This is simply an outdated model of children’s sleep habits, as research is now coming to light that there is an incredible amount of value that is added to the health of the child and the family by co-sleeping.
Putting a baby into a separate bedroom at night causes parents to wake for much greater periods of time and creates added exhaustion in early parenthood. It is much easier to have the baby or toddler right beside the bed with you, or depending on your level of safety comfort, sharing the bed with you. This makes it much easier to be able to comfort and nurse or feed your baby when he/she is unsettled in the night.
Babies are born very immature neurologically, and require close connection to their parents – not just during the daylight hours, but also at night! Being separated for too long elicits a stress response in the young child (ie. abandonment, fear, separation anxiety) and can cause issues with healthy development.
Additionally, when each child has her/her own separate room, it forces the size of the home to grow significantly, as the family is spread out across much more space (which requires more resources to build the home, energy to heat it, light it and maintain it). Sleep has become a detriment to our environmental that adds a huge carbon footprint.
Why did we stop co-sleeping?
Our ancestors used to co-sleep for much of their growing-up years, as well as many families across poorer nations where they simply do not have the real estate to have separate sleeping rooms.
In the 20th century, there were several prominent physicians, such as Dr. William Whitty Hall, who insisted that it was uncivilized to sleep as a family, and that it was associated with poverty and social ills. In 1928, behavioural psychologist John Watson argued that children should occupy their own rooms or risk stunting the child’s development. And in 1985, Dr. Richard Ferber wrote that solitary sleep was meant allowing the child to become independent and reminded readers that co-sleeping was a primitive practice.
What are the risks of co-sleeping?