Would you sleep in a “family bed?” One mom vows to co-sleep for as long as her children want, and she’s stunning TikTok viewers with her enormous bed.
“They’re only little for so long,” Casssey Bly, a mother of three in Connecticut, tells TODAY.com.
In a TikTok video, Bly changes the sheets on her massive bed — two queen-sized mattresses pushed together — that sleeps her husband, and their three children, ages 3, 4, and 6.
Bly says her family loves the affection and peace of mind that comes with bed sharing. When the children were babies, she adds, bed sharing made nightly breastfeeding smoother.
Their tradition follows a TikTok trend in which families are piling into one supersize bed for maximum coziness.
Bly says her co-sleeping habit began when her eldest was a newborn and slept in a bassinet next to her bed. Between breastfeeding and new-mom anxiety, Bly soon found it easier and more restful to sleep together.
“When I had my next baby, we needed more room so we got another queen and put them together,” Bly tells TODAY.com.
Although Bly says she’s never heard a rude comment IRL about her sleeping arrangements, TikTokers let loose.
- “A family bed? Heck no.”
- “This may cause codependency. Independence is important in development stages.”
- “This is absolutely bizarro to me. I need personal space and alone time so my children slept in their own rooms. It led to such a calm lifestyle for all of us. Appreciate together time and alone time.”
- “There’s no way this is enjoyable.”
Other TikTokers understood.
- “Kids are climbing into the bed anyway. Might as well be comfortable.”
- “People saying this is weird but what’s weird to me is how desperately parents want their kids out of their beds when they’re little and the obsession with independence in children who are meant to depend on their parents.”
- “This is how families slept for thousands of years. Natural and normal! I wish my husband would go for it.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend bed sharing with babies “under any circumstances” to reduce the chances of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Bly tells TODAY.com that she followed the “The Safe Sleep Seven,” a 7-point set of safety criteria from a La Leche League book called “Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family.”
Bly tells TODAY.com that sleeping in a big bed with her family is “cozy” and “natural.”
“I did a lot of research on co-sleeping before my eldest was born — even if I didn’t plan to do it,” she says. “I wanted to be aware of how to do it safely because it does happen accidentally.”
Bly’s husband sleeps better too.
“We call it a life hack, a parenting hack,” she says, adding that the children’s bedtime routine is more orderly, as they all have one bedtime.
The couple won’t dismantle their enormous bed until her children feel “ready” to sleep on their own.
