The Pros & Cons of Co-Sleeping

vlog

I’m told by an expert blogger that most readers are scared off by large amounts of text (even if these people read thousands of words per day on Twitter). Meanwhile, I refuse to partake in illiteracy-shaming by providing only a written version of albertnet. Thus, I’m offering this post as a vlog, and as a podcast (click Play and don’t look). The full text follows the video.

Introduction

Co-sleeping is a very controversial practice: you either swear by it or utterly denounce it. The chances of constructive dialogue between people on opposing sides of this issue are negligible. Here I examine both perspectives to help you make an informed choice.

The benefits of co-sleeping

It’s pretty obvious why co-sleeping seems desirable: there’s no putting-to-bed ritual required, which simplifies the bedtime routine. Even more obviously, there’s the intimacy and bonding that are so crucial—and so sweet! “There is an instinctive desire to be close to your babyface,” says Sunita Gupta, a pediatric RN in Austin, Texas, in this article. “Working people who don’t get this closeness throughout the day often look to bedtime to achieve it.”

This is the easy side of the equation, of course. So why are so many people dead-set against this fairly intuitive practice?

The downsides of co-sleeping

Consider this scenario: you’ve fallen asleep reading in bed, and as you roll over on your side and turn out the lamp, you’re aware of this warm presence right up against your belly, all snuggled up. How wonderful! Perhaps you even sigh contentedly as you drift off to sleep … and all is well until the wee hours, perhaps 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., when you realize something is wrong. You feel this strange pricking sensation against your fingertips. Not quite awake, you move your hand—but then you feel that pricking feeling again. And again. It’s like a very faint electrical shock. And then there’s this warm breath in your face, and you realize your little darling is wide awake. And bored. And biting you.

No, she’s not trying to hurt you … just to wake you up. She seems to think it’s feeding time. And here’s where things get really messy: in the next few moments, your every move is crucial—your good night’s sleep hangs in the balance.

Perhaps your best hope is to the grab the little rascal very quickly so you can relocate her—because no way is she going back to sleep. But you’re delusional if you think this is going to be easy. After all, you’re half-asleep and she’s wide awake, not to mention possessed of lightning-fast reflexes. If that first attempt at a bear-hug fails, you won’t get a second one. And let’s face it, your chances of catching her the first time are minimal to begin with. She’s going to squirt out of your arms in a flash, like you stomped on an uncapped tube of toothpaste, and then she’s leaping from the bed and off and running.

Sure, at this point you could do nothing and just try to go back to sleep … but this is nonsense. You know she’ll be back, poking and prodding you, jumping on your stomach, and running all around the bed. There’s nothing to be done but to run after her—and good luck with that. As you chase her around the house, you’re stumbling and bumping into things, but she’s not—cats have six times better night vision than humans, and at a full sprint can reach 30 mph.

Ideally, you could chase her into another room and then leave, closing the door behind you … but how many cats would fall for that? They’re crafty little beasts—and if you’re devoted to the practice of co-sleeping, you’ve inadvertently left them all kinds of escape routes. The conventional wisdom says that if you simply feed your furry feline, she’ll be satisfied and will come back to bed. This is kind of true, in the sense that she will come back—but she’s not coming back to sleep. She’s bored. She wants to play. Cats never sleep through the night—hence the term “catnap.” Your night is ruined, unless wiggling a piece of yarn for five minutes while your cat gets ready to attack it sounds like fun. Congratulations: you’ve just learned the hard way why so many warn against co-sleeping.

A way forward?

“Okay,” you might be saying, “If co-sleeping is so fraught, do you have a better idea?!” Or maybe you’re saying, “Isn’t this the epitome of a ‘first-world problem’?” Or you’re wondering, “What is this blog and how did I get here?” Well, I’ll concede that decrying one bedtime formula without suggesting another isn’t very helpful. So I’ll do my best.

Note that the longer you’ve been co-sleeping, the harder this is going to be. I’m not saying your cat will have developed a “crutch” or anything, in terms of needing to co-sleep, because it’s established fact that cats barely need humans at all, other than as providers of food and shelter. But they do develop habits, which can make it difficult to end the co-sleeping cycle. When one night your cat finds your bedroom door closed, she’ll just sit there and meow. Don’t bother trying to outlast her—a cat cannot be Ferberized. Cats have evolved to be almost infinitely patient, because patience is useful when ambushing prey. Of course they don’t sound patient, the way they meow almost continuously—but rest assured, they can go on forever. You might as well try to outlast a dripping faucet.

But habits can be changed. Chances are, there’s a way to strand your little kitty in a part of the house where her cries can’t be heard from the bedroom. I know this sounds cruel, but bear in mind this animal would happily eat your eyeballs if you died in your home and could no longer feed her. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. (Okay, perhaps not the best metaphor.)

To be clear, sequestering your cat is probably less Machiavellian than Ferberizing a human, because unlike a human baby whose need for you is existential, and whose developing brain cannot reconcile this sense of abandonment, cats are very straightforward thinkers. For them, this is simply operant conditioning. If meowing at the kitchen door doesn’t produce results, they will eventually shrug it off, like if their cat door stopping swinging one day. It’s no more troublesome to them than it would be for you if the guest WiFi password stopped working at your favorite café, and the barista told you guest WiFi was only available on weekdays. (And good on her, frankly … but I digress.)

But what about your needs as a pet owner (or to be more “woke” about it, as the human guardian of a companion animal)? Honestly, this snuggle time probably means more to you than to your cat. Cats are loners, after all, which is why you can leave them home alone all day without them howling miserably throughout your absence like an abandoned pack animal (e.g., dog).

The solution, I think, is to get lap time with kitty during the day, perhaps after dinner (by which I mean her dinner), when you’re reading a book or watching a video. To many guardians, this seems like a recipe for rejection: here you are, reclined in your La-Z-Boy, blanket across your lap, book in your hand, clearly not going anywhere, but the cat simply doesn’t show up. Happily, this is easy to solve: just turn down your thermostat. You might be wearing the coziest cashmere sweater in the world, but if there’s deliciously warm air gushing out of a heater vent, the cat’s going to choose that every time. Get yourself a warmer throw blanket (I have a down-filled one), nix the central heat, and you should be in business.

This way, when it’s your bedtime, it’s hers too. Figure out a nice place for her to sleep—the crook of an armchair, a gap between throw pillows on a sofa, sometimes even a cardboard box, if that’s where your little darling likes to sleep—and put her there before you retire. It’s possible she will start to appreciate the ritual and won’t even jump up and try to race you to the door as you leave.

Caveat: ssshhhhh!

Whatever approach you take to co-sleeping, I highly recommend you not talk about it with anybody. And why not? Because if your interlocutor agrees with you, that’s bound to be a pretty boring conversation. And if he doesn’t—well, then you’ve got a pointless argument on your hands and all you’ll do is lose face. This is too emotionally charged an issue to discuss rationally … you might as well talk about politics or religion. This other person’s good night’s sleep is not your problem.

(Am I a hypocrite, then? No. This blog post being a one-way broadcast, I am not putting you on the spot here. Sleep with your cat, or don’t … I don’t need to hear about it. If you found this post useful, great. If you disagree with me, just close your browser, and accept my apologies for wasting your time. And if you don’t even have a cat … well, then, why are you here?!)

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From the Archives - Sleeping Through College

Introduction

Having hosted teenagers in my home recently, I was astonished by how late they stayed up and how late they slept in, and particularly how late they slept in even if they hadn’t stayed up late.  I try to sleep in sometimes but it just doesn’t work.  In fact, even sleeping through the night is becoming a challenge.  I don’t sleep soundly enough, so the cat disturbs me, or the morning sunlight leaking in past the blind, or a distant passing train.  Plus, I can’t get my temperature right.  Often, the soundtrack to my dreams is one heavy metal song for like four hours, so the sheer repetition bores me awake.

The following essay, written 27 years ago during my college days, is about sleeping.  Back then I often wrote little essays much like my modern blog posts (but not, I hope, as good) and photocopied them, shrinking four pages to fit on one sheet of paper, to mail around to friends and family.  This essay is from a series called “How to Be a UCSB Student.”  (By the time I transferred to Berkeley, I’d become wiser—realizing I didn’t know anything—and stopped writing how-to guides.)

How to Sleep Away Your College Days - October 27, 1989

Part One:  Choosing a major

While this may not seem like a normal category to be listed under “sleep,” it actually makes perfect sense.  Just check the chart below, locate the number of hours of sleep you’d prefer, and choose your major accordingly.

Major	Expected Sleep
Anthropology	N/A – nobody really majors in this
Architecture	4-7 hours per night
Art Studio	12-18 hours per night
Electrical Engineering	12-18 hours per week
English	6-8 hours per night
Rhetoric	0 hours per night because you toss and turn debating yourself
Any other major	I don’t actually know ... go do your own research

Part Two:  When is bedtime?

While I have tried to study a variety of majors, my current data is limited to my college household:  English, Art Studio, and Electrical Engineering.

English major:  You can pretty much go to bed when you want to.  I wouldn’t bother trying to sleep before midnight, though.  Until then, the ambient noise in your bedroom will be in the “ear-splitting” range anyway, either due to a party outside or your art studio roommate trying to teach himself the clarinet.

Art Studio major:  There are few guidelines; the only hard-and-fast rule is that you must never retire before 2:00 a.m.  What you do until this time is up to you:  check out a show, paint, try to teach yourself the clarinet, or even nap.  TIP:  If you nap enough during the day, it’ll be easy to stay up late, so on those days you have morning studio you’ll be falling asleep at the easel.  This can only help your work.

Electrical Engineering major:  Bedtime?  Are you kidding?  Try to hit the sack sometime before you collapse from exhaustion — hopefully as close to this point as possible.  Also, try to turn in before your roommate wakes up so you don’t have to compete for the shower.

Part Three:  Snoring

The only advice I can give you about snoring is the same advice your roommates will give you:  roll over and shut the hell up!  But if you’re suffering from a snoring roommate, you have a more difficult task.

An occasional snorer can be silenced with a shove, a thump on the wall, or being awakened and told to roll over and shut the hell up.  But these techniques are useless on a hard-core snorer.  I have studied this case thoroughly, and I’ve found that there is a passive-aggressive motivation behind repeated snoring.  Usually, the snorer is the one who gets the least sleep, and who must get ready for bed in the dark while his roommates sleep peacefully.  Though he may not realize it, the snorer feels a deep-seated hostility for those who have more time to sleep, and subconsciously decides to ruin their slumber by impersonating a one-cylinder Briggs & Stratton 2-stroke.  The more tired he is, the worse his snoring will be.

Obviously, normal techniques are futile, even harmful, when you’re dealing with a hard-core snorer.  If you wake him up, his subconscious hostility will only increase.  Therefore, you have to startle him to a state of semi-consciousness without revealing yourself.  I have found marbles to work beautifully.  I keep a jar by my bed, and when T.T., my E.E. roommate, snores, I throw a marble at him.  The zinging noise it makes on its trajectory, the harmless sting it gives on impact, and the cracking noise it makes as it ricochets into the wall are all excellent snore-deterrents.  The real beauty of this technique is that after a few assaults, T.T. has learned to automatically associate the sound of marbles clinking against a glass jar with pain and noise.  Now, I only have to clink my marbles and the snoring instantly stops—so I can avoid the guilt of having assaulted my roommate.  Fortunately, this Pavlovian effect took hold before T.T. figured out why he kept waking up with marbles in his bed.

Part Four:  Talking in your sleep

I guess this is technically optional, but it sure is fun.  Having one roommate stay up all night to monitor nocturnal speech is sometimes difficult, but luckily T.T. is almost always awake, and C.S., my Art Studio roommate, was thoughtful enough to equip T.T. with a notebook titled “Secret Sayings from the Kingdom of Sleep.” 

Now, you might think we’d want to leave our unconscious utterances unrecorded, in case we say something incriminating.  But we’re all far too nerdy for that.  The classic incriminating utterance would be “Oh, Wendy” as overheard by your girlfriend, Julie.  But we don’t have girlfriends, and if we did, and they heard us say “Oh, Wendy,” they’d be like, “In your dreams!”  They’d never believe us suave enough to cheat, these hypothetical girlfriends.

Here are some actual utterances from our apartment.  I didn’t make these up—they’re taken right from the bedside journal.

9/26/89	“Ladle!  Ladle!  Ladle!”  (yelling)	C.S.
	“No!  I won’t!  Oh, I don’t care anyway.”	D.A.
9/27/89	“More stories... I don’t have the energy.”	D.A.
	“What number did you pick?”	C.S.
10/09/89	“Orange.  It will really shake the very foundation  of the earth.  Plus, uh, Geoff:  the shirt took sanction.”	D.A.
10/12/89	“Somewhere, someone, the wheels are rolling.”	D.A.
	“What a feeling.”	D.A.
10/13/89	(Hysterical laughter)	C.S.
	“Question:  I’m asking you...?  My phone’s all screwed up.”	D.A.
10/20/89	“Grey, brown, dark blue, gloomy... Walk around, saying things like Sartre.”	D.A.
10/25/89	“Check me out!”	T.T.

Part Five:  Dreams

Achieving the most interesting dream is linked closely to diet.  If you eat a lot of garlic right before bed, or a spicy burrito, that should help.  Of course, the real key to memorable dreams is to have a really twisted mind.  I wish I did because my stories would be better, and C.S. wishes he did because his art would be better.  Only T.T. has disturbing dreams, usually involving a midterm he forgot to study for (which of course would never happen in real life). 

Part Six:  Catching up on sleep

For some reason, night isn’t always the best time for sleeping.  The other day, C.S. and I both awoke at 3:00 am for no apparent reason.  After an hour of talking, laughing, and throwing marbles at our resident snorer, we decided sleep was futile.  I studied while C.S. zoned out.  Of course, this sleep must be made up at some point — usually as soon as possible.  For me, the hours between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm are best suited for catch-up sleep.  It just so happens, my classes fall within the same time interval! 

If you can time it right, you’ll only sleep during lectures.  Typically there are so many students, the professor won’t notice.  Sit pretty far back because most of the professors are nearsighted from a career spent staring at a book, equation, or painting.  But then, targeting lectures is not always possible; after all, sleep makes its own rules.  

I fell asleep in French class last week, my elbow on the desk and my head propped in my hand, and Molly, the cute blonde next to me, knocked my elbow out so I went sprawling, knocking my books to the floor.  Amazingly, the instructor didn’t chew me out or anything.  Either she’s a romantic, and took Molly’s treachery for flirting, or assumed I was up all night phoning my relatives in earthquake-ridden San Francisco.  Or maybe it’s because this instructor is young, and thinks back fondly on how, not so long ago, she herself slept through college. 

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