mom gets child abuse accusations after sharing sleeping arrangements online

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.wanderingtheworldbelow.com/adventures/2015/10/3/havoc-at-home-everything-you-ever-wanted-or-didnt-want-to-know-about-the-family-bed

Here’s what happened when a family of 7 started sleeping in the same bed

For Elizabeth and Tom Boyce, the struggle to get some shut-eye each night night can be a battle.

Their challenge: a clan of five, rambunctious kids — ages 1 to 11 — dealing with nightmares, shifting beds, bathroom breaks, anxiety and nursing needs, not to mention Tom’s disability issues that require care.

By the time morning rolls around, Boyce writes on her blog, the couple’s bedroom ends up “covered in palettes full of sleeping children. It got old.”

Their solution: A giant slumber party of sorts, with the entire family co-sleeping in the same bed.

Not just any bed, but a nocturnal mattress fort that the family created using two child-size beds from IKEA in the master bedroom.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/21/heres-what-happened-when-a-family-of-7-started-sleeping-in-the-same-bed/



'I've been told I'm abusing my kids!' Mom-of-five who revealed her entire family of seven sleeps in the SAME BED reveals the hate she has received since she revealed controversial bedroom arrangement
Elizabeth Boyce from Plano, Texas, breaks down in tears in a YouTube video as she reveals the 'hate' she's received about her family's bed

The portrait photographer, 35, says people have even accused her of abusing her children

She and her husband Tom, 44, combined two IKEA beds to create a single sleeping structure for themselves and their five kids

Elizabeth also reveals in the clip that she and Tom thought up the sleeping arrangement after a 'hard year' when he was sick


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3286573/Mom-five-revealed-entire-family-seven-sleeps-BED-speaks-defend-controversial-sleeping-arrangement.html#ixzz3pSmjf7aW
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Kalidurga]

1. For crying out loud that is a great sleeping arrangement

when things are rough kids really do need to be closer to their parents and it's pretty much a 24/7 deal.

[Electric Monk]

2. Child abuse? That's more like the opposite, spoiling the kids by giving in to their every cry.

If the kids still have a choice of their own rooms or sleeping in the 'fort' with mom & dad then I'd call it downright awesome, from the kids point of view.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. Different kids need different things in order to feel safe and secure especially if there is

a disability or a family member that is sick. My son never came and got me during the middle of the night. My daughter came and got me during the middle of the night all the time. There were definitely times where mattresses got dragged from one room to another. If a family member is sick for an extended amount of time and there is fear and uncertainty I can definitely see how having the whole family sleeping together could be beneficial.

[LeftyMom]

4. I'm pro cosleeping for babies and toddlers who aren't too kicky and terrible.

I don't think bringing a sick or nightmare prone five year old into your room for the night is a problem if you don't.

But an eleven year old needs some space because PUBERTY IS HAPPENING.

I think some people lose track of the fact that the point of being a parent is to turn a totally dependent baby into an independent adult in eighteen years or so. And that includes the ability to be alone and to regulate one's own emotions without parental intervention.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. I think they'll be ok.

Throughout history, poor kids have made it into adulthood just fine in houses where everyone slept in the same room, whether or not they even had beds. You do what you can with what you've got.

[tanyev]

6. Well, I couldn't do it, but if it works for them, that's their business.

The thing is, if you had a genuine cure for the common cold and you published it out on the internet, you'd still receive vile hate mail from some people.

[KitSileya]

7. Oh, for heaven's sake! Children having their own bedroom is what is unnatural!

For the entire length of human history, the usual sleeping arrangements have been to have families sleeping together, either in the same bed, or in the same room. If there were two bedrooms, usually the children slept all together and the parents apart from them, but that is a luxury. Anyone with even a tiny understanding of the world and of history would know that.

[laundry_queen]

18. Yep

My mom came from a large family that lived initially in a 2 bedroom farmhouse. The parents usually slept in a separate (tiny) room with the baby, the rest of the kids slept in a larger bedroom, boys and girl separated by a sheet hanging in the middle. Later on, they put an addition on the house which gave them an extra bedroom...The 3 boys had one bedroom and the 5 girls had the other room. My mom went straight from that house to living with my dad, so she's never ever had a room of her own in her life, lol. Oh heck, it just occurred to me that she's never had a BED of her own in her life, her and her older sister had to share beds!

I did the family bed thing when my kids were little, but they generally 'moved out' by the time they were 3 or 4. They were pretty independent kids though, other kids may have been different. I actually think the set up in the photo is pretty cool.

[randome]

8. I disapprove of their family size, not their sleeping arrangements.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[FLPanhandle]

20. +1

[prayin4rain]

9. I love the family bed she made! Thoughtful mom, raising kind and compassionate kids. n/t

[Butterbean]

10. We're in the thick of sleep (rather, no sleep) hell right now, and I think that bed is BRILLIANT.

You do what you have to do to survive and keep your sanity intact. What would people rather she do? Lock her children in their rooms and let them scream? Lock them out of her room and let them scream? How restful do you think that would be for ANYBODY involved? Not to mention, I can PROMISE you there would be people tut-tutting about abuse in those arrangements there. Then there's the angle of what lack of sleep does to a mother's psyche. Take care of a child who is not sleeping for a few months (or in my case, years), and you'll understand exactly why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. It makes you crazy, and it makes you a shitty parent, because you have no energy, patience, or resilience left to parent. You're just drained.

Plus, there's this big ol' study that a little school called Harvard did that shows not responding to your child's cues of distress is actually harmful: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.09/ChildrenNeedTou.html

So yeah, I throw no shade at her. She's doing what she's got to do so that her family is rested and happy and SANE.

[librechik]

11. Ack! for gawd's sake!

If you don't like the way we are forced to live without decent wages, child care, medical coverage and other help of all kinds, bourgeois media, then

PAY US DECENT WAGES AND HELP THOSE WHO CAN"T FIND JOBS!!!

[tabasco]

12. Unusual but no reason for the nanny state to get involved. n/t

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. This is so dumb.

If seen a picture in an IKEA catalog where they have a family bedroom with beds for everybody. Maybe that concept is more accepted in Sweden than it is here.

[RedCappedBandit]

14. This isn't abuse. But their kids are at higher risk of abuse now. Way to go.

[B Calm]

15. God forbid they ever go camping together.

[Pisces]

16. Why would she care what dumb strangers who don't know her family dynamic think.

[Initech]

19. +1

Exactly - their business is nothing but their own.

[ladyVet]

17. I don't see any problems with this, though the 11 year old might want more privacy.

I grew up poor, and we often lived in houses without enough bedrooms so we all shared. The last house we rented had basically only two bedrooms. My parents got one and the four girls got the other.

My brothers really got the short end of the stick: they had to share one room (though one would rather sleep on the couch than share) which was basically a walk through to various parts of the house. If you came through the front door, you had to walk through to get to the living room/kitchen/dining room at the back.

We normally used the back door, but even then you'd have to go through the boys' room to get to my parents' bedroom and the bathroom.

This was in an old mill house, and wasn't built for quality nor for quality of living. Even the room we girls shared had been added on at some point in the past, so I can't imagine how crowded it must have been before that.

[Vinca]

21. Whatever . . . that would drive me nuts.

It must put a real damper on the couple's sex life. I don't think it's abuse, but an older kid might prefer to have his own space.

[DirkGently]

22. Looks more like "coping" than abuse.

Kind of adorable looking, actually.

I hope no one is actually bothering this family over this.