Sleeping 7 year old - or not

[Tracy123]

Can anyone please help - My seven year old son (going on 17, when he's awake) will not sleep in his own bed. We have tried a lot of methods, he did suffer from night terrors a few years ago and vaguely remembers them, so he uses the excuse sometimes that he may have a 'naught dream'. We tried laying on the floor, light on, cruel to be kind. Nothing works. He still end up between me and my husband. And as he gets bigger and bigger the bed seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

[justineo]

Tracy

Hope you don't think this answer is a bit lazy but have you watched 'The house of tiny tearaways'?  Loads of people have this problem and there is a technique that seems to work in about a week, but I couldn't write it all down here. 

[spudqueen]

My oldest son used to come into our bed EVERY night , sometimes his younger brother used to wake up when he heard him moving and we'd end up with BOTH of them in our bed! I used to console myself with the fact that he wouldn't still be doing it when he was 16! He started growing out of it when he was 10, and very quickly stopped coming in at all, though his younger brother still sleeps in my bed when Mr Spudqueen is away on business, and he's 11 now! We bought a kingsize bed and used to make the kids laugh with a book called 'The Biggest Bed in the World'. Personally I didn't find it too much of a problem, I think it's nice that for a child the safest place in the world is inbetween their parents in the parents bed!

[Le Chat]

You have to chose a method of action and continue to do it "until!" This means, not for a few weeks/months but until it works!! The worst thing you can do is to try something and then stop after a while, as it makes junior more prepared to hold out for the long haul as he knows that you'll eventually cave in!