The Family Bed

At the time that you start a family you are faced with many decisions that you must make. There is no manual or magic genie to tell you how to raise your family. One of the decisions that you must make is sleeping habits for your family. While there are pros and cons to all decisions you have to make the one that best fits your family. For us we decided on the family bed. We have two boys who are 3 and 4 so you can imagine that the bed gets to be full having that many arms and legs going in every direction.

The children's bedtime is around 9pm which is usually when they go in the bedroom. My wife is a stay at home mom so she is usually ready for bed before they are. She lies with them and sings to them and tells them stories until they or she falls asleep. Being a night owl I usually go to bed when everyone is in a deep sleep already. I sleep in the middle of my two boys and there isn't any other place I would rather be. I tend to work long hours and don't see them much when they are awake so this is time for me to be close to them even though they are asleep. While they may not know when I get in bed I think they do know I'm there. When they wake up at night I am there to sooth them back to bed. They sometimes wake up with me in the morning when I am getting ready for work. We all sneak off downstairs to get ready for our day as mom gets the much needed extra few minutes.

While some people will say that you should do the cry it out method or some other method I don't see the reason. Your children one day will want their own privacy with you out of their room. So why not bond with them while you still can?

There are also a few other benefits to the family bed that all families should think about. The one that I liked best was if your wife is breastfeeding. Having to go to the other room when you are hailed by a wailing, tired, hungry child can put a dent in your sleeping habits. So if your wife is breast feeding and the child is in the bed she would just do it as soon as the baby makes a sound and she can almost go back to sleep while the baby is nursing. This doesn't get rid of the need to change a diaper in the middle of the night but it will save you the extra 30 minutes of feeding time.

Whichever you chose be sure and enjoy it while you still can. It doesn't last long even though sometimes it feels as if it does.