Why Co-sleeping Can Do More Harm Than Good (2024)

FAQs

Why Co-sleeping Can Do More Harm Than Good? ›

It increases the risk of SIDS and suffocation

The AAP cautions that co-sleeping “should be avoided at all times” with infants younger than four months. The organization's reasoning is that co-sleeping increases the chance of sleep-related fatalities such as sudden infant death syndrome, accidental suffocation, and strangulation.

Co-sleeping with a child over 1 year old has a little less risk than with one under 12 months. At a toddler's age of 1 to 2 years old, they can roll over and free themselves in case they are trapped in the bed. As a child gets older, it becomes less risky to co-sleep, but it's still best for them to sleep on their own.

And then there was the terrifyingly titled 2021 study published in the journal Behavioral Sleep Medicine: “Early Childhood Co-Sleeping Predicts Behavior Problems in Pre-Adolescence.” Researchers followed 1,565 Chinese children between the ages of 3 to 5 from early childhood into pre-adolescence.

When the baby is breastfed and under 3 months, there is a fivefold increase in the risk of SIDS when bed sharing with non-smoking parents and the mother has not taken alcohol or drugs. Smoking, alcohol and drugs greatly increase the risk associated with bed sharing.

Health benefits

While sharing a bed can be intimate and romantic, there are some major health benefits to sleeping together, too. Sleeping together can lower your blood pressure (because of oxytocin, which we'll talk about a little later). Sleeping together can reduce inflammation.

People who sleep separately report better sleep.

Sleeping separately seems to allow for better sleep than sleeping together: 60% of people who don't share a bed rate their sleep quality at a 4 or 5 compared to 51% of those who share one. Generational differences arise here as well.

Co-sleeping promotes a close bond between parent and baby, and helps release the love hormone oxytocin, which plays a vital role in bonding and attachment. As you spend the night within sensory range of each other, you can quickly respond to your baby, helping them to learn that you will always meet their needs.

In Japan — a large, rich, modern country — parents universally sleep with their infants, yet their infant mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world — 2.8 deaths per 1,000 live births versus 6.2 in the United States — and their rate of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, is roughly half the U.S. rate.

Co-sleeping is a species-typical and experience-expectant environment directing infants' neurodevelopment. Complexity science is used to show how the mother-infant dyad is a complex adaptive system (CAS). Co-sleeping is related to attachment, parental sensitivity, responsiveness, and mother-infant synchrony.

Is it biologically normal to co-sleep? ›

Looking at the facts. Breastfeeding mothers and babies sharing sleep is a biologically normal behaviour, while formula feeding and separate sleep are departures from the norm.

The majority of deaths occurred in babies less than 3 months old. The statistics revealed that 59.5 percent of the infants who died suddenly were sharing a sleep surface at the time of death, and 75.9 percent were in an adult bed when they died.

Co-sleeping is a common practice globally. Considered to be a form of affection, co-sleeping, also known as bed-sharing, is common in many cultures worldwide, with one Canadian study reporting 57% of mothers born in Asia practicing this tradition [1].

There is nothing wrong with having multiple sexual partners, as long as everyone involved consents and is free from harm. There can be benefits and risks to having more than one partner. To practice safe sex, make sure to use barrier methods and have regular STI testing.

There are mixed views on whether segmented sleeping is safe. Since there hasn't been much research on the effect sleeping in shifts can have on your health, it's best to avoid it unless there's a reason you need to sleep that way, says Clete Kushida, MD, PhD, the medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center.

Co-sleeping with older children can be especially detrimental as it can create stress for the entire family, lead to poor sleep patterns for both parents and children, and inhibit the ability of children to develop independence.

While segmented sleep may have worked for our ancestors, breaking slumber down into two or more chunks isn't healthy, practical or sustainable, in today's society, says Colleen Carney, PhD, an associate professor and director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at Toronto Metropolitan University.