The Family Bed

 

By Veronika Sophia Robinson

 

As a child, my parents’ bedroom was taboo. It didn’t have ‘no entry’ written on the door, but we KNEW that we were not allowed to enter. My dad worked overseas for about two months at a time, so I was able to get the occasional night in my mum’s bed while he was away. I loved it. There’s something so ‘right’ about sharing sleep with your mum.

 

Contrast this to the way our daughters have been raised. They shared our bed from infancy, and stayed there for several years.

When our second daughter was born, we placed two double mattresses on the floor. This allowed plenty of room for everyone. Sure, it didn’t look like something from Homes and Garden magazine, but who cares?

It doesn’t matter what other people think our bedroom looks like. When we’re raising our little chicks, comfort and pleasure is the priority.

What we created was a family nest: A safe place. A nurturing place.

 

Many attachment parents don’t allow for adequate sleeping space, and inevitably dad ends up sleeping on the sofa or in the spare room. It may be that this suits him quite well, as he’ll ‘need’ sleep for work the next day.

 

Mothers, of course, don’t 'work', so they don’t need as much sleep, right? WRONG. Mothering is THE most important job in the world, and it is the one which most definitely requires sleep in order to function well.

Ask any mum who hasn’t slept well how she responds to her children, and you’ll soon realise she suffers just as much, if not more.

 

I would argue that the father (partner/spouse) should stay in the family bed, and that night-time parenting be shared. It means he becomes fully aware of both his partner’s night-time needs, and his child’s. It also means that the appropriate bonding hormone (vasopressin) is activated because he’s in their presence (touching/smelling her skin), and he becomes a BETTER father and husband. He might argue for ‘better sleep’ in another room, but he loses far more than he gains by doing so.

 

As a family, creating healthy rituals around bed time benefits everyone.

 

[] don’t go to bed late

[] sleep with fresh air coming into the room (even in Winter)

[] don’t watch TV or the computer last thing at night

[] avoid stimulants, such as tea (herbal or fruit ok), coffee and chocolate

[] drink chamomile or valerian tea

[] keep EMRs away from the bed (e.g. mobile phone, Kindle, lamps etc)

[] use natural lighting in the last half our before bed (e.g. beeswax candles)

[] sprinkle essential lavender oil (make sure it’s 100% pure, and not synthetic) over your pillows

[] read something peaceful, or sing a gentle song

 

The effects of the secure family bed last way beyond the early years. My teenage daughters still come to my bed, not to sleep, but to chat and have intimate conversations. Attachment parenting doesn’t stop when your child is out of arms or stops breastfeeding or sleeping in the family bed. The bonds of trust, care and compassion are something which continue for a very long time.

 

There’s a lot of rubbish in the media right now about letting babies cry it out, and learning to self soothe. And that, wait for it, crying it out is harmless. Wow. Do people REALLY believe this rot?

 

The baby/child who cries alone becomes the teenager who cries alone. And we have enough evidence around us to show what happens when teenagers feel unloved, isolated and misunderstood.

 

On your attachment parenting journey, there will always be people who think they know your children better than you…and that you’re creating children who’ll always be dependent. Our culture is intimacy-phobic, and the price for that way of being is monumental.

 

Trust is the most important aspect of parenting, for without it bonds can not grow and develop. Without bonding, we feel unsafe, worthless and rejected. These feelings don’t go away just because we grow older. In fact, quite the opposite happens. We take those feelings into EVERY relationship we have, and over and over again there will be people who betray our trust because that is the pattern that we grew up learning. It is what we expect.

 

As attachment parents, we can choose something different from the cultural messages around us. We can be there for our children, day and night.