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Home > Parenting > Nighttime & Sleep

The Family Bed

• What is co-sleeping?
• Advantages of the family bed & co-sleeping
  
• Co-sleeping Safety
  
• Night nursing and ear infections?
• Can co-sleeping cause psychological problems in my child?
  
• Links to more information
  • Logistics: Making co-sleeping work for your family
  • Good collections of co-sleeping articles
  • Making & defending your decision to co-sleep
  • Co-sleeping safety
    

Co-sleeping essentially means sleeping in close proximity to your child. It may be in the same bed or just in the same room. Some ways of co-sleeping that different families use are:

• Family Bed:
  Parent(s) sleep in the same bed with the child.
• Sidecar arrangement:
  Securely attach a crib to one side of the parents' bed, next to the mother. Three sides of the baby's crib are left intact, but the side next to the parents' bed is lowered or removed so that mother and baby have easy access to one another.
• Different beds in the same room:
  This might include having baby's bassinet or crib within arm reach of the parents (easier at night) or just in the same room; or fixing a pallet or bed for an older child on the floor next to, or at the foot of, the parents' bed.
• Child welcomed into parents' bed as needed:
  The baby/child has her own bedroom, but is welcomed into the parents' bed at any time. In many families, children start their overnight hours in a separate bed or room, but are welcomed into the parents' bed after a night waking.

 

• We have very rarely lost sleep due to a fussing or crying baby (like everyone told us we would).
• Our babies don't lose sleep, either. Baby stirs and almost wakes up when she needs to nurse, but since she is right beside me I am able to nurse or soothe her back to sleep before she fully wakes up.
• No nighttime separation anxiety.
• No bedtime hassles.
• Ease of breastfeeding during the night.
• Nursing at night helps to maintain your milk supply.
• Night nursing also tends to prolong the child-spacing effects of breastfeeding.
• Some studies have suggested that co-sleeping helps to protect against SIDS.
• Waking up next to a smiling baby.

 

Excerpts from a LLLI press release from September 30, 1999:

Studies have shown that co-sleeping with a breastfeeding infant promotes bonding, regulates the mother and baby's sleep patterns, plays a role in helping the mother to become more responsive to her baby's cues, and gives both the mother and baby needed rest. The co-sleeping environment also assists mothers in the continuation of breastfeeding on demand, an important step in maintaining mom's milk supply.

Dr. James McKenna, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, a member of LLLI's Health Advisory Council, and an expert on the subject of co-sleeping, believes there to be more danger in leaving an infant alone in a crib than in arranging a safe co-sleeping environment. He states, "We agree... that special precautions need to be taken to minimize catastrophic accidents. However, the need for such precautions is no more an argument against all co-sleeping and, specifically bedsharing, than is the reality of infants accidentally strangling, suffocating, or dying from SIDS alone in cribs, a reason to recommend against all solitary, unsupervised infant sleep." He adds, "While specific structural hazards of an adult bed are important, the fact that they exist means neither that they cannot be eliminated nor that all bedsharing is unsafe."

General Safety Guidelines --

• Parents should not sleep with their babies if they are smokers or have ingested alcohol or drugs.
• Bedding should be tight fitting to the mattress.
• The mattress should be tight fitting to the headboard of the bed.
• There should not be any loose pillows or soft blankets near the baby's face.
• There should not be any space between the bed and adjoining wall where the baby could roll and become trapped.
• The baby should not be placed on his stomach.
• Some sources also say not to put a baby on a waterbed to sleep.

 

You might hear that breastfeeding your baby in a lying down position will cause ear infections. Research indicates that this is not true. Also, keep in mind that with most nursing positions, baby is lying down while nursing anyway - whether mom is or not!

 

People who are uncomfortable with the idea of co-sleeping often suggest that co-sleeping is "less healthy" than the child sleeping alone and will cause psychological damage to the child, cause baby to become too dependent on the parents, etc. Dr. James McKenna counters these suggestions:

In part, this view represents a personal and arbitrary judgment that anyone is entitled to make as long as it is not passed on as scientific fact. Such judgments are based on Western values favoring the perception of how individualism and infant autonomy are best promoted and obtained. No study has shown, however, that the goals for separateness and independence (or happiness, for that matter) are obtained in the individual by, among other things, separate sleeping arrangements for parents and children, nor do any studies demonstrate negative consequences for children or parents who choose to cosleep for ideological or emotional purposes, except when cosleeping is part of a larger psychologically disordered set of family relationships or when cosleeping occurs under dangerous social or physical circumstances. The only studies of the psychological or social effects of cosleeping reveal not negative but positive consequences. One study among military families revealed that cosleeping children receive higher evaluations of their comportment from their teachers than do solitary sleeping children and are under-represented among psychiatric populations, when compared with children who do not cosleep [Forbes JF, Weiss DS: The cosleeping habits of military children. Mil Med 1992; 157:196-200]. Lewis and Janda found that college-age students who coslept as children were better adjusted and more satisfied with their sexual identities and behavior than college-age students who did not cosleep [Lewis RJ, Janda H: The relationship between adult sexual adjustment and childhood experience regarding exposure to nudity, sleeping in the parental bed, and parental attitudes towards sexuality. Arch Sex Behav 1988; 17:349-363] . Clearly, we need to change our conceptualization concerning what constitutes a normal or healthy childhood sleep pattern!

-- From: Stein MT, et al. Cosleeping (Bedsharing) Among Infants and Toddlers. Pediatrics 2001 Apr; 107(4); 873-877

See also: What are the long term effects on my baby of sharing a bed? by Dr. James McKenna

 

FAQ about Co-sleeping by James J. McKenna, Ph.D.

Rooming-in at the Hospital: Assessing the Practical Considerations by Martin Ward-Platt and Helen L. Ball, from Mothering, Issue 114 September/October 2002.

Hospital bed co-sleeping setup in a Dutch hospital (see page 5) from the June 2004 quarterly of the Dutch BFHI foundation.

Excerpts from the book Good Nights - The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep!)

The Family Bed FAQ from the Home Sweet Homepage

How to make sleep sharing work from BabyCenter.com, with input from James McKenna, PhD

Co-sleeping: Yes, No, Sometimes? by William Sears, MD

To Sleep or Not to Sleep: That is the Question by Donna Sinnott

How to set up a side car crib by Lish

Sleep & Family Bed articles from Mothering.com

Sleep & Family Bed Articles at The Natural Child Project

James McKenna Library at The Natural Child Project

Tine Thevenin Library (author of "The Family Bed") at The Natural Child Project.

Co-sleeping articles from www.wearsthebaby.com

Responding to criticism @ is written about breastfeeding, but can be applied to any other parenting choice that draws criticism from others. Some of the links included are directly geared toward co-sleeping.

Somebody's been sleeping in my bed! by Amy Spangler, from Amy Spangler's Feeding Times, December 2004.

Ten Reasons to Sleep Next to Your Child at Night by Jan Hunt at The Natural Child Project

Co-sleeping: Can we ever put the issue to rest? by Jane E. Anderson, MD. Contemporary Pediatrics 2000 (June);6:98.

Sleep With Me: A Trans-Cultural Look at the Power – and Protection – of Sharing a Bed by Meredith F. Small, from Mothering magazine, Nov/Dec 1998

Understanding Co-sleeping by Mizin P. Kawasaki, MD "Co-sleeping is a very natural part of daily life for many families throughout the world. It is a cooperative effort that encourages family well-being. This article will attempt to dispel some myths about co-sleeping."

The Family Bed: An Expert's Opinion by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, Ph.D. See also The Family Bed Page with commentary by David Servan-Schreiber

The Family Bed: An Evolutionary Approach to Family Sleep by Katie Allison Granju

Sleeping Through the Night by Katherine Dettwyler, Ph.D.

Go Ahead -- Sleep With Your Kids by Robert Wright

Annals of Parenthood: Sleeping with the Baby - Which Side of the Bed Are You On? The Author and His Wife Defied the Experts by John Seabrook. This article is reprinted from an article first published in the Nov. 8, 1999 issue of the New Yorker Magazine, and includes the interview with Dr. Richard Ferber where he said

"...There's plenty of examples of co-sleeping where it works out just fine. My feeling now is that children can sleep with or without their parents. What's really important is that the parents work out what they want to do."

Research and discussion of research

Mother-and-Baby Behavioural Sleep Laboratory Professor James J. McKenna's area at the University of Notre Dame website. Dr. McKenna is best known for his pioneering studies of the differences between the physiology and behavior of solitary and co-sleeping mothers an infants-and the connection these data might have in addressing SIDS risks. He is a Professor at the University of Notre Dame and runs the University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory.

Parent-Infant Sleep Lab, Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK. The Parent-Infant Sleep Lab is the home for a team of researchers led by Dr Helen L. Ball
who are examining various aspects of infant sleep and night-time parenting. Their website includes research papers, project descriptions, presentations and other resources.

UNICEF statement on mother-infant bed sharing (16 February 2004) from the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative

McKenna JJ, McDade T. Why babies should never sleep alone: a review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding. Paediatr Respir Rev. 2005 Jun;6(2):134-52.

Okami P, Weisner T, Olmstead R. Outcome correlates of parent-child bedsharing: an eighteen-year longitudinal study. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2002 Aug;23(4):244-53.

Baby bedsharing fears dismissed. Discussion of the above Okami study from BBC News.

Co-Sleeping Information and Research from Attachment Parenting International

 

Sharing sleep safely: What you need to know by James McKenna, PhD (here's a similar article from Dr. McKenna's website: Guidelines to Sleeping Safe with Infants) This article talks about safe sleep sharing, advantages of sharing sleep, finding a good sleeping arrangement for your family, sleeping through the night and long-term effects of co-sleeping.

UNICEF statement on mother-infant bed sharing (16 February 2004)

Babies sharing their mothers' beds while in hospital: a sample policy [PDF] from the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative

Guideline on Co-Sleeping and Breastfeeding, Clinical Protocol Number 6 from the Academy for Breastfeeding Medicine

Good Night, Sleep Tight: Keeping Your Baby Safe While Sleeping from the University of Illinois Extension Service

Co-sleeping and Infant Safety: Review and recommendations for Family Life Professionals from the University of Illinois Extension Service

Comments on the CPSC Mother-Baby Sleeping Recommendations (slide show) by James McKenna, PhD

Attachment Parenting International's response to the CPSC

The Family Bed Page from littlekoala.com

The Family Bed: It's Safe and Here's Why from Mothering magazine

It's None of Their Business by Peggy O'Mara (an editorial in the CPSC report)

The New Zealand Experience: How Smoking Affects SIDS Rates by Barry Taylor, Sally Baddock, Rodney Ford, Ed Mitchell, David Tipene-Leach, and Barbara Galland, from Mothering magazine (Issue 114, September/October 2002)

Page last modified: 01/10/2006
Written: 05/27/1998

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