be ready one day - it may not be for a while or it might be next month. i always think it would be easier when i can explain to him better why his room is his own etc. no idea if that's true :dunno:

- i should add a disclaimer though, that if he does get to 5 & he still wants to co-sleep, that it may be a very different story!!!