Co-Sleeping Will Not Destroy Your Toddler For Life
LatestCo-sleeping has long been maligned for turning children into codependent little monsters who will never be able to sleep alone. But a new study of almost 1000 families finds that sleeping next to your kid won’t hurt them. Which makes sense, because humans and a lot of other animals have been doing it for thousands of years. I mean, does your cat make her kittens sleep in the other room under a Babar mobile? Didn’t think so.
For three years, researchers recorded the sleeping arrangements of 944 low-income parent-toddler pairs. When the children turned five, they were evaluated for behavioral, social, and cognitive outcomes. Lo and behold, there were “no behavioral or cognitive differences between children who bed-shared and those who did not.” Although other factors, such as socioeconomic status, maternal education, parenting style, and ethnicity were shown to affect social skills and cognitive development.