How long can kids sleep in their parents’ bed, Mr. Jenni?

This is due to the growing prevalence of attachment-oriented education, whose advocates respond to the child’s needs with understanding and love. According to Jenni, if the child is looking for security in the parent bed, you can let them sleep there. “Parents who feel uncomfortable seek the best solution with the help of an expert.”

Science divides so-called co-sleeping or sharing a bed into three categories:

• Early parent bed: Babies who sleep in their parents’ bed at the request of their parents.
• Reactive bed for parents: Children over the age of about one year who sleep with their parents because they wake up at night and can no longer sleep on their own.
• Cultural reasons: Children sleep in their parents’ bed for ideological reasons or because it is normal in their culture. As in parts of Asia and Africa.

Jenni says many parents are still scared when it comes to co-sleeping. It clears the most common fears.

Jenni says it takes longer for a child to fall asleep and stay asleep when they sleep in their parents’ bed. This is because they are less competent at regulating their emotions themselves. “If there’s someone who always sleeps next to him and reacts when he wakes up, the child will have a hard time calming himself down when he’s suddenly alone in bed.” However, this does not mean that the child has not learned to sleep alone. “Just do it a little later.”

Since sudden infant death syndrome is statistically more common in children who sleep in their parents’ bed, pediatrician associations in all European countries, the UK and the USA recommend avoiding co-sleeping during infancy. The “Swiss Pediatrics” association is less strict in its recommendations. Jenni: “There are indications that the increased risk only applies if the parents smoke or regularly use alcohol or drugs”.

According to Jenni, the risk is particularly high for infants if the bed is very small and if an adult is lying in the bed while intoxicated or under the influence of other drugs or drugs. That’s why – and also for the risk of sudden infant death – it’s important that the bed is big enough, the blanket isn’t too heavy, the mattress isn’t too soft, and the room temperature isn’t too high. “But the best place for a baby to sleep is still their own little bed in their parents’ bedroom.”

The idea of ​​a child sleeping peacefully among parents is heartwarming. The reality is often different: the pup lies on its side on the mattress, the parents clinging to the side as a small heel stabs into their spine. If someone is extremely tired during the day because of this, Jenni says, they should seek a solution or seek professional help.

One possibility:

• A mattress is placed next to the parent’s bed, where the parent sleeps with the child.
• In the second step, the parents place this mattress in the nursery. A parent sleeps there with the child for a while.
• In the third step, the child should sleep in his own bed.

Jenni says that at the latest by adolescence, every child will reach a point where they no longer want to sleep in their parents’ bed. “Until then, it would have never bothered me that the child felt the need to be close to his parents at night.”