'We're a co-sleeping family who share a bedroom – even with our 12-year-old'
A co-sleeping family has sparked a debate after revealing how they all share a bedroom - and let their 12-year-old daughter snuggle up to them on a night. Meagan Deal, 31, and her husband Brandon, 32, have been letting their daughters share their bed since they were babies.
Their eldest Mckenzie, 12, has always struggled getting to sleep and stayed in the couple’s king sized bed until she was 10. Now she has her own bed at the foot of her parents but youngest Sarah Grace, six, still curls up in between them.
Meagan and Brandon say it’s left up to their daughters to decide when they want to sleep in their own room despite some people describing it as 'toxic'. Stay-at-home mum Meagan, from Montgomery, Alabama, USA, said: “Mckenzie was really tiny.
“We had a really hard time with her sleeping by herself. She stayed in our bed and just never got out of it. She has tried her own bedroom but never makes it through the night.” Meagan first decided to try co-sleeping with Mckenzie when she was a baby to help her to drop off.
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She then lost her hearing aged six and felt “scared” to go to sleep in her own room as she couldn’t see or hear her parents. Meagan added: “It’s a comfort to have us right there with her. We would sing and she’d feel our throats.
“With Sarah Grace – she was an active baby. To get her to sleep I’d have to nurse her. She’s still in our bed.” Mckenzie started sleeping in her own bed at age 10 but remained in her parents' room. Meagan said: “She was getting bigger and everybody was starting to get less sleep.
“I was pregnant with James Mitchell, who was stillborn, and I was talking to her saying we were about to have a baby - and less space. At first, she just lay there but wouldn't sleep on it. However, by the age of 10, she started sleeping in her bed."
Meagan and Brandon set a strict bedtime to make sure they get time as a couple when the girls are asleep. Megan said: “8pm is bedtime [for the children]. We go to bed at 10.30 pm or 11 pm. With co-sleeping, we make alone time a priority.”
Brandon, who works in fire protection systems, added: “People ask ‘how do you get alone time?’ It’s important as a couple to have alone time. We watch TV, we stay up and talk. We get to have some childless time.”
“They say ‘it’s toxic for your children’. But I knew a lot of friends growing up who used to sleep in their parents' bed. It's more of a foreign conversation in Northern America." Both girls have a shared room they can sleep in, but currently choose not to.
The couple believes eventually their children will move out and into their own room. Meagan said: “Mckenzie is getting close to having her own room. She’s extremely independent.” Brandon added: “We wouldn’t be sad if they wanted to sleep in their own room. It’s up to them.”
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