Co-Sleeping: Parents, Children, and Musical Beds

In Co-Sleeping: Parents, Children, and Musical Beds, author Susan Stewart explores a part of day-to-day family life that has previously remained hidden: how American families configure sleeping arrangements with their babies, young children, and older children. While many readers may associate ‘‘cosleeping’’ with infants, Stewart’s book reveals children’s preference for sharing beds with their parents. Stewart describes the nightly emotional and physical labor that mothers, primarily, take up in the hopes of accomplishing a good night’s sleep. Stewart interviewed a ‘‘largely white, college-educated, and middle-class’’ sample of 51 parents: 38 mothers and 13 fathers (p. 129). Co-Sleeping provides a detailed review of co-sleeping across numerous countries, ultimately positioning the United States as a unique case. Stewart provides a comprehensive overview; for readers who are interested in co-sleeping, this book is a treasure trove of information. The book offers a well-designed exploratory qualitative study. It covers an impressive literature related to co-sleeping and is accessible, wellorganized, and well-researched. It would be a good companion for an undergraduate course that explores family life. The book adroitly highlights the gap between intended and actual behavior. While co-sleeping is often characterized as a conscious, deliberate choice, Stewart’s data suggest otherwise. She found two groups of parents: intentional and reactive co-sleepers. Those who intentionally opted to co-sleep were in the minority. Most parents ‘‘fell into’’ co-sleeping after being unable to coax their children to sleep in their own beds. Most saw co-sleeping as temporary and wanted it to cease but did not have a clear plan to stop it. Parents reported feeling a great deal of ambivalence. They saw co-sleeping’s benefits: cuddling, quality time, security, and comfort. However, they worried about their children’s physical safety and their social and emotional health. They saw cosleeping as both adding to and detracting from ‘‘couple closeness’’ (p. 98). Ultimately, the two most interesting tensions in the book lie with 1) parents’ ambivalence toward co-sleeping, and 2) how they manage the disapproval of others. First, the prevalence of parents who reluctantly co-sleep uncovers a fascinating tension. The notion that parents raise children via deliberate decisions, consistently enacting a coherent parenting philosophy, is contradicted by this book. Stewart highlights the unintentional, reactive dynamics of family life, where parenting decisions may not stem from a well-planned, consistent agenda. Co-Sleeping throws into sharp relief parents’ ambivalence as they reluctantly concede to their children; some parents who co-slept were philosophically opposed to it. The book illuminates how families adopt or slide into new routines. It outlines the conflict that arises when frustrated spouses manage strained relationships and disagree about sleeping arrangements. It compellingly displays demoralized parents’ nightly struggles with poor sleep, as they wrestle with the conviction that they are undermining their own best parenting efforts by capitulating in a weak moment. A strength of this book is its ability to illuminate not only the patterns of co-sleeping, but the weight of parents’ ambivalence about it and how they navigate this difficulty. The book’s analytical tension comes from the dilemma of parents who did not choose cosleeping as natural but instead wished everyone would sleep in their own beds. While individual parents may feel ambivalent about co-sleeping, this takes place in a larger socio-cultural environment that largely condemns it. A second important tension is parents’ management of others’ disapproval. In Chapter Five, Stewart moves beyond the families themselves, examining how they ‘‘navigate social relationships within a cultural context largely disapproving of this practice’’ (p. 102). All 51 parents received negative remarks about co-sleeping from others, 630 Reviews