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Should Kids Share Their Bed with a Pet?
Author: Jonathan Warren
If you have pets in your home, chances are your children have a pretty strong bond with their furry pals, but while we’re fine with them playing with them, cuddling them and taking them out for walks, what about sharing a bed together?
According to researchers, around half of all dog and cat owners say they’ve shared a bed or bedroom with their furry friends (some sources say up to 79% of owners do!), but with lots of people against the practice, is the practice healthy, and can it have negative effects on children’s health?
Is it natural?
The first question to answer is whether we’ve always slept with our animals through history, or if it’s a recent thing that’s otherwise not natural at all.
The answer? Yes, it is natural! Researchers from Australia’s Central Queensland University recently investigated the issue, and found that through history, humans and animals have always slept together, and that like co-sleeping with children, the arguments against it formed in the Victorian age, when the idea of a household and fears regarding animals and family members sleeping together became widespread.
Instead, sleeping in the same bed with other people and animals was seen as a way to generate heat, increase security and simply bond with one another – all perfectly natural things.
Is it healthy?
Some parents might be scared that sleeping next to a pet – who, let’s be honest, aren’t the cleanest of creatures from time to time – might damage them physically (with things like diseases or parasites) or mentally (by disrupting their sleep cycles). So, is there any truth to either fear?
Mental health
Snuggling up with pets could be seen to affect the quality of sleep, hampering kids’ mental development, but this differs from pet to pet. If you’ve got a cat that’s a night owl, who naps lightly then likes to roam, it’ll likely be waking your child up by padding on the bedroom door and meowing to be let out! On the other hand, if your pooch sleeps like a log and doesn’t hog the covers, then it won’t wake your child up.
That being said, at least one study has shown that sleep quality and length can be negatively affected by sleeping with animals, although the study wasn’t very in-depth and didn’t note things such as where the animal slept or what the exact impact on sleep was.
Then there are matters of attachment, and here, sleeping with their much-loved pet is likely to be good for your child’s mental health as it’ll boost the bond between them. A pet can also help young kids to sleep independently if they’re moving into their first big bed, comforting them and playing the role of a security blanket.
For the pet, the same can be true, but it’s important not to let attachment turn into dependency – they’ll find it hard to be away from their sleeping partner. Also, studies have shown that if a pet is behaving badly, such as scratching on the bedroom door wanting to be let in, letting it come in to sleep can mean that you’re simply giving in and promoting its bad habits. To stop this, train your pet completely before letting them share the bed with family members.
Physical health
In terms of whether or not your pet will make your kids ill if it sleeps near them, this depends on the pet. Obviously, if your pet has parasites like fleas and sleeps very close to your kids, the fleas might spread to them, and the same goes for diseases that can spread between humans and animals.
Despite this though, if you regularly clean your pet and take them for check-ups at the vets, veterinarians say there’s no need to worry. You’re more likely to get a disease from another human than another animal (despite headlines about bird and swine flu), and health bodies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer no warnings on pet-human sleeping unless the human has a problem with their immune system.
So there you have it – while there are some caveats, there’s nothing to fear from letting your kids sleep with their much-loved pets. If you love nothing better than snuggling up with your pooch or pussycat, make sure to click here and enter a pic of your pet snoozing into our Sleepiest Pets competition. The winning post will get a £75 Amazon voucher!
Is it natural?
The first question to answer is whether we’ve always slept with our animals through history, or if it’s a recent thing that’s otherwise not natural at all.
The answer? Yes, it is natural! Researchers from Australia’s Central Queensland University recently investigated the issue, and found that through history, humans and animals have always slept together, and that like co-sleeping with children, the arguments against it formed in the Victorian age, when the idea of a household and fears regarding animals and family members sleeping together became widespread.
Instead, sleeping in the same bed with other people and animals was seen as a way to generate heat, increase security and simply bond with one another – all perfectly natural things.
Is it healthy?
Some parents might be scared that sleeping next to a pet – who, let’s be honest, aren’t the cleanest of creatures from time to time – might damage them physically (with things like diseases or parasites) or mentally (by disrupting their sleep cycles). So, is there any truth to either fear?
Mental health
Snuggling up with pets could be seen to affect the quality of sleep, hampering kids’ mental development, but this differs from pet to pet. If you’ve got a cat that’s a night owl, who naps lightly then likes to roam, it’ll likely be waking your child up by padding on the bedroom door and meowing to be let out! On the other hand, if your pooch sleeps like a log and doesn’t hog the covers, then it won’t wake your child up.
That being said, at least one study has shown that sleep quality and length can be negatively affected by sleeping with animals, although the study wasn’t very in-depth and didn’t note things such as where the animal slept or what the exact impact on sleep was.
Then there are matters of attachment, and here, sleeping with their much-loved pet is likely to be good for your child’s mental health as it’ll boost the bond between them. A pet can also help young kids to sleep independently if they’re moving into their first big bed, comforting them and playing the role of a security blanket.
For the pet, the same can be true, but it’s important not to let attachment turn into dependency – they’ll find it hard to be away from their sleeping partner. Also, studies have shown that if a pet is behaving badly, such as scratching on the bedroom door wanting to be let in, letting it come in to sleep can mean that you’re simply giving in and promoting its bad habits. To stop this, train your pet completely before letting them share the bed with family members.
Physical health
In terms of whether or not your pet will make your kids ill if it sleeps near them, this depends on the pet. Obviously, if your pet has parasites like fleas and sleeps very close to your kids, the fleas might spread to them, and the same goes for diseases that can spread between humans and animals.
Despite this though, if you regularly clean your pet and take them for check-ups at the vets, veterinarians say there’s no need to worry. You’re more likely to get a disease from another human than another animal (despite headlines about bird and swine flu), and health bodies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer no warnings on pet-human sleeping unless the human has a problem with their immune system.
So there you have it – while there are some caveats, there’s nothing to fear from letting your kids sleep with their much-loved pets. If you love nothing better than snuggling up with your pooch or pussycat, make sure to click here and enter a pic of your pet snoozing into our Sleepiest Pets competition. The winning post will get a £75 Amazon voucher!
