In another thread, a Forumosan mentioned that his 4 year old daughter sleeps in the same room with himself and his wife. I’m not trying to pick on this poster…I’ve met several couples whose children sleep in the same room, or even the same bed with them.
When I was growing up, my parents’ bedroom was strictly verboten to my sister and I. I was always surprised to hear friends and classmates talk about walking in on their parents having sex. Walking in to our parents bedroom without knocking first would have been unheard of. We grew up with very loving parents who spent a lot of time with us…just not in their bedroom.
How could a couple possibly have a normal sex life with their children sleeping in the same room, much less the same bed? And beyond sex, how about just having some privacy to talk, read, or relax without the kids in your faces? I couldn’t handle not having that sort of intimacy.
I’m really not trying to insult anyone here. I’m genuinely curious why those of you who sleep in the same room/bed with your children have chosen to do so, and how you handle it.
I thought it was nuts, too, that so many Taiwanese couples had their kids in the same room, or same bed with them, until my son was born.
I nursed him exclusively and just could not force myself out of bed every two to three hours in the first months after he was born. He was there beside me and neither of us really had to wake fully for him to nurse at night that way. It really saved my sanity.
It was hard on the intimacy factor in the marriage, though. We had other problems anyway, though, so in our case it’s hard to tell just how much difference it made.
We aren’t together any longer and my son is still sleeping in the same room with me, usually the same bed, though now he’s almost five and starting to consider other sleeping options. Of course, I’ll never force him to sleep with me, but for now, I still enjoy our family bed because it gives me precious time, that I have little of in the day, to talk with him and just be with him. We read together every night and talk about the stories, and we talk about the day he had and what’s on the schedule for the next day. I’ve very bussy durring the day, so I’d hate to lose that time, just now.
Sex can be had, say in a hotel room, when the child is asleep in the other bed. It’s like trying to sneak one in on the downstairs sofa when the girl’s parents are watching TV upstairs.
It’s sex, not gymnastics.
For us though, no. The boy kicks and grinds his teeth. I kick back. It gets ugly.
[quote=“jdsmith”]Sex can be had, say in a hotel room, when the child is asleep in the other bed. It’s like trying to sneak one in on the downstairs sofa when the girl’s parents are watching TV upstairs.
It’s sex, not gymnastics.
For us though, no. The boy kicks and grinds his teeth. I kick back. It gets ugly.[/quote]
Funny stuff!
Intimacy? What’s that?
A well-timed convenience enacted with tactical aplomb & finesse.
After trial & error thru 2 kids, I think a reasonable standard would be that if the kid is able to explain their own nightmares, then they need their own room. That’s usually around 5 years.
I’ve never been a fan of the whole stand-offish gig of insisting infants have their own rooms from early on. Kids at that age are like puppies, they enjoy the warmth & comfort by being in the same room, and even at times in the same bed. That goes double in damp or wintery conditions.
I’m willing to put off a few dozen minutes of squishing noises just to see the comfort in my child’s face.
Our boy slept in our bed for the first month. This made it a lot easier for my wife to breastfeed and do the month recovery thing. He’s now two months old and is still in our room but sleeps in a cradle. My wife still breastfeeds but gets up to do it. She was worried that I would crush him if he continued to sleep in our bed. I have a tendency to move around a bit during sleep.
We haven’t really discussed when to move him to the second bedroom downstairs but he will probably stay with us in the same room until at least one year old and possibly longer.
[quote=“Gilgamesh”]Our boy slept in our bed for the first month. This made it a lot easier for my wife to breastfeed and do the month recovery thing. He’s now two months old and is still in our room but sleeps in a cradle. My wife still breastfeeds but gets up to do it. She was worried that I would crush him if he continued to sleep in our bed. I have a tendency to move around a bit during sleep.
We haven’t really discussed when to move him to the second bedroom downstairs but he will probably stay with us in the same room until at least one year old and possibly longer.[/quote]
If I were your wife, I’d get one of these cosleepers
My kids have all slept with me in bed for nighttime nursing until about 6 months. They then move into a cot in my room until about a year at which point the graduate to their own room/bed.
Like a pp mentioned we like to be able to have time to ourselves to read, watch tv etc without waking anyone up. Plus I’m a housewife so I spend all day long with them and really, really need me time!
That was me and don’t worry, no offense taken at all. To each his own. But I really loooooove my girl. I hate when I go to work and she’s not awake yet and my wife tells me not to wake her, or when I come home late from work and she’s already asleep. Usually when I come home she’ll come running over, jump up and I’ll pick her up and hold her. I can’t understand either how my wife can bitch and moan about having had such a tough day with her. I love being with her all the time. I love putting her to bed, reading her a bedtime story, then chatting with her briefly before she falls asleep in the big bed beside me (when my wife finishes watching crap on tv she’ll come in and slide the girl over to her separate bed besides ours), and I feel good knowing she’s sleeping in the same room as us (as does she). It’s all very closing and loving and I’d feel lonely if she were down hte hall.
Normal? I thought we were talking of married couples.
In any event, as jd pointed out it’s no biggie. She falls asleep like a flash and then I can chase my wife around the house and have sex in the kitchen, bathroom, living room and on the balcony, like normal couples.
As for intimacy, do you have children? I know it’s different from adult intimacy, but intimacy with ones child is a phenomenal experience. I have no regret at all.
I think it is fair to say that spending the whole day with children is tiring. We all love to spend time with our kids but do it a couple of days in a row, and you’ll be tired and grumpy also.
Maybe your missus justs wants more appreciation from you
[quote=“jdsmith”]
Is that you MT? I got a picture of this guy on his balcony one weekend in Taipei.[/quote]
No, that’s my daughter (yes, she’s a little big for her age). I think you can see why I’m so enthralled with her and love it when she runs over and jumps up on me after work. Such a doll . . . . . :hubba:
mmm, this issue has been the cause of a couple of scenes back home between my mother and my 'Wan wife. My mother trying to understand the idea of a couple still sleeping in the same bed as their 6 year son (that’ll be my brother-in-law, his wife, and child in tainan), and my wife getting the wrong end of the stick and becoming irritated.
anyway, ours is 13 mths now. She still hasn’t left the bedroom, and most of the times when i wake up in the morning, she’s migrated over from cot to our bed during the night-time feed (i have trained myself to sleep through the night cries ). We’ve just ordered a new and larger cot-bed thing, so where that goes, is anyone’s guess. But I figure it’ll still be somewhere in the master bedroom for at least another year.
My husband used to hate having anyone in our bed with us, because even with one of those “california king” sized beds (supposedly a little larger, i dunno) we’d both end up on the edges of the bed, with our little boy lying between us so his head was touching one of us, and this feet were touching the other. But when we came here and he started working buxiban hours, we put two full sized beds together so when he came home late at night he could climb into bed with them, and we could all wake up together at around 9am.
As for getting intimate, up until the fourth one came long, there as never any shortage of that. Like MT, we’d take the lovemaking to another room and we’ve never had anyone walk in on us yet (although the 16yo did tell us we were a little loud once
Now that the “baby” is 4-1/2, we glad to have our own room and bed again. Sometimes when we’ve been working a lot and feel like we want to be close to one of the little ones, we’ll invite one to sleep in our bed but they’re so used to being in their own room now they usually wake us in the middle of the night to move back. Sometimes I’ll climb into my girls’ bed to get some extra cuddles like I did last night
In lots of cultures it is the norm for parents and their kids to sleep in the same room. In Korea parents and kids slept together on the floor. In the USSR 1-room apartments for a family were the norm. I did wonder how the parents managed sex - I think they just did it with the kids in the room, once the kids were asleep. Anyone know for sure?
In Igboland, the kids sleep with the mother in one room, and the father sleeps alone in another (if the house is big enough). Mom migrates to dad’s room for sex, though how openly this is arranged I don’t know.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]
How could a couple possibly have a normal sex life with their children sleeping in the same room, much less the same bed? And beyond sex, how about just having some privacy to talk, read, or relax without the kids in your faces? I couldn’t handle not having that sort of intimacy.[/quote]
You are assuming that all the people who put their kids in a different room have a rocking sex life.Nopes.Children don’t interfere in the love making - they are the reason for it and the outcome!
If good sex and intimacy exists in a relationship then the couples very naturally take it to another room and at another time. Early mornings…for example… If the intimacy is already on a decline, then even a trip to Hawaii won’t help.
Thought I’d just indicate a posting I made a couple of years ago which among other things, pointed out that according to Western research, there are good reasons for letting the kids sleep with you for the first few years.
When my boy was a newborn, we had a crib at the end of our bed. It just made things easier. At 13 months when I became a single dad, I still had him in the same crib at the end of the bed, but then he started being able to climb out. I thought it was just safer and more convenient to have him sleep in my bed after that. I just had my matress on the floor at that stage. When he was 2, I got him his own bed in his own bedroom that had a guard to stop him falling out. But I used to wake up in the morning and he would be lying next to me cuddling me… Ha, I used to think I was the luckiest and most special man in the world to wake up like that.
After a while, I used to tell him that if he wakes up to go to the toilet, he can then come and jump in bed with me. Of course if he wet his bed I would just change him and then he would jump in bed with me. I can’t be bothered changing the sheets at 2 or 3am.
Now he is 7 y/o it is the same thing, if he needs to get up to go, he can then come sleep in my bed, or if he is a good boy and I don’t have a “friend” coming over on Saturday night, he can then sleep in my bed. It is something special for him, a treat.
I am sure it will get to a stage when he thinks he is too big to sleep with me, like now he won’t kiss me goodbye when I drop him off for school in the mornings.
). We’ve just ordered a new and larger cot-bed thing, so where that goes, is anyone’s guess. But I figure it’ll still be somewhere in the master bedroom for at least another year.
