wittney

I think you guys are making a few too many assumptions about my household. We've never ever ever had problems with our cats being violent or aggressive. We're putting the cricket toy away at night so the cats won't have that to make noise with when my stepdaughter is sleeping. That should take care of that particular problem. My question is about cosleeping at her age when she has never coslept before. I understand that cosleeping for newborns and infants can be beneficial to the parent-child relationship, but are there any negative effects on starting this at age 6? I would prefer not to have her in bed with us at night out of comfort, but if it would be better for her when she's scared and if there wouldn't be any longterm negative effects, then obviously I would allow it for her.

Does it really seem that insensitive? Because where exactly is the boundary between our privacy/need for restful sleep and her needs? We spend all day with her and have virtually no privacy. Is it unreasonable to want to sleep in bed with *only* my husband?

Hi all. I don't know if this has been talked about before (I don't lurk the forums nearly as often as I should), but I just don't know who else to ask. So. My stepdaughter is 6 years old and last night she wanted to get in bed with us because our cats were bothering her, more or less. She said she was "creeped out by the cats meowing and the cricket noise" (the cricket is a cat toy). This is a new place (we've only been here about a week) so I understand the random things freaking her out. What I don't know is if I should have let her get in bed with us. She fell asleep pretty quickly and about an hour later I had my husband take her back to bed. She slept through the night after that and was fine this morning. So should I let her get in bed with us if she's scared or not? Is this conditional cosleeping a good thing or should I have told her to sleep on her own? Halp.

My dad was a fan of taking away everything that I thought was important to me. Like when I was old enough to start keeping a diary, I'd write about how I hated him because of the way he treated me and for being drunk all the time and then one day he took it away from me. With the keys. I was terrified that he would kill me if he read it, and he took the keys so of course he was going to read it. He would take things away from me and ground me on top of that to put me in my place. It was always really horrible and I pretty much despise any parent who does that kind of shit to their kids. It's just another form of psychological warfare against your own children.