Do you remember how your parents put you to bed?

[bjrose]

My brother & I went to bed when told. We went by ourselves, but I don't remember when we were real little. Neither of us went into mum & dad's bed after 2 or 3 though. It was our little sister who kept going into their bed for years.

DD1 occasionally came in our bed. From about 18 months to 2, but when I was pg with DD2 I wanted her going to bed in her own bed before DD2 was born, so I'd put her to bed, tuck her in, sometimes read & sometimes I'd sit with her, sometimes I wouldn't.
She usually says good night & goes by herself now though.

DD2 is still in our bed alot. Its cut down in the last few weeks, but she usually goes to bed in our bed, then I put her in hers later.

I refused to co sleep with DD1 as it scared me back then. DD2 used to be up screaming til 3am with colic, so we co slept a bit with her. She was also sick alot due to lower immunity from a heart murmer.
DS has done more co sleeping in his first 6 months than DD1 has probably had in her life! She came into our bed occasionally up til last year, but now DD1 will just go out to the lounge.

We have had 4 of us in a double bed, so I'm glad Jaz decided she prefers the lounge now! We did just get a queen bed, but I'm loving the space too much!!

[paradise lost]

When i was very little (under 5) we did bathtime, with lots of singing, then bedtime with a few stories read to us, and then storytapes to fall asleep to (i found it hard to fall asleep, still do, can't find the "off" button for my brain...). When i got older i would read to myself but mum and/or dad would still stick their head in every night and kiss me goodnight. I was always allowed into my parents bed. I last co-slept with mum when i was 24, the year before she died, it was just a nap, and she was in bed a lot then due to her illness. Before that i was probably in my late teens. When i was a little kid i'd go in a lot. If i was scared i stayed all night, if i was just awake mum would let me stay a while and then take me back to my own bed and lay with me a while until i drifted off again or seemed ready to.

I would always go in if i had a nightmare, i would always get in Mum's side - i can remember doing that in Perth after a nightmare so i was at LEAST 10. Mum used to spoon me and i'd drift off wrapped up in her - i LOVE doing this to my DD now, so it's definitely a positive thing for both of us .

Mum and dad never had a co-sleeping "policy" - we all had our own beds and were encouraged to sleep in them, but equally we were never made unwelcome when we went in to them. I think, looking back, mum knew i was her last baby before i was even born and she was determined to hang all the "advice" and just enjoy me. Ironically i definitely had a better relationship with her than my older more formulaically-raised siblings.

Bx

[bjrose]

i would always get in Mum's side

My girls always come in on my side. DD1 started going down the bottom of the bed last year if DD2 was already in there & there was no room.
I don't even notice DD2 get in any more. Usually I just wake up & there she is.

If they are sick I will cuddle them, or stroke their hair, or just sit on the floor next to their beds & hold their hands if they need it.
They are always welcome in my bed. DH doesn't like it, but I don't care. If he's away working DS comes straight to bed with me. DD2 is often in there too.

[prama]

i dont remember much about how we used to fall asleep. my brother and me slept with my mum till we had our own rooms. mum and dad had a bad relationship, tho they are still together, i think they must have stopped sleeping in the same bed when we were born. i dunno, never asked. when my bro was a teen he got his own room and i still slept w mum till late teens i think. i cant remember. i think it when i was in high school and stayed up late studying. we had a small house and it made it hard. when we were young, i remember mum singing us lullabys and telling us stories and patting us and we'd fall asleep with her.
i remember waking up each morning and i'd refuse to get out of bed and call out when i woke up and she'd carry up out of bed. this was till i was 8 and got too heavy! i liked that.
last i slept w mum was june this year.. haha
i went back to visit mum and dad with ds. and mum, me and ds slept in the same bed.

lately ds has been waking up at nights and sometimes we are so tired we just put him between us, dh and i love having him with us tho we dotn want to make it a habit.

looking forward to the bath, story and cuddles before bed. i hope he will have sweet memories of falling asleep.

I remember being tucked in usually by mum with a kiss, a chat and sometimes a story book. She always left the light on just outside my room so I felt safe. I shared a room with my older sister so it was all good. Early every morning though I would find myself climbing into mum and dads bed and squash in between them in their little double bed. By morning there was always 5 in the bed! I remember when I was about 3 or 4 dad used to sing the song '5 in the bed and the little one said roll over' and me giggling as we rolled off one by one. Those are such happy memories, I want my own children to feel as safe and secure as I did.

[Liz]

hmmm.. what do I remember...

sleeping with 2 toys (a humpty toy and oscar the grouch LOL), dad coming in for tucking in and prayer (must've said goodnight to mum out in the lounge??) and he'd give me 'twenty'. This was twenty strokes down my face, whispering the counting, with the idea of me being asleep by the time he got to twenty, and I remember faking being asleep heheh. I now do 'twenty' with DS and he loves it, but he doesn't fall asleep or fake it yet!

I remember going in to mum & dad through the night, and mum said I used to just stand silently next to her waiting for her to wake up, and I'd always scare her just standing there LOL. I was usually led back to my room tho. Think we were only welcome at a more reasonable hour of the morning! LOL.

I remember when I went in to them in the morning, I'd sit on dad's tummy and ask him to tell me a story, and he'd always make up some cool story. My favourite was about "Circle" and I got to decide what he was going to be that day.. for eg he could be the sun, a wheel on my bike.. anything round, and dad could always make a story out of it

When we were older, we'd just gather in the loungeroom for a family prayer so dad could go to bed, coz we'd always stay up later than him, so no more individual nightly ritual hehe.

I remember trying to read under the covers with a torch, and I sooo couldn't juggle it all, and found it irritating trying to hold the blankets up off the book, so I just sat up and read like a normal person But I was the type, and still am, to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, so I don't really have memories of being put to bed as I got older, just must have climbed in to bed and blacked out LOL.

[Nadine216]

We are three sisters. I remember us taking a bath after dinner (all three together) and then it was dressing and my mum would comb our hair out. Then dad would come and together as a family we would sit on the bed (it was mostly a fight in winter on WHO's bed we would sit ) and my mom would read the biblestory, then we would each get a chance to say/sing a prayer ... THEN my dad would tell us stories (made up by him) about fairies and trolls and enchanted forests and princes on white horses Then we were tucked in and kissed goodnight.

We were allowed to go into their bed when we were scared, just never inbetween them. So you were either on mom's side, or on dad's side. I can't remember if they ever told us not to get into bed with them anymore. I know that they used to sit with my sisters alot, to get them to sleep. I was a good sleeper, they were not. So I used to fall asleep watching my mom/dad sitting on my sisters bed. It never made me jealous, it made me proud that I was such a good big-sister. Sunday's we would all hop into their bed together and have a lovely family chat. It got a bit crowded when we got to highschool but then the last one up would just have to be content with sitting at the foot-end of the bed.

I crawled into bed with my dad on the morning of my wedding, just laying in his arm and talking about how precious that day was and him telling me how proud he is to have me as his daughter.

I had a great childhood ... I hope my dd will feel the same about hers

[Haydies]

I have two memories. I spent a lot (like, a LOT) of time with my Grandmother, to who I felt was more a mother figure than my mum. So I have two memories.

I always started the night off in my own bed, but where I ended up depended on which house I was at.

Grandma: Tucked into bed with a kiss and cuddle, right up until as long as I can remember - probably early teens. No problems being able to come in if needed. And I vividely remember getting up in the mornings until Humphrey came on, which told me it was 9am, and going bolting down to grandma's room to crawl into bed for our morning cuddle.

Mum on the other hand, not so much. I usually said goodnight where ever she was, usually watching TV and took myself off to bed. I remember one night of a lightening/thunder storm when I was little where I was allowed to crawl into her bed (with a sigh mind you), but I wasn't allowed to touch or cuddle up to her as she needed her sleep.

Any nightmares/scary nights when I was with my mum would just leave me with my head under the doona and praying to go back to sleep. Or wishing I could go in there with her... or worse, I remember a few times wishing I had someone else as a mum that would make everything ok.

Originally Posted by ~Trish~

My mum was such a safe place for me, very important because I didn't have a dad to protect me.

That actually brought a bit of a tear to my eye - that's the perfect wording for how I hope all of my kids feel with me (and DH). My mum was single nearly my whole childhood, but I would never have described her as you have yours.

Originally Posted by Nadine216

I crawled into bed with my dad on the morning of my wedding, just laying in his arm and talking about how precious that day was and him telling me how proud he is to have me as his daughter.

Aaaaand there go the tears. That's such an awesome thing and I am very jealous.

[bjrose]

I just remembered that when my sister was having trouble sleeping mum would sit on her bed & my sister would pinch her arm. For some reason that relaxed & settled her.
I remember car trips where mum would spend half the trip with her arm between the seats so my sister could pinch her to sleep! She didn't hurt, just soft pinching over & over til she was settled or sleeping.

[paradise lost]

Bjrose you just described EXACTLY what DD does to the tail of her bedtimelamb toy! In fact he's getting so worn out i'm going to have to make him an all-in-one so he doesn't fall apart, but i'm gonna leave a hole for his tail so she can do it

Bx

[bjrose]

Its wierd the things some kids do.

[meow]

Wow- thanks for sharing. I love reading everyone's memories- it's helps me ponder my own parenting and the memories I want to create

I was just talking to my H on the weekend and I remembered something else. My parent's told me that you had to be in bed with your eyes closed when the sandman came by to put sleep in your eyes (similar to santa on christmas night). I was a very gullible child and I don't think they realised how much so. From this I believed that you couldn't sleep without sleep in your eyes so if I woke in the middle of the night with big bits of sleep sticking into my eyes and being uncomfortable I would be too worried to brush it out because the sandman had already been and I wouldn't get a second chance! But then the darn stuff would keep me awake

[smiles4u]

Like SKITTLEBUB (Sal) I too was scared of my parent ... my Mum (not my Dad) ... actually fearful of my Mum would be the right word for it ... so nope you never saw me try & co-sleep with my folks

Though I do remember my Mum being kind to me if I was sick in my childhood ... Sadly not a lot of good memories for me as a child BUT hopefully I will be able to make up for it by bringing THAT joy I longed for in my own 2 year old daughter's childhood

[emz]

The earliest i can remember is when about 2-3 years old- day time nap. Mum would want a nap too (don't blame her with 4 kids!) so i would get in with her and she would kinda rock me to sleep in there. Its hard to describe and you know what is really, really embarrassing....i still cant get to sleep without the rocking (its not full on, its just like you do when you have a little one in there that you are trying to get to sleep) im a freak yes. I have noticed at least one of my sisters does the same thing.

We were always able to get into their bed if we were scared or sick or anything and i remember sleeping on dads arm and how i didnt want to touch his hairy arm pit PMSL or getting in down the bottom if someone had got in before me.

When we were older, bed time was called out (after country practice- still cringe at the music at the end!), we would give mum and dad a good night kiss and then get into bed.

For DD, both of us do all the bath, teeth stuff and then she likes to play for a bit with one or both of us then DF picks her up, finds Blankie and brings her to me for a kisses while DF is holding her, I always say "ni ni darling, I'll see you soon" and i thank her for having a good day with me and tell her that i love her. DF then puts her into bed and if she asks for a story he gets to jump in with her and tell her one then she usually tells him to get out and go to bed. Shes not one for sleeping with us but i hope she will like to every now and then when she gets a bit older. She just wants her space in bed ATM.

[Nai]

I used to have a bath and get into my pyjamas and mum would tell me it was time for bed at 8.30pm. So I would run up the hallway and tell her she could come in when I had one leg in the bed. So I would call out and when she got there I would be completely in bed and she would laugh that I had tricked her (such a lame trick ).

I was a sound sleeper so rarely woke up (to the point that mum locked herself out one night doing the gardening in daylight savings and was banging on my bedroom window and I slept through it - she ended up climbing throughthe bathroom window). If I woke feeling sick I could virtually whisper "mum" and she would be up! She is still the same - if I do it now she still wakes up!