65% of parents say they've co-slept with their kid. What it's like to have a 'family bed.'

Co-sleeping is one of those parenting practices that never quite leaves the popular conversation — or controversy. And for good reason: The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says to always avoid co-sleeping with infants under 6 months of age in order to reduce the risk of sleep-related infant death.

But in real life, co-sleeping with a baby makes life easier for many parents, so they do it anyway. In fact, the popularity of infant-parent bed-sharing grew from only 6% of U.S. families in 1993 to 24% in 2015. And today? In a 2024 study, a whopping 65% of parents admitted to co-sleeping with their baby within their first year of life.

It's not just infants who are snuggling up to mom and dad in bed. Some kids are bed-sharing with their parents into adolescence, giving rise to the term "family bed" — super-size mattresses with room for all (parents, kids, pets ...). In the case of content creator (and mom of seven) Little Southern Wife, it's a sprawling sleep area she and her husband share with their youngest children. ("Our older kids sleep in their own beds," the influencer clarified in a comment alongside footage of her making up "our family bed.")

In Santana Blackburn's home, it's a 9-foot-by-9-foot Alaskan King mattress that serves as the family bed. Blackburn, a realtor in South Carolina, recently caused a bit of internet uproar when she showed off the spacious mattress she planned to share with her family —including her three kids, ages 3, 7, and 10.

While family beds are growing in popularity — indeed, as the Washington Post reports, Alaskan Kings and other oversize mattresses are appealing to co-sleeping families alongside, er, very tall NBA players who need extra leg space — bed-sharing remains a touchy topic. "Those kids are way too big to be sleeping with their parents," commenters told Blackburn. "That's weird."

Clearly, not everyone is a fan — but the families below say that bed-sharing is what works for them (mostly). Here's what they say about the pros and cons.

Why these parents co-sleep

Despite the backlash, "co-sleeping felt like the most natural option for us,” Blackburn tells Yahoo Life. She began the practice while her kids were babies and breastfeeding and says it “helped us bond in a really special way.” Now her three kids all have their own beds, but will crawl in with Blackburn and her partner when they need comfort, “and I’m OK with that,” she says. “Of course, I’ve received plenty of comments from people who disagree with co-sleeping, and that’s completely fine! Everyone parents differently.”

While every parent who does co-sleep has a different set of reasons for doing so, there are quite a few areas of agreement among the folks Yahoo Life spoke with. Some of those include:

• Ease of breastfeeding. “I never thought I would do it,” Joy Ramirez, a writer in Nashville, tells Yahoo Life of co-sleeping with her daughter. But she ended up starting “within the first week of my baby’s birth.” Ramirez says bed-sharing “made everything so much easier. Like most things, you have lots of ideas and opinions until faced with the reality of the situation.”

• Snuggly bonding time. “I love the togetherness of it,” SaraJane Bizzou, an American mom of two now living in Morocco, tells Yahoo Life. She adds that co-sleeping provides a respite from family life, which she acknowledges is “insanity 99.9% of the time.”

• Increased sense of security. For some parents, co-sleeping is about reiterating to kids that they are welcome. “There's definitely a security in my kids that I hope comes from knowing we're literally always here,” says Bizzou. Valerie Rozelsky, in South Carolina, co-slept with her daughters until they were in grades two and four for this reason. “My girls have grown into confident and well-adjusted teenagers,” she tells Yahoo Life. “The co-sleeping was simply a choice I made that made us all feel happier and more secure.”

• Greater awareness of kid sleep patterns. Terri Huggins Hart, a writer and editorial consultant in New York, tells Yahoo Life that she appreciates co-sleeping with her kids so she can keep an eye out for changes like snoring or nightmares. “I like the ease in recognizing changes in their sleep, which could be a sign of something problematic,” she says.

• Co-regulation, especially for kids with autism. Lily Burns, in Connecticut, co-sleeps with her 9-year-old son, who has autism. “I think to kick him out would feel really jarring and alienating, and he already feels alienated,” says Burns. “He has his own room here, with a bed, but he always hops into my bed at bedtime.” Brooks Gerber, an educator in Tennessee, takes a similar approach. “My son is 10 and still co-sleeps due to regulation needs related to autism,” she tells Yahoo Life.

The downsides

There are a few practical pitfalls to co-sleeping, such as:

• Limited space. Not every home has room for an Alaskan King, which cost around $3,000 and up. “The con is not having a bedroom big enough for a king-size bed or just any other mattress other than our wonky double,” says Bizzou. “It’s getting tight, but I can’t bring myself to change anything yet.”

• Poor parent sleep. While some of the parents we spoke with say co-sleeping improved their sleep, others had the opposite experience. “I don’t like how it sometimes affects my sleep,” says Huggins Hart. “Or when my youngest has to sleep with his head on top of mine!”

• No privacy. Kim Whinnery, a photographer in Tennessee, tells Yahoo Life that co-sleeping meant she and her husband “didn’t feel like we had our own room for a long time. We didn’t have a place to retreat to that felt like it belonged to us and not the whole family.”

What experts say

So where do experts come down on co-sleeping? A lot of it depends on the child's age.

The AAP is firm in its stance: "We are unable to recommend bed-sharing under any circumstances," the organization says in a policy statement. But both James J. McKenna, director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, and lactation and pediatric sleep consultant Lauren Levine tell Yahoo Life that co-sleeping can be carried out safely if infant sleep guidelines, such as La Leche League's Safe Sleep Seven, are strictly followed. Any adult in bed with an infant “needs to carry with them as they fall asleep the mantra ‘baby on board, be alert,’” says McKenna. He argues that “breastsleeping” — aka "breastfeeding in the context of bed-sharing absent of all known hazardous risk factors" — is "the safest form of bed-sharing" and should be given its own identity as being safe is supported by a recent new protocol written and approved by members the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.

Co-sleeping has been associated with anxiety and sleep issues in older kids. though it's unclear whether it's because anxious kids are more likely to prefer co-sleeping or if continued co-sleeping contributes to kids' anxiety. Meanwhile, as Psychology Today reports, more recent research suggests that bed-sharing alone is unlikely to affect a child's emotional or behavioral development — though researchers noted that "the impact of bed-sharing on child outcomes could depend on its impact on the family and the co-parenting relationship." Bed-sharing, researchers found, "was associated with higher marital and co-parenting distress ... and lower co-parenting quality in comparison to solitary sleeping." In other words, bed-sharing may put a strain on the parents' relationship, which could in turn affect a child's well-being.

Another thing worth noting: Bed-sharing won't last forever. As Sarah Blunden, a psychologist specializing in pediatric sleep, writes, most children eventually outgrow the urge to co-sleep as their need for independence develops.

The bottom line

Though it's more prevalent today, bed-sharing remains a hotly debated practice and it's up to each family to weigh the pros and cons. But it may all boil down to what's needed in the moment.

“Most families co-sleep at one point or another,” says Levine, “whether out of choice or necessity … and more people are accepting of the fact that co-sleeping is actually the biological norm for our species." At the very least, she adds, it can be a helpful way to get through some of life’s rough patches, be it illness or separation anxiety.

“Independent sleep does not inherently equal safer sleep, just as co-sleeping is not inherently dangerous” when practiced carefully, Levine adds. “If we can shift the focus towards healthy conversations around safe practices and resourcing for families, rather than perpetuating shame and secrecy and abstinence-only thinking, then hopefully we can help more parents learn about the benefits.”