Family Bed

The FamilyBed is an approach to childhood sleep that is growing in popularity. It consists of letting the child sleep in bed with the parents pretty much until the child decides to leave on his/her own.

The advantages of this are:

infants are easily nursed without parent or child needing to fully wake
the child can cuddle to return to sleep if awakened during the night
the child is less likely to die from SIDS
the child is not forced into sleeping away from others.
the parents are discouraged from further reproductive activity. why is this an advantage You won't need a bigger bed...
- It is not a factor. Witness that we used the family bed with my firstborn, and we have 2 kids now -- PeteHardie
  - Besides, there are plenty more places to procreate besides the parents' bed

Considering that most non-industrial societies have sleeping arrangements like this, and those children seem to suffer no ill-effects from that, it seems plausible that it is a GoodThing. -- PeteHardie

Lack of negative effects is not evidence for the plausibility of positive effects. Additionally, socialization data of children within the context of a non-industrialized society is likely not relevant to a discussion of socialization in an industrialized society. -- AndyPierce

What problems do you see with the family bed? -- PeteHardie

Lest this turn into a pseudo-engineering discussion, let's remember this is about how we choose to live, or choose not to live. I can't leave an infant crying alone. Maybe it's me that's defective, but at least I know that I do what I do because I feel. Sometimes you need more than your cranium to make a good decision. -- Walden

Well said. We found that we gravitated to the FamilyBed naturally, since my son caught a respiratory infection at one month, so we kept him in bed with us to make sure he stayed warm, and to reassure ourselves that he was not having trouble breathing. -- PeteHardie

My family uses a modified FamilyBed, in which the older two sleep with dad (that's me) in one room, and the baby is with mom in their own room. Their sleep schedule is different from ours, so that way the patterns conflict the least with each other. This allows breast feeding on the baby's schedule. Way back in the early days, we tried establishing the baby's schedule, just in case it was moldable: it wasn't. Well, that's us, and we're happy.

A lot of people are afraid of FamilyBed on the fear that "you'll never get them out". I recognize that as a species of impatience born of too little experience. I'm inflicted with that kind of impatience, too. But I'm doing a bearable job of managing it. Life is short, except when you're a kid. There's plenty, plenty, plenty of time for everything.

My 6-year-old decided he wanted his own bed when he was about 4. He starts the nights there, and usually joins us during the night. My 4-year-old also got her own bed last year, and also starts there now. -- PeteHardie

We like accommodating our youngest, but I don't think this style is for everyone. The main thing is: don't do anything just because it's in a book. Always try instinct first.

-- WaldenMathews

I can see this working while nursing, but a little while ago we shared a hotel bed with our 18-month-old. Once we actually managed to get him asleep, he rotated, farted, grumbled, etc. He had a good night, but neither of us did. -- SteveFreeman

At the beginning it took me some nights to become accustomed to my wife sleeping in the same bed as me, so I can imagine that it also takes time to get used to a child even though I don't have experience on that. -- MarkoSchulz

I suspect that families of children who grow up sharing the FamilyBed adapt and sleep soundly.

We adapted. In fact, until moving to our new house (where we have only the king-sized bed in the room), the kids were even able to sleep sideways with everyone comfortable (my daughter has this habit of rotating in her sleep - we call her helicopter girl). -- PeteHardie

I'm not sure if the adaptation mentioned above refers to the other members of the family (besides the kids), or the kids themselves. Adaptation is definitely the name of the game, and it's surprising how things can fall into place. As far as sleeping soundly, I know that deep sleep is necessary for good health; I'm not sure this "sleeping through the night" is synonymous with deep sleep, although it's certainly more convenient for parents. I don't sleep through the night myself, but I sleep soundly enough to be healthy. Maybe I should be left in a room to cry alone until I can sleep through the night. ;-> -- WaldenMathews

''Well, since the kids never slept any other way, it was the parents who did the most adapting :->. I do know that I do not sleep any better on the nights that the kids sleep over at the grandparents, so I suspect that I've adapted well, and can sleep with or without a kid beside me.'' -- PeteHardie

Nobody mentioned the problem of different bed-times. This automatically caused this routine for us:

At first we had our son always with us even if he was sleeping (carrying him or moving his cradle around). And went to bed with him.
With about 6 month we would let him sleep in his own bed sometimes; especially in the evening when we were still busy. We went to bed without him and when he awakened later we got him to us.
When he started crawling, we often found him crying, but halfway to our bed (we lowered the bed and removed the bars very early; the floor is covered with pillows).
Now he is 15 month and we often do not notice, when he climbs into our bed during the night.

We had at times some problems getting him to sleep. But I doubt, that the FamilyBed would have helped, because we go to bed much later, than he does! And he could go to sleep in the living-room if he wanted to sleep where we are. But then he got more and more tired and just wanted to cling to one of us and be carried around, which was often simply not possible. So we established a strict bed-time routine (it varied with his age): He is put to bed (story and all). He may play, but has to stay in his room (door open). He cried the first times, but it worked well, possibly because he could come to us later.

Update. Our first son is now 3 1/2 and still does so often. But his brother (just 1 year) is completely different, never crawled to us and is happy in his own bed. Even if we have our family evening (simple games, sitting and playing together) when we go to bed together he is fidgety and cannot find sleep in our large bed ... until we carry him to his own bed where he promptly sleeps.

-- GunnarZarncke

My family is used to a FamilyBed, but my son is 6 and it's getting crowded. We've tried various parallel sleeping configurations but they always result in someone losing out in terms of blankets, space, air, etc. Last week we got creative: Mom sleeps vertically, Dad sleeps diagonally, and Boy sleeps horizontally at the foot of the bed. All the feet are together in one corner heavily weighted down by two large cats. This seems to work reasonably well - at least we're all well rested in the a.m.

We did try to get Boy to sleep on his own, but right now we're in the process of setting up for a move - LimpinwoodTeahouse is for sale - so beds are distributed around for the benefit of the buyers, not the sleepers ... maybe try again soon ... -- PeterMerel