I know this is practiced in some countries and they have not exploded in social chaos. Intuitively, of course it makes sense to have the baby nearby in order to breastfeed. I am sure there is research indicating its positive effects….on the child. Not on the marriage!
My view is that children are happiest when they feel their parents are a unit – not identical people but a unified protective barrier between them and the broader mysterious world. If the relationship between the parents is given the prominence it deserves, the children will feel secure even if they are not getting their own way.
Women: Men hate sharing the marital bed with kids. If you have a man who is making positive sounds about co-sleeping, you are kidding yourself if you believe him. This is just one of those things that men feel obliged to lie about. No one wants to seem selfish – especially in those early months of parenthood. During that period, men feel insecure about their status in the family and suspect that women actually know what they are doing as a mother since the women have spent months reading books on the miracle of gestation and developmental psychology and therefore certainly sound knowledgeable. Men generally feel sort of useless during this period so they can often end up agreeing with things they really don’t like. Realize this may be a problem and that trying to discover his real views on the topic will be difficult no matter how stealthy you think you are being.
For a man, a baby in the bed is an indication that there is no space whatsoever for marital relations in the house. None, not even physically. For him, it underlines his newly marginal status in the house. He cannot seem to provide anything anyone wants: He can’t even provide the one thing he thing he can give: sex. He thought you liked the sex! He will suspect that the co-sleeping will go on for months, maybe years and that his needs (which he thought were also yours) are now irrelevant. This is the point at which men start to spend more time at work. Everyone likes to feel useful and to contribute in some way but men especially need to provide in some way. Women: make a space for him to contribute the loving! That would be the marital bed!
Most men do not have the diplomatic skills to describe the new conflict between the needs of the kids and the needs of a husband without sounding like an ogre. They are also being extra careful since they are hoping to have sex! Women: it is your job to assume there is a conflict of interest here and to create a solution without judgement. Try to put yourself in their position.
Older children in the marital bed, I believe, indicate covert conflict between the parents – unless there has been some serious recent family trauma eg: fire, abduction etc. Children, like animals, sense opportunity for more attention and they will take it. Because banishing children makes parents feel guilty and harsh, the kids will tend to keep that opportunity they’ve taken. Bad idea. If there is a conflict between the parents, more sex will probably help soothe it; if there are kids in the bed, there will be less sex and certainly more resentment by the man.
I believe the parents’ bedroom should be understood as a kind of temple to their relationship. It is a special place where they get to know each other as man-and-woman, as individuals at play, at negotiation, in their vulnerability – in short, as equals. This cannot occur if the woman brings a small, short, cute army of neediness only she can satisfy into the room with her.
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