Bed-sharing with toddlers ''will not impact development''
19/07/2011
There is much debate over whether parents should share their bed with their children, but one study claims it will not have any impact on the youngster - providing they are more than one year old.
The American Academy of Paediatrics rebutted claims that kids who share a bed with mum and dad are prone to behavioural or learning problems later in life.
However, the group advises against having children under the age of one in the same bed due to the threat of sudden infant death syndrome.
Researchers assessed 944 low-income families with at least one child under one-year-old at the start of the study, and each family was visited as the youngster turned one, two and three.
Lauren Hale, an associate professor of preventive medicine in the Graduate Programme of Public Health at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, explained that very little investigation had been made into these issues, until now.
Posted by Elizabeth Mewes
