The Family Bed
I think I always knew I would co-sleep with my children when I had them. I referred to being very inspired by my Aunt as she parented her second child in a previous blog post, and co-sleeping was part of how she parented my cousin. As well as this influence, long before I was even thinking of having children, I was really into reading ‘The Green Parent’ magazine. At the time it was the only natural magazines around, so I enjoyed it for its ‘outside of parenting’ content, but ultimately would glance over the parenting content too from time to time. I always felt very connected to what I now know as ‘Attachment Parenting’ - I will go on to talk about this more later.
I am going to start this blog by talking about co-sleeping with a baby, because I think it is important to cover this information, but I will go on to explain how this has evolved to now co-sleeping, in what we call The Family Bed, with an 11 and 7 year old - it is, in short though, the best!
When I was pregnant with Caleb I didn’t do the normal thing of creating a baby room for him. I knew he would be in with us. My mom had kept a beautiful moses basket from when I was a baby, and she lovingly and beautifully restored it (all lace - so pretty!) for Caleb’s arrival. I was glad to have that as I suspected I may lay him in it during the day, and a changing mat that I could put on the bed when I changed him, as well as some muslins and washable nappies and baby clothes. That was about as much as I prepared. Oh I also got a pram, but I also got 3 slings (!), and guess what!? - I never used that pram!).
My labour with Caleb was not as planned (I will share this another day) and so I spent 2 days in hospital with him. I remember being in that brightly lit room in hospital, within my ‘station’ (bed, side table, curtains and plastic baby crib), and feeling so, so weird to have Caleb being placed by the nurses into that plastic box next to me. Once I was strong enough I had him with me in the bed. I knew it was so important to have him with me, skin to skin when possible, in order to establish healthy breastfeeding. I couldn’t fathom either how my tiny baby that had just left the safety of my womb, could be considered ‘fine’ to be so far away from me in a plastic box! He needed to feel me, to hear my heart beating, to know he was safe. I got told off (nothing new there!) but I didn’t back down, and so our co-sleeping journey began!
Was I nervous? Yes! Did I know what I was doing? No! Did I lie awake all night for about a week worrying if Caleb was still breathing or not!? Yes! But did I ultimately trust my instincts!? Yes! To start with I sat upright in bed every time I fed him and forced myself to stay awake and then carefully lay him down next to me. I observed (as I would say everyone should - see more information in links below), the safety guidelines of no pillow near the baby (I slept without a pillow myself for a long time to be sure of this), no blanket or duvet near the baby, and I didn’t have him in the middle, but rather created a very safe guard at the side of the bed, with no gaps for him to fall down. I didn’t have him in the middle because I knew that my instinct to wake at his every sound was strong and Josh’s, as a father, wasn’t. Especially as a breastfeeding mother, our bodies are primed to react at the tiniest movement or sound. We do not go into deep sleep, by nature’s design.
However, as time went on, as Caleb grew bigger, and I trusted my instincts more, I began to allow myself to feed Caleb lying down and I let myself fall asleep as I did so. Mothers often find it difficult to stop themselves falling asleep while breastfeeding. The hormonal effects of the baby feeding can cause a mother to doze off even if she isn't lying down in bed, and in fact I used to find myself dozing off whenever I was sitting up in bed feeding him before, and the fight to stay awake was torture; also falling asleep sitting whilst holding a baby is not the safest! This is why it is actually safer to know how to feed safely lying down on a bed free of any gaps and covers/pillows, especially compared to say sitting on a sofa feeding or lying down on a sofa.
Back in the early 1990s, an anthropologist, from Notre Dame College in the US, James J. McKenna, decided to do some research to figure out just what happens at night when a mom sleeps with a baby.
McKenna and his colleagues transformed his laboratory into an apartment, recruited dozens of moms and babies, and analyzed their bodies while they slept. "We measured heart rate, breathing patterns, chest movement, body temperatures, brain waves — even the carbon dioxide levels between the moms' and babies' faces." They even had infrared cameras to watch how the babies moved around at night.
What McKenna found was remarkable. When the mom is breastfeeding, she essentially creates a little shell around the baby. "The mother naturally arches her body around her baby," McKenna says. "She pulls up her knees just enough to touch the baby's feet." Inside this shell, the baby hears the mom's heartbeat and, in turn, changes her own heart rate. "It usually slows down," McKenna says. The baby also hears the mom's breathing, which has a rhythm similar to the sounds the baby heard in the womb. "It contains that 'swoosh, swoosh' sound," McKenna says, "which in turns sounds like, 'hush, hush little baby.' ... It's no wonder nearly every culture uses a swooshing sound to soothe a crying baby." The baby also feels the mom's warm breath, which creates little clouds of carbon dioxide around the baby's face. That may sound scary, but the gas stimulates the baby's breathing, according to McKenna. It pokes the baby and says, "Hey, take a deep breath."
And then there is the baby's and mom's movement. McKenna found that throughout the night, breastfed babies in the study don't move all over the bed, willy-nilly. Instead newborns stay laser-focused on one location: "The babies are basically staring at their mother's breast almost all night," he says. Even babies in cribs, when they're placed close to their moms, have a similar attraction to their mother: They turn their faces to their mom for the majority of the night. This tells him, McKenna says, that "babies have evolved to experience this closeness, night after night after night."
Interestingly, also, did you know the mother’s body changes temperature in order to regulate the baby’s temperature - of course only if they are near! On top of this the position of the mother, cradled around the baby, knees up, one arm over the top of the babies head, actually makes it very difficult for the mother to roll onto the baby, and indeed the C shape her body makes, means it is difficult for the baby to slide down the bed. It is almost like it is by design - oh wait!
For the overwhelming majority of mothers and babies around the globe today, co-sleeping is an unquestioned practice. In much of southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America, mothers and babies routinely share sleep. In many cultures, co-sleeping is the norm until children are weaned, and some continue long after weaning. Japanese parents (or grandparents) often sleep in proximity with their children until they are teenagers, referring to this arrangement as kawa no ji or the character for river: 川. The shorter line represents the child, sleeping between the mother and father, represented by the longer lines. The mother is one bank, the father another, and the child sleeping between them is the water. Most of the present world cultures practice forms of co-sleeping and there are very few cultures in the world for which it would ever even be thought acceptable or desirable to have babies sleeping alone.
“We...challenge on several grounds the assumption that solitary infant sleeping is somehow optimal, when in worldwide and evolutionary terms it has not been the norm.”
Modern hunter-gatherer cultures provide our best insight into the behaviors of our early ancestors, and bed-sharing is universal across these groups.
The practice continues to be widespread around the world. Bed-sharing is a tradition in at least 40 percent of all documented cultures, according to anthropologist Mel Konner at Emory University, citing evidence from Yale University's Human Relations Area Files. Some cultures even think it's cruel to separate a mom and baby at night. In one study, Mayan moms in Guatemala responded with shock, and pity, when they heard that some western babies sleep away from their mother.
Interestingly studies show that co-sleeping is actually more common in the west than most people believe. The typical western home has a room that contains a crib for the baby, and parents report that the baby sleeps in the crib. Yet when researchers ask specific questions about who sleeps where, it turns out that the majority of mothers sleep with their young children at least some of most nights. Parents present themselves as having babies who sleep alone, following the societal norm of the baby in the baby's room and the couple in the master bedroom, but that is not an accurate representation of what is really happening.
Why is there so much shame to say we sleep with our children? What has this world come to? In modern parenting we seem to be doing everything we can to push away our child, forcing them into independence as early as possible! In a pram, we physically push them away from our bodies, often with the baby facing out into the world, instead of even looking at us. Surely it feels more natural, if we tune in, to use a sling, and keep the baby tucked in close to our bodies? We immediately expect the baby to sleep in a crib, away from our warmth and the sound of our heartbeat, and then when they are 6 months old we put them into their own rooms. Why does it not feel right to keep them close to us? We spend our whole young adult lives finding someone to share a bed with every night for the rest of our lives, and yet we expect a tiny baby to want to sleep alone, whilst we snuggle up with our loved one!? Why does it feel right to bottle feed, when our bodies make the most perfect sustenance for our babies, specifically designed for them, to receive all tucked in cosy and warm on their mother’s body? Why do we feel rushed to wean a baby onto ‘adult food’ as soon as they are 6 months (or sometimes sooner, which is really not good by the way, and a topic for another day!)? Why can we not trust that milk is enough and that solids are for fun and exploration for at least a year if not more? Why are we pushing for our children to socially interact in nurseries at tiny ages, when they are still so much in need of being with their parents and loved ones? (Again the emotional development that comes with being with their parents until they are at least 3 is a topic for another day!).
I want to say here that I know everyone’s circumstances are different, but I also know that societal pressure plays a huge part in parents making decisions that I truly believe, if they allowed themselves to tune into their instincts, they would find a way to decide otherwise. This is why I am passionate about writing this (and more to come) because I want to help people give themselves permission to listen to their instincts - for themselves but also for their babies, and the adults they will become.
Many ‘experts’ (interestingly some of whom have never had children!) warn parents of unhealthy attachments being fostered from the practice of co-sleeping, and much of what I share above. After I had been a mother for about a year, and had at this point not read a single parenting book, but instead followed my instincts, I read a book by Dr Sears called ‘Attachment Parenting’. The name sounds as if it is going to create just what the ‘experts’ warn of - a clingy child that will have no confidence to go out in the world. However, as you will read if you learn more about this parenting ‘style’ (although it is in fact not a style but rather human nature when all other influences are removed) is that what you foster in your child is security, trust and therefore a strong emotional state to go out into the world with confidence. I used to observe it with my 2 when they were little at playgroups. They were so confident. They knew I was there for them, without question, if they needed me, so they had a solid foundation to go out and explore, knowing they always had something safe to come back to. Children learn trust in other humans, they learn they are valued and worthy, through their parents. If we teach them early on that their needs won’t be responded to with love and touch when they cry, then their basis for trust, their security, their confidence to explore and know they are safe, is immediately destroyed. This has an emotional impact on them for the rest of their lives.
Needless to say when Savannah came along we had to get a bigger bed! Caleb was 4 and a half when she was born and we had tried him in his own room for a couple of nights leading up to her birth, but it just felt wrong. He used to get up in the night and climb in with us, and it always felt better when he did. We invested in the biggest bed we could buy. Savannah came. Caleb wasn’t shoved aside, he was part of the process of welcoming her and caring for her. Josh slept on the edge, then Caleb, then me, and then Savannah, again with the very safe bed guard set up, with no cracks, and no blanket or pillows near her. I didn’t bother trying to feed her sitting up because I was more confident this time, and I honestly don’t know how mothers manage without feeding lying down with their babies - I need my sleep and thankfully this allowed me to have it!
On a side note, it can be difficult to continue breastfeeding when you are sleep deprived from having to get in and out of bed to feed all night. Co-sleeping, when done safely (which, to be sure this is clear, means no-one in the bed who has taken drugs, drunk alcohol, or is a smoker, as well as no swaddling, no cracks, no soft mattresses, no pillows, no duvets), means you can happily feed during the night, the time actually when milk supply is highest (again I feel another blog post coming about the importance of regular breastfeeding every 3 hours to ensure milk supply stays high), therefore making it more likely that your breastfeeding journey will be successful.
I don’t feel I can post this blog without addressing SIDS, as I know it is a concern. I have attached an article addressing this at the bottom of this blog, but Dr McKenna’s review of research states babies who sleep close to a ‘committed adult caregiver’ have half the chance of SIDS, compared to those infants who sleep in a room alone. This closeness may include a cot near the bed. It is also interesting to note that babies who are not breastfed are at increased chance of SIDS. Along with the closeness to the mother, and the exchange of breath between mother and child, as spoken about above, another reason for this may well be that fast acting bacteria, and viruses, can increase a baby’s chance of SIDS, and breastfeeding helps protect a baby through the immune cells a mother produces and passes to her child.
A word on sex!
Does this impact on your sex life? Yes and no! Initially actually no. Josh and I had a healthy sex life when our babies were little. I was less tired than I otherwise would have been, the happy hormones from continued breastfeeding kept me in a good mental state, and there was a special intimacy in coming together and raising our babies this way. Everything felt natural and right. There are other areas of the house where you can have sex, plus most homes have spare beds! Now they are older, and more aware, and stay awake later, so I actually end up going to bed with them most nights, we try and make sure we have a few days alone once a month. The fact that we homeschool, co-sleep, and do everything else with our children, kind of forces this perhaps a bit more, but it means we do regularly get an intimate few days together when they go off to their Grandma’s (where incidentally, they also sleep in a bed with her, as encouraged by us and very much loved by all!). The only problem we have in these moments is Cardie our dog - ha ha - does anyone else have this inconvenience!?
When it comes to sex, I think it is relevant to note we have a very open dialogue with our children about sex, in a way that is age appropriate for them. They know what it is and that there is no shame around it. We are also very much a ‘naked family’. I used to go out with a boy who had a ‘naked family’. I once accidentally saw his mom walking around naked and I was shocked. He told me it was normal in their house. We are now that house! Nakedness is normal to us. Bodies aren’t anything to be ashamed of. Neither is sex. I see how the openness with how we started parenting is naturally evolving into a relationship with both of our children where they will be able to talk to us about everything. They trust us. They are confident. They know we will always be there for them, no matter what.
The time will come soon with Caleb, I am sure, where he will want to go into his own bed at night. He is going to be a teenager before we know it, and naturally he will want his own space. He has started to question if he should be in his own room. I have told him there is no ‘should’ and he will know when it is right, and even then there will always be a place for him in The Family Bed.
Speaking of which, you will see from the photo, there isn’t often space for Josh in The Family Bed anymore, because the children spread out. Josh is welcome in but prefers to sleep starfished in Savannah’s double bed, in her very pink room. Savannah made us all these bed place names the other day, that you can see in the photo. I loved them, and it felt so timely when I was thinking to write this blog. Cardie of course has his place too at the bottom, which he often claims, as he chose to when I was taking this photos, as you can see above.
I am so grateful I have had this experience with my children. So grateful! I will miss it when it is over, but I know it will feel right when it happens. Our relationship without doubt would not be what it is today without co-sleeping. The closeness and trust it has fostered is beyond measure. Those cuddles, the giggles and quiet conversations as we go to sleep together in the darkness, and seeing them as the first thing I see, and them me, when we wake up in the morning. I feel blessed to have had, and to continue to have those moments.
How do your sleeping arrangements look? What has this blog bought up for you? I would love to hear. Comment below.
For more information, including information on safe co-sleeping, see the links below:
https://www.laleche.org.uk/bedsharing-breastfeeding-risk-sids/
https://neuroanthropology.net/2008/12/21/cosleeping-and-biological-imperatives-why-human-babies-do-not-and-should-not-sleep-alone/