Cultural Differences in Children's Sleeping Arrangements

Cultural Differences in Sleeping Arrangements

I personally grew in culture that permits children to sleep with their parents, most especially during the first few years of their lives. In my home country, this is a commonly accepted practice since most families cannot afford to build separate rooms for their infants/toddlers. Based on some readings, this kind of sleeping arrangement is also common in Austria, Japan & in some parts of Norway. On the contrary, experts in United States do not endorse co-sleeping. American families often times put their infants in a separate room and encourage their toddlers to sleep in their own beds. Such practice presents advantages and disadvantages as well. One positive outcome of such sleeping routine is that independence is promoted at such an early age. Parents and children will not have to get thru the painstaking process of transitioning when the child is old enough to sleep on his own. The children who sleeps on their own rooms are also sheltered from accidental sexual stimulation (Morelli et al.,1992). Also, the parents’ privacy & ‘alone time’ is protected. But how about the cons? Some studies show that resistance to going to bed occurs in 20-40% of American infants & preschoolers ( Johnson,1991) but it seldom occurs in cultures who practice co-sleeping. The root cause of this maybe the child’s anxiety of being alone and far from their parents during bedtime. (We all know how comforting it is for children to feel the warmth of their parent’s bodies.) This can be very stressful for the children, thus there may be a possibility of increased occurrence of bed-wetting, night terrors and other sleeping problems.
Whatever your preferred sleeping arrangement is, just see to it that you make a careful evaluation of your child’s needs and behavior. No matter what our culture dictates, it is still the parent’s proper discretion that will determine what suites their children best. After all, one Austrian research found no significant differences between children’who co-sleep with their parents & with those who sleeps on their own with regards to their subsequent social development. (Rothrauff et al.,2004) I dont have kids of my own yet, but this concern is definitely something that my husband & I should talk about when the time comes.