Children sleeping in parent's bed (average, husband, mother, sister)

[utsci]

I would be sure that everyone is in counseling, family and individual. And if I had any suspicion that it was anything more than sleeping in the same bed together I would be sure that my daughters were well-schooled in good touches and bad touches, where the boundaries are.

That being said, as the mom, I traveled a LOT when my daughter was this age as the OPs. My daughter frequently slept in the same bed with my husband, mostly in her own bed but maybe 30% of the time in our bed while I was gone. At a certain point she wanted her own personal privacy and she ceased coming to our room on her own. But to this day, she will come home from college and sit down between my husband and mysef on the sofa and just snuggle in until she is practically inside our skin!

I have no problem with co-sleeping, as long as that's all that's going on. It is mom's responsibility to protect her children so OP needs to figure out (or have an experienced child counselor ask the girls the right questions so it can be used in court if necessary) if there is anything abnormal going on.

[JustJulia]

For the folks assuming that Dad must be a drunken perv, the OP posted the same question in a different thread before this one ... except without any mention of the DUI. She just threw that in there to be inflammatory after nobody shared her indignation.

[CSD610]

Originally Posted by denvermama

I am looking for support to prevent my 8 year old daughter's father from permitting her and her 5 year old sister from sleeping in the same bed with him during his parenting time, which my daughter reports is occurring. The girls have their own room, but father puts them to sleep in his bed with him. He is an alcoholic, currently on probation for DUI, and unfortunately we share decision making and 50/50 parenting time. This makes it difficult for me to get my daughter to sleep in her own room at my house, and more importantly, I am very concerned about the message this sends to the girls about boundaries and privacy. Does anyone know of any statute or case law that could assist?

Unless he is physically or sexually abusing your children and you have confirmation from a Physician that it is happening you cannot bring Child Welfare into the mix.
You can go to court and ask the Judge to look at the current way things are done, show his DUI Probation and ask that he have supervised visits, no over nights and not be allowed to drive with the children in the vehicle.
Then accept what the courts say and proceed from there.

As far as the children not wanting to sleep in their own beds at your home, that issue in on you alone, apparently you have boundary issues as well and are having a wee bit of trouble establishing those boundaries in your home with your children.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by JustJulia

For the folks assuming that Dad must be a drunken perv, the OP posted the same question in a different thread before this one ... except without any mention of the DUI. She just threw that in there to be inflammatory after nobody shared her indignation.

She may have included the drunken perv information to be inflammatory, but her motivation wasn't because nobody shared her indignation in the other thread. She posted first in the other thread at 5:43am and created this thread at 5:49am. The first response to her post in the other thread wasn't until 8:07am. It seems to me that she posted there before realizing she should create her own thread.

[transdimensionalhottie]

The girls already know the rules are different at moms place and dads place. That will NEVER change when you are sharing 50/50 custody. They are young, but they aren't dumb.

You can't stop him from letting them sleep in his bed, and there is nothing wrong with sharing bed with daddy, I loved to cosleep around their age with my dad. We'd take awesome naps together in his big bed, way better then my bed when I was 5 years old!

But what you CAN do is explain that things are different at both houses - and will always be different - no matter how hard you two together try to make things the same/same rules/etc. So when you accept that, and realize the kids already know that, then it will be easier to just admit to them "Well, this isn't daddy's house, this is momma's house and this is how we do it here".

The kids are young, if you think this is the only issue you and your exhusband will disagree on then realize you'll been disagreeing on how he treats the kids and how you treat the kids till they are 40 years old!

I don't understand how sleeping in your parents room has to do anything with boundaries or privacy UNLESS you think he is hurting the children.... Sleeping in daddy's room is NORMAL, and not a big deal. Not all grown men are creeps... are you worried he is a creep????

[Mightyqueen801]

She stated that he is an alcoholic, which is worrisome not so much about the sleeping but about things like DRIVING and not setting the house on fire when her kids are in it. If he really is an alcoholic and not just someone who drank too much one night and got a DUI, then there are things she can do, such as file an R.O. to keep him from taking the kids and having overnight visitation until he completes a program. If he IS an alcoholic, the DUI will help her get him to have to enroll in a program.

[Sabinerose]

Originally Posted by Utopian Slums

Really!?? Do you have any examples?

The only "example" that comes to mind is a good friends court battle with her ex in Montana last year. All the children (multiple ages / multiple genders / combination of my friends children and her ex's new SO's children) slept in one room on mattresses on the floor. Same room that the ex / SO slept in. This was actually an issue in court. The ex was told that he HAD to provide separate beds (could just be a camp-cot) for children of different genders after a certain age.

Does that apply to a parent of a different gender? Idk...

Am I going to spend time looking up specific state laws and guidelines to post as examples? No, I'm not that interested...

[saibot]

Originally Posted by Sabinerose

This was actually an issue in court. The ex was told that he HAD to provide separate beds (could just be a camp-cot) for children of different genders after a certain age.

Does that apply to a parent of a different gender? Idk...

Am I going to spend time looking up specific state laws and guidelines to post as examples? No, I'm not that interested...

Unfortunately, once you take something like this to court, there is no end to the silly rules you might be given. A good reason to stay out of court if at all possible. In a family with no custody issues, does anyone really care if the kids share a room? I mean of course if the kids themselves are not complaining...

This reminds me of the ridiculous regulations you have to follow if you want to adopt/foster. My friends went through this. One I remember is that they were required to install a locked box in their refrigerator just in case their adopted child someday needed medication that had to be kept cold. Now how many birth parents have even heard of something like that?

[monumentus]

Originally Posted by shyguylh

I am trying to not "hi-jack" the thread and turn it into a co-sleeping bashing thread.

Then do not do so - because there are no good arguments I have heard against it as a concept. If _you_ do not do it - never did it - or never plan to - that is great for you. But that is not relevant to whether other people do it - or should do it - or if there is anything wrong with it.

Originally Posted by shyguylh

I will simply keep it short and say that I am a firm believer that your marriage comes first before your children

That is your own value judgement. Many people make the exact opposite judgement and would sacrifice marriage and partner - if the benefit to the child justified it. Some people put there children before all else. And see no reason why it should be any other way.

But how you are equating "Cosleeping is bad" with "You should be putting marriage before children" is beyond me. I can only guess you are assuming that the latter somehow is damaged by the former.

Originally Posted by shyguylh

Establishing that the marital room is for the 2 spouses ONLY is one way to do that

Perhaps for you - but I see no reason why the above should be considered correct in general. You make it sound like the two are somehow mutually exclusive - without saying a thing that establishes this to be so.

Originally Posted by shyguylh

Of course, these people are no longer married, so that may seem irrelevant. However, if the mother is looking to remarry, then maybe this is a reason why she wishes for there to be no co-sleeping

Then she can establish those boundaries in HER house and HER relationship. Why is the father required to conform to her choices here?

Originally Posted by shyguylh

At some level, they shouldn't be pestering the other over every little petty thing. That said, that doesn't mean that every single thing the other is doing is not the other's business either.

Exactly. And co-sleeping is a petty thing. The mother should be more worried about her children being under the guardianship of a drunk - who is not fit to meet the needs of those children.

[Murk]

There is way too little information supplied to make any kind of judgement call about this story.

Not all alcoholics are out-of-control drunks who lose their ability to function reasonably either. My father was/is an alcoholic and very, very rarely displayed any signs of drunkenness whatsoever. He was always kind and would never hurt anyone.

Of course you do not want the father driving drunk (or tipsy) with his kids, even if the one time he drove legally drunk he posed no threat to anyone really. It could be he was going too slow and a cop was suspicious and pulled him over and found he had 2 glasses of wine with dinner. It could be he was puking out his window with an open bottle of Jack next to him while doing 90 going the wrong way on a highway. They're both wrong, but vastly different when it comes to the type of person he is.