Three in a Bed: The Benefits of Sleeping with Your Baby

I read this book with my wife when she was pregnant. The information and the writing style were very natural, exactly what we're looking for. Just make sure to read it open minded. Our daughter is now 3 years old, has a cradle placed together with our bed and sometimes sleeps with us. I can tell you: it couldn't be any different! If the couple is ready to do what they feel instead of what people say is right, this is the book for your family. Great work Deborah! Thank you!

I thoroughly enjoyed Three in a Bed. It offers sound explanations of why allowing your baby to sleep with you is best for him and you! I found the information about other cultures and their baby-rearing techniques very interesting -- the author succeeds at putting Western culture's baby ideas into perspective. This is a must for parents who want to do right by their babies!

As a Physician and Parent (of a 22 month old), I am very gratefull for this book. Please do not listen to the reviewer from Toronto who labeled this book as dangerous! I am a Family Physician who has looked into this issue long and hard. The "experts" who promote fear and guilt to mother's who are following their biological instincts to nurture their babies, are not 'experts" at all. The truth of the matter is that most Physicians and other Health Care providers know very little of the facts related to co-sleeping, and instead perpetuate the same ill-informed opinions passed on from their unenlightened mentors or their own families. This book presents in very clear terms the benefits of co sleeping that the majority of the world already knows about. For the last 100 years in this country, we have told mothers to ignore their hard wired instincts "for the benefit of the child". In addition to breastfeeding, co-sleeping became an abnormallity, and was viewed as a "primitive", "uncivilized" relic from our cave-dwelling past. Fortunately, the tide of breastfeeding is on the upswing despite the corporate formula interests involved. Today, even the conservative American Academy of Peditricians reccommends breast feeding till at least 1 year old (the World Health Organization reccommends at least 2 years). I hope that some day the irrational fears associated with co sleeping will gain this same type of informed acceptance. I think this book is a great addition to the growing body of EVIDENCE to counter the "fear of smothering or spoiling your child" brainwashing that we in the western world have in the past accepted without question.

This book is the most persuasive case I've ever read, not just bed sharing, but for holding and nursing our babies. Even if parents don't like the idea of sleeping with their babies and children, this book should persuade them at least to hold their babies more of the time than most in our society do. If all new parents would read this well-researched book, we might turn the tide on parenting styles that have babies isolated in cribs, carriages and car seats. Jackson shows that babies are meant to be close to their caretakers, that touch is crucial to their well being and that staying close with one's baby actually makes early parenthood easier on the parents.

This book is wonderful. Even though I'd already read a lot about the subjects that it tackles (cosleeping, breastfeeding, child-rearing, among others), and already practice a lot of what it advocates, I found it to be eye-opening and mind-opening in so many unexpected ways. It is well-written and very well-researched -- and thus more worthwhile and more convincing than some books/articles on the same subject which are too shrill, propagandistic, and/or New Age-y for my taste. Even if you don't think you're interested in cosleeping, but are interested in breastfeeding, or in rearing a happy and secure child, this book has something for you. I only wish I'd discovered it sooner! Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down (and more so than the previous reviewer, I found the first half of the book both fascinating and informative -- perhaps even more so than the later "practical" chapters).