• Many have opinions on sleeping with your children.Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Hamed Saber
  
  

Independent Sleeping

• Many people support infants and children sleeping alone. In fact, those who support children sleeping alone claim that these children will grow to be more independent, have greater self-esteem and be happier, according to psychologytoday.com.
  
  

Co-Sleeping

• Some good news regarding co-sleeping is that recent research shows that there are benefits to parents and infants who share a bed or bedroom at night.
  
  

Co-Sleeping Benefits

• According to the University of Notre Dame, research now shows that infants who sleep with their parents have a number of advantages in childhood, including "strong independence, social competence, feeling of high self esteem, and good comportment by children in school, ability to handle stress, strong gender or sex identities."
  
  

Misconceptions

• According to the Holistic Pediatric Association website, there are many misconceptions regarding co-sleeping. One of the biggest is the sleeping with your children will cause them to suffocate. Another idea is that if you allow your children to sleep with you they will never leave.
  
  

Future

• Parents who allow their children to co-sleep often report children who grow with no fear of bedtime, according to the HPA website. Once these children establish independence and decide to move into their own bedrooms, these children often have "positive, secure images of sleep time. They have no reason to equate bedtime with being alone."