He wants to snuggle in our bed at night, again

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It started during X-mas break, and we can't figure out why our son has wanted to sleep in our bed, again. He is 8 and we have not had to deal with this for 5 years. He got brave enough to traipse through the house at night in the dark, whereas before he used to call us if he had to urinate in the middle of the night, to escort him to the bathroom. So, I know this new bravery is involved.

He has not had any new stressors (He is homeschooled, and I see him all the time.) When he was not so brave, he didn't beg me to stay there all night like he was afraid or anything, but he has tried to talk my ear off with special interest stuff.

I do not know if he is doing it b/c he has trouble sleeping (He does and always has), if he needs the tactile stimulation of being next to us, or he wants to talk to us. (He talks to himself at night, every night to self-soothe.) He usually has a "reason" like "My toe itches and I did not want to scream across the house." (During the day I have been trying to get him to come to us, and say things instead of yelling across the house) He is not acting afraid or anything like that.

We don't really have enough room for us all to sleep comfortably even if this was something we wanted to do (We don't) He eventually gets giggly and talky (Despite promising to be quiet) and eventually my husband is the "bad guy" and escorts him back. Sometimes my son realizes this will happen (My husband talks about doing that) and he will leave of his own reluctant volition.

Any thoughts?

My son did the same thing at his age. We found that it was hormonal. We had the same problems with bed crowding. So we made a deal. He would either bring his sleeping mat and lay on the floor next to my bed, or he would go get the cot and set it up at the foot of our bed. When his mat was next to me on the floor, I would droop one arm over the bed and put my hand on him. In minutes he was sound asleep. After a while on the cot, he got tired of lugging it around and found ways to get through his process in his own bed. Recently, he started college and I noticed he's been sleeping with the door open to feel closer to us. It DOES get better.

My 8yo sleeps in our bed and has for about 4 years now. it is a HUGE issue cause he CANNOT sleep alone.

We don't really want him on the floor, b/c my husband and I need our personal space/time. We don't get any, otherwise as we do not have a babysittable kid and he is homeschooled on top of it.

MMJMOM,: We thought we were done with this. Hubris, I suppose, on our part. He was so proud to have his very own room, and it worked for 5 years.

I just graduated my son from 16 1/2 years of homeschooling. We also have a traveling family business. I had no sitter until he turned 16 when he stayed home by himself. We have no family support. He was with me 24/7. He is an only child. We are all 3 on the spectrum. We had no date nights for 13 years. You have to cope the best you can with the circumstsnces you're presented with. So he had to sleep on the floor or the cot till he could make it on his oen in his own room.

First of all I want to mention that we have not had this issue so I don't know if my advice is worth much but I thought I would offer it - I did have friends who had children who slept in their bed and I never wanted to deal with that so....

When both of my girls were young they didn't like to fall asleep alone so I would lay in the bed with them until they fell asleep - then go to my own bed. Sometimes I would have to get up several times a night to lay in bed with them, but eventually they outgrew it. My oldest (who is an aspie) does sleep better when she can put her back against a wall so we moved her bed to accommodate this. I will occasionally still sleep with her if she has a nightmare or a lot of anxiety about something.

Would he fall asleep if you were sitting in the room with him until he goes to sleep - or laid in his bed with him? You might want to ask him or give it a try,

Good Luck

My wife spends an hour each evening with each child individually. This can involve reading, playing a game, looking at family pictures, or whatever. When the kids were younger it would also involve some snuggling time. If you are able to establish something like this, it might help him to express this need at a more appropriate time.

My husband does the wind-down with my son with his relaxation book and he also gets goodnight snuggles from both of us. I am with him 24-7 everyday and he is a very snuggly little guy and, believe me, he gets snuggles all day long. He seems to really need that, which is why I suspect a sensory issue.

I think he just has an insatiable need for snuggles. I don't think it is bonding so much as the need for pressure or tactile stimulation. He has always had difficulty sleeping and so I think the need is exacerbated by that. He has a very active mind in a hybrid aspie-adhd kind of way, I think, and at night I think it increases. I don't know if maybe a heavier blanket would be helpful. He has a stuffed video game character to snuggle with also.

When we got him to sleep on his own 5 years ago, I slept on the floor in his room while he went to sleep. I, eventually, gradually was able to ween him off that. I am afraid if I backslide to that, again, it will get him into that habit again, and (I think) that is worse than him coming into our room especially since he will eventually go back to his room when prompted/escorted.

I currently allow him to talk himself to sleep, but if I stay in his room with him, I am afraid the conversation will keep him up, more so than his current soliloquies. I don't want it to be a slumber party. But if he needs the self-talk to sleep, I don't want to take it away. He also has an endless need to converse and/or hear himself talk all day.

I am probably not making any sense, but I think I know what I mean. LOL

We have similar issue except that DS has never slept all night in his own bed with the exception of a few nights, like when he is sick and is just too exhausted to get out of his bed and into ours in the middle of the night.
I was going to suggest a weighted blanket for your son. Hasn't been a magic bullet for us but I think it keeps in him his bed longer.

I have come to the realization that the only way to do it is to escort him back to bed every night. I am working up my courage to broach this with DH and make a plan of attack so it isn't just me getting up every night. I am hoping after a couple weeks it will stick. I am just not looking forward to those few weeks of sleep deprivation. I am thinking that a new plushie or something else REALLY desirable for his bed will promote him staying there. If we make any progress, I'll let you know!

Pondering out loud:

When my son was little and in the family bed, he still had trouble falling asleep, and I ended up experimenting with different types of music. Believe it or not, I found after much trial and error, that power metal helped him fall asleep, (I know that sounds crazy) and classical music helped him stay asleep longer even though he would still awaken in the night. Looking back on it, maybe he needed (and still needs) audio stimuli to fall asleep.

I wonder if I tried using a heavier blanket and experimenting with music, again to see if that works. He could self-talk as an audio stim as well as a verbal one and maybe it just is not enough?

Oh my sympathies are with you as we have the self-same issue with our AS son who will be 5 later this month. He slept soundly and happily in his own room from about 4 months old - 18 months old. Even if we were out he would fall asleep by 7pm and if at home we could put him in his cot awake and he would settle himself. Then at around 18 months he fell ill and came into our bed. Whereas before he went back to his cot quite happily this time he didn't and subsequently stayed in our bed for the next year. At around 2.5 we managed to get him back in his room again but he was back in our bed 7 months later and has been there ever since. We are getting to the point where we need to get him out as space is rather cramped with 3 in a bed. We're redecorating his room and talking to him about him going back but I am don't think its gonna be easy. He loves the physical comfort of having someone to sleep next to and one of his self-soothing habits is to rub mine and his dad's nose as he falls asleep.

Would it work to make a deal with him that he can have a 5 minute snuggle (only once per night) and then he has to take himself back to his own bed?

A heavier blanket tucked in tightly like he's swaddled might help. Also, I find as mine get older I have to allow them to complain and disagree more, and push what will happen even if they don't like it. I'd rather we all be in agreement, but if he has been able to do this in the past, is it possible he can and does not want to, in which case you have to decide if you want him in his own bed enough to say no even though this isn't what he wants.

If he can't do it, of course, you'll want to let him be with you as much as he needs. I think you just have to try what seems right and judge whether it is working. But it does seem to me that it's important to figure out whether this is something he wants and can handle not having, or something where he is really going to struggle without it. If the former, he'll be stronger if you stay firm with what you want, kids do need to be cared for, but learning to care for others is ok, too.

What about a sleeping bag? If he sleeps in a bag that is tight (similar to swaddling) and is heavy that might also help?

my son loves his weighted blanket...but he loves a warm body better. It is MAJOR anxiety issue at night with him. Even in our bed he cries when I have to get him to bed in my room and no one can lay with him. it is very hard...

I think may be on the right track... We put a CD player in his room, and he stayed in bed until the CDs stopped playing, and then he came into our room to tell us they stopped.

We need to tweek this, and maybe find something more soothing (to him) to play and see if there is a setting for restarting the CDs when done. He was up way too late, so obviously I don't want him staying up all night, but this way if he wakes up, it is still playing. He chose foreign language CDs instead of music, although the second CD was foreign language music. We may try starting with the second CD this time.

Thank you for all the advice. I have not eliminated tactile/pressure issues as a contributing factor. So I may be revisiting all that great advice you all gave on that. I won't really know until I can tell if he can get to sleep this way, without changing tactile/pressure things. He did stay in his room until the CDs stopped so I do think an audio stim is involved for sure. The times he left our room of his own volition was when he figured out we were not going to talk to him. I think his mind is too active and it gets bored when it is too quiet. We may experiment with white noise, too.