Pros and cons of the family bed: cosleeping with multiple kids

Cosleeping refers to sleeping in the same room as your child. Bed-sharing refers to sleeping next to your child in the same bed. Is cosleeping with multiple kids a good idea?

We have been cosleeping and bed-sharing as a family since my first was born 4 years ago. We are a family of four now, expecting our third baby very soon, and we plan to cosleep with three kids when the baby arrives.

We know the good and the bad of sharing a bed and a room as a family. Here is a list of the pros and cons of cosleeping with multiple children.

Pros of cosleeping with multiple kids

Cosleeping in a family room prevents jealousy towards the new baby

Most families share a room with their infants during the first months of life. This is recommended to reduce the risk of SIDS and is also very convenient to make caring for the baby at night easier.

Bed-sharing, which is slightly different, promotes skin-to-skin contact, which reduces stress in babies.

The thing is, in most families those babies eventually go to sleep in their own room. And then a younger sibling comes to the family, and the new baby gets to sleep with the parents while the older child is alone in their room.

I can imagine how that would make me feel and I don’t like it. Even though bed-sharing in a family bed has its inconveniences, I wouldn’t want my older ones to feel replaced by the baby and end up resenting them and us.

When a new baby comes to the family, we can help our older children love the new sibling in many ways. One of them is making sure they don’t lose any of our care and attention.

For us, cosleeping in a family bed has made my oldest feel safe, loved, and not replaced by his baby sibling. And now that I am expecting my third, the new baby is not going to get anything that they don’t have themselves.

They will still get time and love from their parents, responsiveness to their needs day and night. So they really don’t have many reasons to feel jealous. Sure, we will have to split our attention. But with some extra effort from us at the beginning, this won’t mean any loss for them.

Cosleeping in a family bed saves money

For most families, mortgage or rent is the biggest monthly expense. If you all sleep in the same room as a family, you could live in a spacious two-room apartment for a long time, allowing you to save a lot of money while having an extra room for a home office, playroom, or whatever your family needs most at the moment.

Extra rooms normally add a lot of value to houses, but you don’t need a lot of rooms for a bed-sharing family. You could live in a spacious apartment with only two rooms and your space wouldn’t feel crowded at all.

At some point, children will want to have some privacy and probably a room for themselves. But in the meantime, you can save a lot of money for a future house or for building some fantastic memories of vacationing together.

Reducing the money you spend in housing could even give you the flexibility to stay at home with the kids, or work part-time.

Cosleeping in a family bed gives you extra spaces in the house

If you only need one room to sleep in, the other spaces can become whatever you like.

You can have guests more comfortably, have a bigger playroom, an office, a gaming room, a studio. Whatever you like. You can keep changing the extra rooms to the need that you have at the moment and no one will have to go through a huge adjustment.

Sleeping together as a family gives extra opportunity for connection

We have so many beautiful memories of going to bed all together and waking up all together. Many of them involve hearing our kids talking about their dreams. It is amazing to be able to see their subconscious feelings, worries, and hopes.

Some people have a lot going on during the day and can not afford to connect much with their children during the day. But most people have the nights with their children. Sleeping together as a family will make them feel secure and loved if they miss you during the day.

Also, sleeping with their siblings in the same room will help avoid sibling rivalry and foster a good sibling relationship. Since you will be there for a big part of the time they spend together, you can guide their interactions so that they are mostly positive, and they learn to treat each other kindly.

Eventually, the kids will want to have their own space and privacy. Maybe by themselves, maybe sharing a room or a mix of both. And when they do, they will be used to sharing a room and being respectful to what each other needs and wants.

There is no hierarchy in a family that share a bed

Well, there is. But it is not as obvious.

The way I see it, the world already separates adults’ world and children’s world more than necessary.

Why is it that we treat children so differently? Why is it that they need to stay out of adults’ places?

I see my family as a team where some are more capable than others. I’m the one in charge but I’m an equal. Our home is everyone’s home. We share every space. We share responsibilities according to our capabilities. We all take care of each other.

Physically separating parents and children’s spaces would feel contradictory.

Sleeping together as a family reduces bedtime struggles

I hear of lots of families that struggle to put the kids to bed. Their kids argue, cry, and tantrum because they don’t want to go to bed. There is a power struggle every day between parents and children because they just need to go to bed at a sensible hour.

But how can you have a peaceful life if there is at least one time every day where you have to make your child do something they really don’t want to do?

We have our struggles as well, but they are of a different kind. Our children are always happy to go to bed. Sometimes they say they don’t want to sleep, but they are still happy to be quiet and spend some time as a family in our bed. Eventually, they do want to sleep and they always go to bed accompanied and peacefully. And in the morning, they are always happy to wake up. There is no crying at all.

Bedtime as a bed-sharing family takes patience and time, but it doesn’t involve power struggles or strict rules.

If you cosleep with multiple kids and your little ones nurse at night, here is how to tandem breastfeed at night in a family bed.

Cons of cosleeping with multiple kids

Sometimes the noise can wake the kids up

Some children need silence to fall asleep and stay asleep. The parents of those children will have to make an effort if they want to bed-share as a family.

With only one kid and parents that don’t snore, it is going to work out fine.

In any other circumstances, there will be some frustrating times when some of you will wake up because of some noise and you will either go back to sleep peacefully or wake up and make an extra effort to put your kid back to sleep.

How can you avoid children waking each other up when cosleeping with multiple children?

Something to help with the noise in the sleeping room is the use of background noise. We have a portable speaker that we use to play white noise during the night. All our babies have slept with this background noise since they were babies. They are not dependent on it, but it is a good tool. Sometimes we also use it to play music.

Sometimes, it is useful if the baby needs to sleep in the stroller while you eat in a noisy restaurant, or you have people over after the kids are in bed.

When we prepare to go to bed at night, we always ask the kids if they are hungry or thirsty, if they need to go to the bathroom, if they want to bring some toy to bed, and if they are comfortable in what they are wearing.

If all is good, then we can all go to the sleeping room and we all talk in a quiet voice. And they know that they have to stay mostly quiet in the room, even if they don’t want to sleep.

We have these night lights that we use to read, and they can stay as long as they want quietly looking at books.

They are used to being quiet in the sleeping room, so when they wake up in the middle of the night they don’t cry for us, they just come closer and fall asleep or ask for some extra attention.

It is difficult to find a time and space for intimacy with your partner

Adults like to sleep with their partners, not only because sex usually happens in the bedroom. At night and in bed is a great time and place to talk and reconnect after a busy day. Parents that have a romantic relationship need this time to keep the relationship happy and healthy.

The problem is that we have relationships with our partner and our kids and they need the same thing from us. It is impossible to reconcile. Partners benefit from the intimacy of sleeping without the children, and children benefit from sleeping with their parents.

How can you be intimate with your partner while cosleeping in a family bed?

The best solution that I have found for this is accompanying the kids to bed, then staying with your partner for a few hours every night connecting in a place other than the bedroom, and then all going to sleep in the same bed, or the same room but with enough personal space for each individual person.

It takes some effort to spend quality time with your partner when the kids are already asleep. Usually, what you want is to fall asleep with them and wake up the next day.

But it is very important to make time for emotional and physical intimacy with your romantic partner. It has to be a habit that happens during the good times to make the bad times better.

Have you decided on cosleeping with multiple kids? What are your reasons?