Sharing the bed with the kids

Came up on a good article the other day about a new study concerning the family bed, or co-sleeping or sleep sharing or whatever you’d like to call it. Here’s the link if you want to check it out:

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011/07/Study-Sharing-bed-with-toddler-wont-harm-development/49511408/1

I remember this being one of those issues like religion or politics. You just don’t talk about it because someone might get offended. People on either side are pretty strong in what they believe. And if you tell them you disagree and why, it’s likely to be received about as well as a kick in the nuts. Even those without nuts will understand this I’m sure.

On the one side of the issue are the parents that believe in letting a child cry it out (CIO) when you put them down to sleep. It’s called Ferberizing. It’s meant to teach the child to self sooth, learn to get to sleep on their own. Its an actual technique that involves a parent leaving the child in the room alone and coming in to comfort them in lengthening intervals, briefly, but essentially letting the child cry until they fall asleep or just stop crying. Most parents that I’ve seen though, ten to skip the intervals and just let them cry themselves to sleep. Ferber-lite.

On the other side are the parents that let the children sleep with them. There’s no technique to this one. It’s just, go to sleep and don’t accidentally smother the child.

The shared bed, while still vastly in the minority, has been growing in practice over the last decade or so. Some think that it’s because families (mostly moms but dads too) are so much busier these days, sleeping side by side with their children fills that need to bond or connect after being apart all day.

More traditional thinkers, Ferberizers, and my mom, think that sleeping in the same bed with your child is harmful to their development. They’ll become too dependent, never be able to do anything on their own, they’ll always be afraid to be alone, maybe they’ll give in to the powers of the dark side.

I love science, I love studies, and the article above refers to the results of the latest study that supports neither side. It doesn’t say one is better than the other. In fact it shows no harm either way.

Studies like this have been done before and even this Ferber guy revised one of his books in 2006 to make it clear that sharing a bed with their parents doesn’t make a child insecure, has no harmful effects on learning development, or individuality or learning to separate from their parents.

So no one wins. Whatever works works.