Not alone. I'm actually quite surprised at some of the responses.

Our children have been through phases; if they need comfort in the middle of the night, then that's what they get. They can always come into our bed. Knowing that this is always possible has made the phases a lot shorter - maybe 2 - 3 nights in a row, then everything goes back to normal again.

We found that letting our son into bed with us worked to a certain extent but modified it slightly by setting up the spare bed and one of us going in there with him (to save our backs and sleeping all cramped up). He went through a phase from about 13-16 months where he wanted to sleep with us every night then it just fizzled out and since then he sleeps through pretty much 99% of the time.

I think it works for some people but if you only have the marital bed in which your offspring can come into and no spare room it gets a bit much night after night. I awoke one morning to find the little fella sprawled across my neck (I could have been the first mummy in the world to suffer a cot death!)

I think our son needed that 3 month period sleeping with us as he seemed to be a bit insecure at night (difficult bedtimes, etc) and the "co-sleeping" seemed to carry him through this phase.

Thanks again, Crumbs & Sandgrounder, happy to know that other parents do it, too.

My daughter slept through last night for the first time in ages, so the chocolate 'reward' (and not 'bribe' as someone said) worked (well for last night at least, not sure if it always will). She's very happy too that she has made Mummy happy. We may well have trouble stopping this true, but hey it's not the end of the world. I've often used rewards such as sticker charts and somehow they manage to come to a natural end.

It's great to read everyone's opinion on this. I'm not convinced that there is always a hard and fast reason as to why they wake up and I agree with ljm that reassurance and comfort are really important. I've often woken up with a sore back too!

Would be lovely to meet up with you all and your little ones in or around Zurich sometime after Xmas to chat about this more!

We did (and do) it too. We got a lot of worried advice from moms of yore about how we were going to create a helpless little kid, but we believe that making the child feel as secure as possible helps them become more independent.

Ours is 3, and decided on her own to sleep in her own bed roughly half a year ago. She still needs tending to in the night, and we have to do as Sandgrounder did and get her a bigger bed as she doesn't want to come into ours anymore (with some exceptions) and her little one is waaay too small for Papa and just big enough to give Mom a heck of a backache.

There's a difference between being supportive and coddling. We are quite strict in general compared to other parent friends we have; but we never saw the wisdom in CIO (Cry It Out). Everyone has their own way of doing things.

Nothing wrong with rewarding! Kinder eggs are great- our little one just wants the toy inside so Mom or Dad get to eat the chocolate .

wow. thank goodness. you are NOT the only one.

why treat this like some sort of infraction? like something is being done 'wrong' and needs to be corrected? why involve punishment and bribing?

its natural. we all do it. i still do it - wake up in the middle of the night and need a good reassuring hug from my partner!

kid needs a cuddle and some comfort - for whatever reason (dark, monsters, et.al.). pull him/her into bed, let them feel safe and get some sleep together.

if you need to know why communicate with your child when the sun is shinning. keep in mind your child may not need to know why. life really isn't that complicated.

in the long run, my focus and approach was to teach my children self comfort. how to make friends with and deal with their own emotions. a favorite light, toy, song, words, thoughts...

well said!

never thought about it in terms of phases and that by offering the comfort they can get through them quicker.

thanks for that.

Recently ours has been hard to get in bed and kept asking for juice, then hot chocolate, then milk, and we finally figured out that she was hungry. She must be in a growth spurt as even on days where she has eaten like a horse including dinner she's often up for another plate of pasta just before bed.

We would let our 3yr. old finish out the night with us when she went through this phase. Everyone told us not to do it; that we would never get her out of our bed again. My hubby just laughed and said that he doubted she would still want to sleep with us when she is 16.

I found reasoning with her doing the day worked better than trying to force a tired toddler (not to mention Mom!) back to bed in the middle of the night. Plus, we have so little time left to snuggle with them! I grab all I can get now!

You are a baaad man...

Hi there

I had the same problem with my son...I usually just bring him back to his bed and lay with him and rub his head for a while. That always seem to calm him...you could try that, but I think every child is different so what works for me might not necessarily work for you.

Good luck to you