A love letter to: my co-sleeping parents

And to all the other co-sleeping parents out there too

A note before we begin: I am acutely unwell and significantly reduced in my capacity for work right now. Due to working on a commision and casual basis this means I have no access to sick leave - just emergency savings. Thank you for your patience while I have had little content in this space, and thank you for continuing to financially support me and the work I do. If you haven’t considered becoming a paid subscriber, now would be a time where it means a lot to me, and allows me to take the time I need to receive care and recover. If you have the means to become a founding member, or subscribe by year as opposed to monthly, this would also make a huge difference. Thank you for showing up in this space - in whatever form. I am always grateful for those who feel my words are worth reading. Ngā mihi nui, Lou x

It was Autumn 1993 when my parents brought my sister home from foster care: no instruction manual, no antenatal classes, no pregnancy of preparing, no perfectly set up nursery, no baby shower - their own parents half a world away in Aotearoa. Nobody, and nothing, but them, and a tiny baby. My parents don’t remember how old my sister was when they gave up on trying to settle her in a crib and let her settle in their bed on hard long nights - since she was formula fed and my father was the primary feeding parent, for the sake of my professional obligations, let’s say it was at least 6 months. My dad does remember that once she was old enough to climb out of the cot herself “she climbed out one night and got into bed with me and she stayed there for the next many years.”

Photo by Vishnu R Nair on Unsplash

It was Autumn 1995 when my parents brought me home from the hospital: this time a whole pregnancy, antenatal classes that my mother describes as “dire,” no baby shower or baby registry because my mother describes these as “ew” and a cot this time - a lovely, second hand cot that they’d bought for my sister which she tolerated in fits and bursts. I did not tolerate the cot. Not for a moment. I slept in a banana box in my mum’s bed during the night (their own invention of a pēpi pod or wahakura I guess), and skin to skin during the day. When I outgrew the banana box, I stayed in my mum’s bed.

This was in 1990’s North America. In the throws of the first big safe-sleeping “Back to Sleep,” campaign by the American College of Paediatrics - a campaign that firmly advised against co-sleeping. My sister was formula fed, and she co-slept with my dad since he was the primary feeding parent, and due to adoption legislation there were social worker visits - my parent’s blase recalling of this time period baffles me (my mother’s words: “we probably forgot to tell the social worker.”). I ask my mum about the judgment of other parents - she declares that white mums in our Canadian hometown were so awful that she neglected to tell them any information about her parenting (“dreadful dreadful dreadful, my only brush with perfect mums was at swimming classes and it was so awful I never went back, they had matching pretty diaper bags and pastel outfits and all their husbands wore boat shoes and all they talked about were their perfect babies: unimaginably dreadful.”). I’m impressed, that my mum knew what her babies needed, and never for a moment wavered from this - even in the face of perfect pastel wearing swimming class mums and social workers. But then again, mums always do know what’s best - even amongst the wavering.

The campaign to not co-sleep launched in full in November 1992 - a year before my sister’s birth

My sister and I went on co-sleeping - for a really long time. My parents have always utilised separate bedrooms as a means to keep their sanity (something I have taken on myself, I am firm that I will NEVER share a bedroom with somebody, no matter how much I love them… though I am open to a baby of my own changing that stance). So I, the breastfeeding child, slept with my mum, and my sister, the bottle feeding child slept with my dad. This continued past the necessity of feeding routines - a beautiful case study in attachment theory: my sister with my dad as her primary feeding parent in his bed through toddlerhood and preschool and into primary school years, and me, with my mother as my primary feeding parent, in her bed through these years.

For any of the dads, adoptive, or non gestational parents out there reading this - remember, your brain is no less malleable than anybody else’s. We have very real evidence that the non birthing parent’s brain adapts and moulds itself to parenthood in response to the baby that needs them just the same as birthing parent’s brains do - your cortisol, oxytocin, and prolactin levels all elevate (Bakermans-Kranenburg et al., 2019). This is, your hormones that make you wake easier, respond quicker, love harder, and bond with your baby all elevate in much the same way as a birthing parent’s. If you're a person with testes - your testosterone levels drop. In response you wake easier, your body retains a greater physical softness, your patience grows. Not only do your hormones change but so does the actual neurofunctional activity and neuroplasticity of your brain - the parts of the brain that light up for postpartum gestational parents on an MRI light up for postpartum non-gestational parents too. The parts of your brain that grow new pathways and expand new matter happen for dads, for non gestational mums, for adoptive parents, as well as gestational parents (Kim et al. 2014; Saxbe et al., 2018). Saxbe et al (2018) also point out that the only other time that your brain grows this much, this fast, this significantly, in such a “critical window,” - is in infancy and adolescence. Whether you birthed your baby is in some ways irrelevant: you too are being born again: into parenthood, into this, into a whole new world with a whole new brain and a softer squishier body and mind. To love a child, with your whole expanding heart (there are oxytocin receptors here) and body (softer from the prolactin and decreased testosterone) and gut (prolactin and oxytocin receptors here too), and brain is a complex interplay between genetics, hormonal responses, and conditioning: for all parents (Feldman at et al; 2016; 2017). It is only gender essentialist nonsense that tells us that only women, and only women who have birthed their own babies and go on to breastfeed them can have these biological responses that help keep children safe when co-sleeping.¹

The only time my parents got worried was as we entered our preteen years - and while perfectly happy to start the night in our own beds, as anxious kids, we would sometimes find ourselves back co-sleeping come morning. It wasn’t so much a worry because it was impacting their sleep or their lives negatively, but more of a “what will the world think of us if they find out,” kind of worry - a worry I’d expected them to have as new parents, but they apparently hadn’t. When I was 16 and quite unwell, I began co-sleeping again. I’d start the night in my own bed and end up in my mother’s bed for the 3am panic attacks, followed by a 3am milo. I did ask my mum if she regretted her bed sharing stance at any point (including this point, where I was practically as needy as an infant again but took up a whole lot more bed space), and still the answer was a resounding no. The knowledge that she could stay in her bed, and that I would come to this island of softness and safety should I need it, was of comfort, not concern. She does say she felt a desperation for unbroken sleep - but this desperation never manifested as any kind of regret. “No, no regrets at all,” she tells me.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

This knowledge was so firm and strong - that I would come get her if I needed, that I would be safe if her bed was available to me, saw us through a very rocky season in 2012. This strong, firm knowledge, that her bed was a safe place for me was scaffolded from years on years of this truth never failing - from infancy through toddlerhood and primary school, through moving countries and cities and house after house - her bed was there if I needed it. Her bed was there if I needed it, including if she was not in it. When she’d go out to late yoga classes, I’d be waiting in her bed on her return - able to settle myself with the knowledge that eventually - she would come.

I’m an adult now (supposedly), and our relationship has weathered more storms, and I’ve lived away from her home and bed for many years - doubtful at times about whether it would still be a safe landing zone after all this time, and the cracks in our relationship. But still, just days ago, I put aside my ego and my resistance (and my love for my own, very wonderful bed) and asked her if I could stay the night at her place. She set up the spare bed and I went to sleep and then early the next morning, I pattered down the hallway, and climbed into her bed, warm from her body. My hesitation and ego and resistance all set aside - I still knew this was a safe haven, to which I could crawl into should I need it.

So this is a love letter - to my co-sleeping parents. To their old beaten mattresses that were manufactured in Calgary in 1989 that I only managed to convince my dad to replace THIS YEAR (my mum replaced hers also not that many years ago). To the soft 1970’s printed sheets from my grandparent’s beach house where we first lived when we moved to New Zealand, and apparently also stole a lot of linen from. To their steadiness in knowing what their babies needed, and responding to those needs. A love letter to what it created - for two anxious, neurodiverse kids, often out at sea with how to cope with what the world demanded of them - not just a home but an island. Two islands. Two beds. One with each parent. An island for us each to draw our boats up to in the 3am fog and clamber ashore. An island that never wavered - amongst all the external change that life entails for kids.

And this is a love letter to you: my co-sleeping friends and followers and readers. Oh the nights are long, and your arms ache from being big spoon and you are so tired because if you have kids that are anything like my sister and I, your kid is probably asking you about what we’d do if there was a tsunami and the house washed away, or what the escape route is if the house catches on fire, and if there’s an alternative route out of Auckland if we have to evacuate due to a tsunami warning, and it’s fucking 3am and you swear to god you’re going to email the school in the morning and tell them they need to simmer down on their natural disaster content (but you won’t, because you’ll forget, because you are so tired, and also, you’re actually quite non confrontational).

But here you are, night after night, growing the plasticity of your brain, letting your neuroreceptors dance new dances, allowing hormones to peak into softness, creating a safe haven for you as you evolve and your pepi as they evolve with you. May your mattress last as long as my parent’s, may your children sleep peacefully close by, may your sheets be soft and the milo/breastmilk/formula/ stains come out easily.

And may you be nurtured by our family’s musings from the other side: the thought that by doing this - by responding to what your child is telling you they need to feel safe, that you will grow brave children, into strong adults, who know the importance of a bed, who even after many years of living away from you, when they do not feel safe, can gather up unfathomable courage to crawl into your home as 26 year olds and say :

“mama, I’m not ok, please can I sleep here?”

and be met with

“of course.”

---

References

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Lotz, A., Alyousefi-van Dijk, K., and Van IJzendoorn, M.(2019). Birth of a father: fathering in the first 1,000 days. Child Dev. Perspect. 13, 247–253. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12347

Feldman, R., Gordon, I., and Zagoory-Sharon, O. (2011). Maternal and paternal plasma, salivary, and urinary oxytocin and parent-infant synchrony: considering stress and affiliation components of human bonding. Dev. Sci. 14, 752–761. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01021.x

Feldman, R., Monakhov, M., Pratt, M., and Ebstein, R. P. (2016). Oxytocin pathway genes: evolutionary ancient system impacting on human affiliation, sociality, and psychopathology. Biol. Psychiatry 79, 174–184. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.08.008

Kim, P., Rigo, P., Mayes, L. C., Feldman, R., Leckman, J. F., and Swain, J. E. (2014). Neural plasticity in fathers of human infants. Soc. Neurosci. 9, 522–535. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2014.933713

Saxbe, D., Rossin-Slater, M., and Goldenberg, D. (2018). The transition to parenthood as a critical window for adult health. Am. Psychol. 73, 1190–1200. doi: 10.1037/amp0000376

1. While we know that in theory, primary feeding parents have comparable brain changes to breastfeeding parents - whether they are breast/chest feeding or bottle feeding, and whether or not they are the birthing parent, we don’t actually have strong evidence that puts this theory into practice. We also know that formula fed babies may sleep more deeply (though not necessarily longer or more frequently) than breastfed babies. So at present I am still required to recommend that where possible, infants under 6 months who are not breastfed avoid bed sharing with parents who are also not breast/chest feeding. This reflects national guidance and my professional responsibilities.