You've probably heard something that goes like this: "Sure, co-sleeping might be great for the baby, but it takes a toll on your marriage (or partnership)." Sometimes it's not stated but you get the same vibes -- as though you MUST CHOOSE between a fulfilling marriage (and sex life) and a happy baby.
(I do not mean to be judgemental. I know wonderful people with medical and other good reasons for not co-sleeping, so I am more directing this query at our culture in general than at any one family's sleeping arrangements.)
I suspect the assumed choice between baby and marriage is one of the biggest factors in families choosing not to co-sleep. I have friends who weren't even allowed into their parent's room during the day because of the perceived need to protect the sacredness of their parent's marriages. While that is more extreme than not allowing your child into your room at night, it's still an extension of the same idea.
I am fearful of the consequences for a child who grows up believing that his needs are in direct competition with his parent's marriage. Often, the continuation of the parents' relationship is part of the child's own sense of security, so wouldn't a child who believes her very existence threatens her parents' union feel some pressure not to express all her needs, or to learn how express them in manipulative ways?
We have been presented with a terrible (and I believe false) choice. Our marriage or the baby. One must be sacrificed every night.
It's a false choice because it's based on the idea that our lives can be neatly (with medical precision) divided into different personas which must be addressed in turn. While we all have many different roles, and obviously switch between them, I feel the idea of 'protecting the marriage bed' goes farther than asking us to switch between roles. It asks us to switch between personas. It requires us to stop being a mother in order to be a wife -- but I feel being a wife and mother are two different and important roles acted out by the SAME person.
In every relationship, there is a balance between separateness and oneness, between individuality and community. But I do not believe that I have to pretend not to be married in order to achieve that balance in my relationship with my spouse. When we hide the baby in another room, are we are pretending not to have a child?
I believe we can balance these roles without viewing them as competing personas. I go out alone with girlfriends when I need a break, we get a sitter for our little one when my husband and I need a date, we set aside adult time in the evening to be together elsewhere in the house while the baby sleeps in our bed. I'm one person with many roles and I don't have to sacrifice anything.
In addition, how much healthier is it for our children to see us model a balanced lifestyle, meeting our own needs and theirs, without creating a scenario in which people must compete with each other for a limited amount of affection and attention?
In conclusion, if your marriage can't survive a baby in your bed at night, it probably can't survive a baby in your life during the day. One hundred percent of what goes on between us and our spouses that builds or detracts from the happiness of our marriages happens during our waking hours, not when we're sleeping soundly at night. But that is not true of our young children, many of whom need us close at night and need us to learn, for their sakes, how to balance our different roles without sacrificing a part of ouselves.
(I do not mean to be judgemental. I know wonderful people with medical and other good reasons for not co-sleeping, so I am more directing this query at our culture in general than at any one family's sleeping arrangements.)
I suspect the assumed choice between baby and marriage is one of the biggest factors in families choosing not to co-sleep. I have friends who weren't even allowed into their parent's room during the day because of the perceived need to protect the sacredness of their parent's marriages. While that is more extreme than not allowing your child into your room at night, it's still an extension of the same idea.
I am fearful of the consequences for a child who grows up believing that his needs are in direct competition with his parent's marriage. Often, the continuation of the parents' relationship is part of the child's own sense of security, so wouldn't a child who believes her very existence threatens her parents' union feel some pressure not to express all her needs, or to learn how express them in manipulative ways?
We have been presented with a terrible (and I believe false) choice. Our marriage or the baby. One must be sacrificed every night.
It's a false choice because it's based on the idea that our lives can be neatly (with medical precision) divided into different personas which must be addressed in turn. While we all have many different roles, and obviously switch between them, I feel the idea of 'protecting the marriage bed' goes farther than asking us to switch between roles. It asks us to switch between personas. It requires us to stop being a mother in order to be a wife -- but I feel being a wife and mother are two different and important roles acted out by the SAME person.
In every relationship, there is a balance between separateness and oneness, between individuality and community. But I do not believe that I have to pretend not to be married in order to achieve that balance in my relationship with my spouse. When we hide the baby in another room, are we are pretending not to have a child?
I believe we can balance these roles without viewing them as competing personas. I go out alone with girlfriends when I need a break, we get a sitter for our little one when my husband and I need a date, we set aside adult time in the evening to be together elsewhere in the house while the baby sleeps in our bed. I'm one person with many roles and I don't have to sacrifice anything.
In addition, how much healthier is it for our children to see us model a balanced lifestyle, meeting our own needs and theirs, without creating a scenario in which people must compete with each other for a limited amount of affection and attention?
In conclusion, if your marriage can't survive a baby in your bed at night, it probably can't survive a baby in your life during the day. One hundred percent of what goes on between us and our spouses that builds or detracts from the happiness of our marriages happens during our waking hours, not when we're sleeping soundly at night. But that is not true of our young children, many of whom need us close at night and need us to learn, for their sakes, how to balance our different roles without sacrificing a part of ouselves.
: So true!
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Before it was always just bed, bed, boring bed 
) Although we don't have a baby yet, I don't see why-- assuming we both even *want* to DTD, which I understand could not even be the case-- how hard could it be to put Baby somewhere else for that short time, and bring her back for the rest of the night?
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