Bedtime can be a challenging part of the day for parents. There is pressure for kids to get in bed on time and pressure for parents to have adult time, but what if everyone could get what they wanted?

Having a relaxed bedtime can be beneficial for parents and adults.  With no struggle or negotiations, parents have  more time to spend with their children or with each other.  Many times at night I find my kids really get into their creative groove.  When I had an imposed bedtime I would feel bad about interrupting them.  Now that I don’t worry about exactly what time they are going to be asleep, when I notice their creative juices flowing at what used I be bedtime I pick up my crocheting, read a book or watch a movie with my husband. It’s become such a joyful time for us.

When I notice my kids shifting, it is then that I start our new “bedtime” rituals.  I dim the lights, maybe put on some soothing music or offer to read one of their favorite books.  I ask if they want to snuggle in bed and they usually say yes.  Those moments of being with them are some of the best we’ve had.  It feels so nice to be relaxing with them as they are wanting sleep instead of pushing and pulling to “get them to bed”.

Tips for Transitioning to a Relaxed Bedtime

• Start slowly. It may seem hard at first or you may be reluctant to let go of bedtime, so maybe start with one night a week.
• Complete the cycle. Make sure to be a part of your kids’ new awake time.
• Take a responsive approach. Notice and respond to your children’s patterns, when they seem tired or when they might need just a few more minutes doing whatever they are doing.

With the recent end to daylight savings I notice how much I enjoy staying up a little later.  Winter makes me want to hunker down at night and snuggle in bed early, but summer time makes me want to enjoy dinner on the patio at 8:00.  Kids feel this too and a relaxed bedtime is a great way to let them explore this.

As my partner and I prepare for the arrival of our first child (due in July), it’s becoming more and more apparent that our preparation requires a little preparation of others, namely my partner’s Chilean family. While there are a few very small pockets of families who practice a natural parenting style (i.e. attachment parenting (AP), gentle parenting, etc.) where we live in Santiago, Chile, like much of North America, AP and related practices are far from the status quo.

Currently, in light of the crib and bassinet offers being rained upon us, we’re putting together a game plan for talking about our co-sleeping (sometimes referred to as bed-sharing) plans. We’ve asked ourselves whether we should simply and graciously decline offers for nursery furniture saying we’re all set, or take the opportunity to share our beliefs and intentions to the fullest – extolling the values of co-sleeping. Probably, we’ll fall somewhere in the middle.

Here is the game plan. Have some of these approaches worked for you? Did any bomb? Others you’ve tried with success? Please share your advice and insights below, thank you!

Five Principles For Talking About Co-Sleeping/Bedsharing with Others

1. Keep it short and simple.
Have you ever noticed how the more you try to explain something that is important to you to someone doubting you even slightly, the more difficult it seems to become to make your point and to “get” them to understand? Well, I think it can be doubly applicable in the co-sleeping topic department and judging by the mommy wars I’ve seen online over bed-sharing, treading lightly in the detail department seems like sound advice. Of course, if my sister-in-law on the other line is genuinely interested and engaged in the topic, I’ll share away. But in most cases I’ll be applying the K.I.S.S. method. Also, I think my job as a parent is to love and support my child and family the best way I know how, not to “get” others to understand.

2. Reflect their best interests at heart.
No one arguing against your parenting ideas or choices is ever doing it specifically to hurt you or your child, but rather the opposite, I think. Everyone wants to know and understand what’s best, get a tight little grip on it and share it with the world, especially with a family member that may be making a big mistake in their eyes (admittedly, I fall into this boat often enough, to). And what is first and foremost on people’s minds when you are discussing co-sleeping? Safety. Second to that seems to be quality of sleep. I plan to address these two concerns with the K.I.S.S. method (examples below).

3. Offer personal and professional examples.
Since this will be our first child, I can’t share directly from my own co-sleeping experience, but a can point to other families I know for whom co-sleeping has worked very well and the children of which I’ve had great personal experience with. Noting that plenty of doctors recommend co-sleeping is on my list, too. Of course, sharing online resources, like some of the benefits of co-sleeping articles here on Boba is certainly an ace up my sleeve, too!

4. Appreciate and include.
As per no. 2 above, I know our family wants the best for us. In fact, I think people have good hearts and even the most seemingly horrid unsolicited advice is well-intentioned. So, I appreciate as best I can and say so in lots of situations, even when I disagree. I think (dear heaven, let me not be too naive about this) that discussing co-sleeping with my in-laws and our friends can be an opportunity for me to express appreciation by at the very least just thanking them for caring so much.

5. Express flexibility.
No matter how many thousands of examples of our preferred life/parenting/working methods exist out there, we never know how things will work until we try. Never. Ever. I also plan on extended breastfeeding. But who knows? I don’t expect it and will do everything I can, but sometimes, on very rare occasions, breastfeeding is truly physically impossible. What then? Though I’m a little hard-pressed to think of reasons why co-sleeping might become an unavailable choice for my family (perhaps I’ll be suddenly required to take tranquilizers?), anything is possible. So, if our family by chance persists in challenging the idea, I’ll remember that it’s a goal and we’re going to see how it works for us, and just say that openly. It is after all about what works for our family, not about applying rigid ideas and expectations in a vacuum. And no need to make a big fight out of it with people we love.

A few simple, direct phrases I’m suggesting to myself and my partner (with links to helpful articles that I realize may also come in handing with the fam if K.I.S.S is not foolproof)…

“Co-sleeping is known to reduce SIDS.” (Safety concern, check.)

“We’re following medical advice on bed-sharing/sleeping together safely.” (Doctor example, check.)

“I won’t have to get out of bed to nurse at night, so we’ll all sleep better.” (Sleep concern, check.)

“Co-sleeping works for a lot of my close friends and they have awesome kids, and are happy parents.” (Personal example, check.)

“Thank you. I really love that our family is so important to you.” (Appreciation, check.)

“You know, this is something we want to try and if it works for our family, great! If it doesn’t, your advice will really come in handy!” (Flexibility, check.)

In a perfect world, this simplicity will keep things clean, “easy” and peaceful. But who knows until you try, right? I’m in the process of memorizing no. 5 above in regards to this strategy itself and just practicing learning as I go (the parenting training has begun).

Your advice is welcome – consider it solicited!

In October, one of our Boba writers and committed co-sleeping parent, Jill, described her experience of sleeping with her children and pointed out some very important benefits of co-sleeping in her post Co-sleeping: Sleeping Like a Baby With Your Baby. In the post, she notes increased health and well-being for the child, documented lower rates of SIDS, and easier nighttime nursing, among other things.

Shortly after that post was published, I began seeing startling reports of anti- co-sleeping campaigns in Milwaukee which led me to write this post in response.

Sadly, there have been a high number of preventable infant deaths attributed to poor co-sleeping practices that sparked what I feel is a mis-informed and badly designed ad campaign, to say the least. The City of Milwaukee anti- bed-sharing campaign features babies asleep in an awkward position in an adult bed next to a butcher knife. The point, both inferred and directly stated by Milwaukee representatives, is that all bed-sharing (aka sleep-sharing, aka co-sleeping) is bad. In fact, the ad campaign is accompanied by an offer from an anti- co-sleeping organization for a free crib.

This same crib-giving organization launched its own controversial ad campaign in low-income areas of Pittsburgh earlier in 2011 featuring tiny coffins and the slogan “Your baby belongs in a crib, not a casket.” Late last year, Milwaukee launched an ad campaign featuring an adult bed with a tombstone as a headboard with a similar anti-bed-sharing message while also placing mattresses throughout the inner city with infant death images and slogans on them (Milwaukee has identified lower-income and Black American families as being at higher risk for infant fatalities attributed to co-sleeping in general).

This sort of shock-doctrine does not educate parents, nor does it inspire the kind of attentive, healthy connection that many parents who co-sleep safely create with their children – a connection that helps decrease infant death rates.

Dr. James McKenna, anthropologist and pediatric co-sleeping expert of the University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab (featured in the video above) was quoted by Time in response to the ad campaign as saying, ”Safe co-sleeping with breastfeeding is… humankind’s oldest and most successful feeding and sleeping arrangement… If mothers’ bodies were even remotely as dangerous as these city officials ignorantly and offensively suggest when comparing mothers to inert, unresponsive metal axe cleavers, none of us humans would be here today to object.”

Instead, Milwaukee (and other communities wishing to reduce their infant death rates) should focus on the do’s and don’t of co-sleeping, serving to educate those who wish to continue the practice safely.

Safe Co-Sleeping/Bed-Sharing

Dr. Sears, known attachment parenting expert and co-sleeping advocate (he prefers the term sleep-sharing), offers a valuable list of Do’s and Don’t for Safe Co-Sleeping Habits on his website including some of the following:

• Take precautions to make sure baby cannot roll out of bed
• Do not place the baby between mother and father, or other siblings as it is the mother that is most connected and responsive to the child at night, as sensitivity that prevents rolling over on the child
• Place the baby on his or her back
• When preferred, use a “side car” style co-sleeping bed so that the baby is in sensory reach, but on a different surface