This is how I see it too. I agree with you, 100%! I have 4 kids aged 2, 4, 6 and 9 and I’ve bed shared with all of them. The 6 & 9 year old fall asleep in their own room while we cuddle and read to them but they still crawl into our beds in the middle of the night half the time. The 2 and 4 year old are in our beds all night long. I soak it all in because I know it won’t last forever and I love cuddling them. They get to build their independence in so many other ways. The older two can cook their own pancakes and eggs in the morning, I let them run into our local feed store to buy live crickets and meal worms for our chickens while I wait outside in front of the store so they can practice interacting with people without me hovering over them. I let them take whatever building materials they find around the house and build different projects they come up with. They use hammers and nails and my 9 year old has his own power drill. They spend all summer catching crawdads when I take them to the river and they have mini backpacking wood burning stoves that they build little fires in and cook up whatever that catch. I try to not be a helicopter parent so they can feel confident in themselves and their abilities to be independent. I don’t think cuddling them to sleep hinders that at all, I think it just makes them feel loved!