Combat zone family bed
Who hasn't read the book «Every child can learn to sleep» by psychologist Annette Kast-Zahn? Published in 2006, it is the best-selling German parenting guide of all time - and probably the most controversial. In the Amazon reviews, for example, a group of readers thank the author from the bottom of their hearts. For others, on the other hand, the book is the enemy par excellence. There is little in between.
While babies still enjoy a certain level of tolerance in their parents' bed, many parents (and those around them) react critically to older children who - suddenly or repeatedly - do not want to spend the night alone. Accordingly, caravanserais after midnight are rarely discussed openly.
It is completely normal that many children suddenly no longer want to sleep alone.
The number of mothers and fathers who repeatedly put their children to bed because they don't have the energy to lie in the darkened nursery for minutes on end, holding their sweaty little hands or hoping for the Sandman is correspondingly high.
Experts on children's sleep are now giving the all-clear. It is a completely natural condition that children from the age of two suddenly no longer want to sleep alone, according to the Zurich Children's Hospital. This is the age at which they slowly detach themselves from their parents, develop their autonomy and realise that they are their own person. This sometimes leads to feelings of abandonment at night. «Between the ages of two and four, magical thinking sets in, among other things,» says Dr Peter Hunkeler, Senior Consultant in Developmental Paediatrics at Zurich Children's Hospital. «A very vivid, real-life fantasy can make a child feel lonely.»
Sleep is a cultural matter
Supporters of the family bed like to base their arguments on the cultural history of sleep. It is by no means a coincidence how we sleep, with whom we sleep and where we sleep. «For most of human history, babies and children slept with their mothers or with both parents,» says US anthropologist Meredith F. Small, a famous advocate of the family bed.
In African and Latin American countries, it is still common practice for children to sleep together. But even in Asian countries such as Japan, it is taken for granted that young children do not sleep alone. In fact, 60 per cent of children there sleep with their parents. According to the philosophy, children learn to fit into a community in the family bed. In Indonesia, on the other hand, the practice of letting a child sleep alone in its own room in its own bed is considered a form of child neglect.
In western industrialised nations, a different concept of sleep dominates. In countries such as Switzerland, Germany and France, early independence and self-reliance, including at night, was seen as a virtue. A look at the figures illustrates this. In the USA, 66 per cent of younger children do not sleep in their parents' bed, in the UK the figure is 46 per cent. The older the child gets, the higher this proportion becomes.
Family bed as a developmental advantage?
The picture is similar in Switzerland. Only around 5 per cent of one-year-olds spend the night with their parents, compared to 13 per cent of four-year-olds. After that, the family bed flattens out again somewhat. According to official statistics, only 2 per cent of all ten-year-olds regularly go to bed with mum and dad at night. However, the number of children who seek closeness to their parents at irregular intervals is much higher, as a long-term study by Zurich Children's Hospital shows.
Children who sleep together with their parents are happier, more balanced and less anxious.
Another argument often put forward in favour of the family bed is child development. Numerous advocates of co-sleeping point out how positively co-sleeping affects the child's emotional and psychological development.
The well-known US paediatrician James McKenna is one of them. His conclusion from various studies is that children who sleep together with their parents are happier, more balanced and less anxious and as adults had a higher level of self-confidence and were more capable of forming relationships than people who consistently slept alone as children.
Dead trousers in the family bed?
Arguments that make it difficult for many parents to fundamentally question the parental fate of fragmented nights in bed together. However, the question of where family begins and where it ends sooner or later concerns all mothers and fathers. The focus is often on sexuality. Quite a few are of the opinion that family sleep has an even greater impact on parents' sexuality, which is already strained by children. According to the motto: the child in the visitor's crack makes eroticism impossible. Parents are therefore well advised to talk openly and honestly about whether a family bed could be acceptable for both of them - even after a few weeks of practice.
«Parents need to be clear about how and where they want to maintain their intimate space, where there is room for personal relaxation and sexuality,» explains Catherine Bernhart, FSP psychologist specialising in child and adolescent psychology and psychotherapy.
