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I discovered this recently too. Even in the instances when I still don't get to sleep (eg my 1 year old coming into bed and wriggling in her sleep waking me) I've still felt more refreshed when I've relaxed rather than laid in bed wound up. I'm not into new age / whatever stuff but I like to think of it as night time meditation as while it's still not as good as sleep it's still a great deal better than full blown insomnia! And best of all, sometimes it clears your mind enough to actually sleep.

> It's like a trap that closes tighter about you the more you struggle, and releases if you allow yourself to relax

That is a beautiful analogy. Both in terms of accuracy and imagery.



> I'm not into new age / whatever stuff but I like to think of it as night time meditation as while it's still not as good as sleep it's still a great deal better than full blown insomnia!

There's a reason advanced mediators have vastly reduced sleep requirements (four hours a night or even less).


> 1 year old coming into bed and wriggling in her sleep waking me

I respectfully suggest you put a stop to that before it becomes a habit, as your child needs to learn to go back to sleep in their own bed.

Quietly & calmly return them to bed, tell them to go back to sleep, wait outside a few moments, then go back to bed. Repeat as necessary.

It will take a few nights, but they'll soon realize bed-hopping is not accepted.

(Not to mention, 1 sounds pretty young to have moved from a cot to a bed.)


> It will take a few nights, but they'll soon realize bed-hopping is not accepted.

Honest question: why is this not accepted? Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in the West (I’m from Eastern Europe) where we didn’t have that much real estate space and as such us, kids, didn’t have “our own rooms” to sleep in, but I’ve turned out to be a quite a well functioning adult even though I shared my bed with both my parents and with my grand-parents (when my parents were “shipping” me in the winter to live with them). In fact, the very nickname which I’m using on this website reminds me of one winter when I was 7 or 8 and I was watching a Soviet TV show based on a Jules Verne book at my grandparents’ house in the Carpathians. I remember that it was aired each Tuesday night, I was watching it while I was in the same bed with my peasant grandpa’, my brother was in the other bed in the same room with my grandma’, there was nothing wrong with it, it didn’t even crossed anyone’s mind that would be something wrong with it, to this day those moments remain some of the most important in my life. I get that lots and lots of stuff gets sexualised in the States and in the West generally, I guess this is where this phobia against kids sharing beds with adult relatives comes from, but it wasn’t always like this, and saying that letting a kid sharing a bed with a adult parent or close relative is wrong goes against most of our history as a species.


Most practical reason: because as a parent who wants a good night's sleep, it's beneficial to train your kids to sleep well also. :). (And also because good sleep habits - by which I mean being able to fall asleep in your own bed without needing elaborate rituals or snuggling with a parent - are useful for life.)

Really, I think it's mostly about getting them used to the sleeping arrangements you want to have. If they're going to bed share until six, great, let them stay. But if you have them in their own room, teach them to sleep that way.

Note that doesn't mean no snuggling and reading. It just means that when it's time for sleep, learn to sleep in your target bed.

With infants, which doesn't apply to the GP, the current recommendation is to sleep in the same room but separate bed, to minimize the chance of getting squished or suffocated.


>Most practical reason: because as a parent who wants a good night's sleep, it's beneficial to train your kids to sleep well also

I think it would be good to get some evidence here that describes that sleep is most beneficial in the circumstances you are describing.


> learn to sleep in your target bed.

Children aren't NPCs in a video game, tho.

Edit: Apparently they are. My mistake.


> why is this not accepted?

Possibly a poor choice of words on my part. My comment had nothing to do with sexualisation (that didn't even cross my mind), but purely from the point of view of sleep hygiene for both parent and child.

Being able to go back to sleep by oneself is essential to good sleep, and something that people who didn't learn as a young child can struggle with into adulthood.

For the parent it can interrupt their sleep, as the GP mentioned. For someone who already has sleep difficulties, this isn't ideal.


FWIW: After I taught my kids to sleep in their own beds both my health and their mood improved.

YMMW but I was starting to get ill after not sleeping a full night for months.

Emphasis on taught because while we knew we had to teach or kids to eat and walk it never occured to me I had to teach them to sleep.


Don't worry, whenever parenting advice comes up on HN I'm often as surprised as you are now.


When kids are babies there's a concern about things like the covers suffocating them at night

Later it's more of a practical thing -- the bed's small enough already without a wriggling 4 year old!


This isn't our first child and we do normally follow that advice. Unfortunately the 1 year old is teething again at the moment and not coping with it well at all. So bringing her into bed is sometimes the only way we can get her to settle (it's basically that or nobody in the house sleeping on a night due to her screaming. Plus I don't think it's really fair on the baby to put her through that stress when it's teething pain which is out of her control).

Our other kid is 4 years old now and sleeps really well on a night because we followed that advice but as I'm sure you'll know all to well yourself, sometimes as parents you have to break your own rules for your child's wellbeing.

I think as a parent you can generally tell between your childs "i want my own way" screams and their "i'm actually distressed for some reason" screams. Once her teething pains subside I assure you we'll go back to the "tough-love" approach.


[flagged]


What's with the snark? At worst, OP can reject the suggestion and choose for himself. At best, he sees a different perspective. I didn't get any negativity from the parent's comment, just a suggestion.


I think it is in pretty poor taste to start handing out free parenting advice without knowing anything about the situation.

If someone asks 'should I let my one year old daughter sleep in my bed' you could make that suggestion but when someone mentions this anecdotally then you have no business sticking your oar in in that way. And most comments that start out with 'respectfully' aren't, this one is no exception.


Scoot shared his recommendation to all readers and used laumars' situation description only as an example.

If you think that his recommendation is technically incorrect - please share why. But trying to suppress that discussion just because you think it is a private parenting issue -- is incorrect in a public forum.

I agree that "respectfully" was not an excuse. But excuse is not needed when commenter is sharing his suggestion.


"respectfully" wasn't meant as an excuse, but to mean just that - a suggestion offered with respect that the OP is free to do whatever they damn well please.

I completely accept that I could have worded it more softly / indirectly / anecdotally. Tone on the internet is hard!


No, he specifically addressed Laumars and gave him unsolicited advice. There are other variations of that comment possible that would have covered your response here but that wasn't the case.

Specifically: "I respectfully suggest you put a stop to that"

That 'you' was clearly intended to be Laumars.


1) When I participate in public forum - I imply that I am looking for all unsolicited advices I can get.

Getting unsolicited advice is my main goal in discussion.

Receiving unsolicited advice is one of the best ways to learn about mistakes in my mental model of the world.

When you try to suppress such advice-giving culture on HN -- it reduces my chances of receiving my share of advices and reduces the quality of my communication on HN.

2) Even if advice is formally addressed to somebody else -- I frequently can learn from it anyway.

The author of the advice is well aware that his advice has multiple recipients -- even if the author formally addressed only a single story-teller [to make his advice easy to understand for all readers].


This is a discussion about forming better sleep habits. It seems pretty on topic to me


This was an idea shared in a public discussion. Could you please try not to suppress ideas exchange here?


It wasn't the idea but the delivery that is being criticized.




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