Owen and I napping together

My parents separated when I was five years old. For several years after that, I remember coming into my mom’s room late at night, after lying in bed sleepless as long as I could stand it. “Can I sleep with you?” I’d whisper hopefully.

And yes, sometimes she did bring me back to my own bed, with a tuck-in and a kiss. But just as often, she’d let me crawl into the warm bed beside her and fall asleep there. And what a good, happy, safe feeling that was.

Later, Mom told me what a horrible co-sleeper I was as a little girl. I kicked and punched, rolled and sometimes wound up lying diagonally or stretched horizontal across the bed. Not only was sleeping next to me, uh, not so restful, but she worried about whether letting me in her bed was the right thing to do. Co-sleeping wasn’t a thing people admitted to in those days, even if they did practice it.

So I appreciate that, more often than not, my mom took my need to not be alone at night seriously even if she wasn’t 100% sure she was doing the right thing and wound up with a few bruises in the meanwhile. Because wanting to sleep next to my mom wasn’t weird. Continue reading »

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Bed-sharing causes no psychological effects, study says.

Bed-sharing with children is one of those topics that gets a lot of lip service.  You’re messing your kid up, it’s good family time, it’s creepy…  I’ve heard arguments from all sides.

Now, a new study brings good news to those sporting a Family Bed in the master bedroom.

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Is hands-on parenting leading to a drought in the bedroom?

Just last fall, Erica Jong irritated attachment parents everywhere with her assertion that investing a lot of energy in child-rearing equals imprisonment for mothers. Now she’s at it again, only this time she blames breastfeeding and co-sleeping for putting “sexual passion on life support.”

I no longer embrace the “attachment parent” label, but I fit the profile: my five children have been breastfed, sling-ed, and slept next to me until we gave them each the boot to their own beds around the age of two. Yet you will notice I have five children, so obviously there was time, space, and interest enough in there for nookie, too.

I can’t really get too hot under the collar about what Erica Jong thinks about modern motherhood. I just think she’s wrong. Sure, having a new baby in the house equals less sex all around. Is that really anything new? And if it is, maybe it’s a big plus that women no longer feel pressured to “perform” during a time when hormones and fatigue make the whole experience less pleasurable for them. I’d say it’s pretty normal – even biologically designed – for a new mom to feel less-than-crazy about sex. It doesn’t mean that women are using breastfeeding and babywearing as some sort of penis-deflector. Continue reading »

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Who's sleeping with you, kid?

Kourtney Kardashian sleeps with her 11-month-old son, Mason.  According to The Stir, she was forced to defend the practice while making a guest appearance on The View.

Of course, Kardashian isn’t the only one sleeping with her baby.  When my kids were little, 18, 19 months, we had a sitter who knew my kids often ended up in our bed, and she didn’t like it.  She’d try not to say anything, but she’d purse her lips, sigh and tsk, tsk whenever the subject of sleep came up.  She was 23 and carefree and I’d look at her going all “Oh no you don’t” on me and giggle.  Two years later she was a single mom and guess where the baby slept?  “I just can’t help it!”  She told me.  I heard her.

Now my kids are no longer toddlers, but they still sometimes sleep in my bed. And I know I’m not the only one.

My colleague Danielle recently wrote about the practice of co-sleeping with babies.  She gives sound advice on how to do it safely.  With older kids, the practice of sharing a bed is more widespread than most parents like to admit.  Tara Parker Pope wrote about this in The New York Times a few years back. In the article she explains three types of co-sleeping outlined by Kathleen Dyer in an article in Infant and Child Development. They are as follows: (1) Intentional co-sleepers. These are people who plan on breastfeeding for a long period of time and think that co-sleeping will make it easier.  (2) Reactive co-sleepers, or people who share a bed because their kids won’t go to sleep any other way or, because of space and money issues, they don’t have a choice. (3) Circumstantial co-sleepers, or “parents who sleep with their children occasionally because of circumstances like sharing a bed on a family vacation, during a thunderstorm or because the child is sick.”

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Do you share your bed?

Contrary to popular belief, the term co-sleeping actually describes something most parents do for the first year of life — share their bedroom with their little one before moving him or her into a nursery or separate bedroom.

Co-sleeping does not necessarily mean sharing your bed with your child, although that is how it is often understood, and how Jezebel described it earlier in a post on the “explosive” issue.  As evidence of how divisive an issue bed sharing— and/or co-sleeping — is among moms, Jezebel’s Sadie quoted a statement blogger Kirby Desmarais made to the New York Post‘s article on the subject:

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Co-sleeping in the U.S. more dangerous?

Co-sleeping with an older child is one thing. But sharing a bed with an infant who can’t wiggle out from under dad’s arm or pull herself free of bedsheets and pillows is quite another.  And according to South Australian coroner Mark Johns, parents who do it are risking their children’s lives.

After investigating the deaths of five babies who died while sleeping alongside and adult, Johns says the practice of co-sleeping with infants needs to stop. Continue reading »

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Actor, memoirist and frequent Salon contributor Peter Birkenhead recently reported on his experience as a soldier embedded in LA’s notorious gang wars.  His essay, Cribs vs. Beds: Parenthood’s all-out war, chronicles the many bullets he and his wife have dodged from attachment parents, lactivists and the cry-it-out crew (who are also well known breakdancers and taggers).  

Birkenhead starts by critiquing the polarized attitudes of parents that are staunchly for or against co-sleeping.  He says, “Family Bed parents feel that co-sleeping will engender a sense for the child, later in life, that she can face anything, as long as a much older man with gray back hair and bad breath holds her tight while she does.”  Makes me wonder if my ex’s much younger new girlfriend slept with Mom and Dad as a tot. 

Birkenhead and his wife, Jenny, take a more relaxed approach to sleeping (Imagine?  Being relaxed at bedtime?  Who knew that was an option?!), and have gotten flack from friends as a result.  Birkenhead says a family friend asked if their 8-month-old daughter was yet sleeping through the night, insinuating that if she wasn’t, not only was it their fault, but that she’d wind up in juvie as a troubled teen.  If that’s the case, my daughter will probably face a life sentence, because she didn’t sleep through an entire night til 6 months ago.  She’s 4 1/2. Continue reading »

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