Cosleeping and Dating

[a24]

Cosleeping and Dating

I have a son who is nearly 7. He exclusively coslept with me starting at about a year old to 2 years old due to me getting only about 2 hours of broken sleep a night and my husband at the time refused to help with overnights. After about age 2, I started transitioning my son to his own room and he's done well with that since about age 2.5. He still ends up in my bed early in the morning but otherwise he sleeps in his own room. He just needs me with him to fall asleep so we lay down and read books and I stay until he's asleep. He still ends up in my room a few hours before it's time to get up which is fine. There are occasional nights where I let my son fall asleep and stay in my bed the whole night but I try not to make a habit of it. It usually happens once a week.

I have divorced and moved on and I've been with my current partner for about a year and a half. We are extremely long distance so sometimes him staying the night while I have my son is unavoidable (I have a 2-2-3, 50% custody schedule). I still do the same bedtime routine. Nothing has changed in terms of attention towards my son. If anything, I make it a point to make sure I give him extra attention when my partner is over so that my son doesn't feel like he's losing my focus and my partner does stuff with us and also gives space for me to have alone time with my son. And I thought I was doing well but apparently I'm not. I don't let my son have that night falling asleep in my bed when my partner is here so we just do the regular bedtime routine where he falls asleep in his own room. I have also discussed with my partner that once we eventually move in together, I'd like to spend one night a week staying the night in my son's room which he is fine with. My son still usually ends up in my bed in the early morning and he sleeps on the end and I sleep in the middle for a couple of hours. A couple of nights ago my son was in tears telling me he felt left out and wants to sleep in the middle of the bed. My partner doesn't want that and that's fair. But my son isn't happy with being on my side at the end for that couple of hours. And this morning he woke up and was upset again that he didn't have as much room when he came in early this morning and he was angry with me. I don't know what to do or if I'm screwing him up. I think his biggest worry is that things will change with us. And I've tried to reassure him that he's always going to be the most important person in my life and nothing will change that and he's safe and he's loved and we still have our special time together but I don't know if it's registering and I just feel like I'm failing him. I've tried to very slowly integrate my partner into my son's life and not pressurize the whole thing but I feel like even easing into it is not enough. My son likes my partner and over the past year since I've introduced them, my partner is only around him maybe 2-7 days a month, but it's clear that he has some anxiety about things changing.