Meet the co-sleeping family who all share a bedroom – and even let their 12-year-old daughter snuggle in with them.
Meagan Deal, 31, and her husband Brandon, 32, have been letting their daughters share their bed since they were babies.
Their eldest Mckenzie, 12, has always struggled getting to sleep and stayed in the couple’s king sized bed until she was 10.
Now she has her own bed at the foot of her parents but youngest Sarah Grace, six, still curls up in between them.
Meagan and Brandon say it’s left up to their daughters to decide when they want to sleep in their own room despite some people describing it as 'toxic'.
Stay-at-home mum Meagan, from Montgomery, Alabama, USA, said: “Mckenzie was really tiny.
“We had a really hard time with her sleeping by herself. She stayed in our bed and just never got out of it.
“She has tried her own bedroom but never makes it through the night.”
Meagan first decided to try co-sleeping with Mckenzie when she was a baby to help her to drop off.
She then lost her hearing aged six and felt “scared” to go to sleep in her own room as she couldn’t see or hear her parents.
Meagan added: “It’s a comfort to have us right there with her. We would sing and she’d feel our throats.
“With Sarah Grace – she was an active baby. To get her to sleep I’d have to nurse her. She’s still in our bed.”
Mckenzie started sleeping in her own bed aged 10 but remained in her parents room.
Meagan said: “She was getting bigger and everybody was starting to get less sleep.
“I was pregnant with James Mitchell, who was stillborn, and I was talking to her saying we were about to have a baby - and less space.
"At first she just lay there but wouldn't sleep on it. However by the age of 10 she started sleeping in her bed."
Meagan and Brandon set a strict bed time to make sure they get time as a couple when the girls are asleep.
Megan said: “8pm is bed time [for the children].We go to bed at 10.30pm or 11pm.
“With co-sleeping we make alone time a priority.”
Brandon, who works in fire protection systems, added: “People ask ‘how do you get alone time?’
“It’s important as a couple to have alone time. We watch TV, we stay up and talk. We get to have some childless time.”
“They say ‘it’s toxic for your children’. But I knew a lot of friends growing up who used to sleep in their parents bed.
"It's more of a foreign conversation in Northern America."
Both girls have a shared room they can sleep in, but currently choose not to.
The couple believe eventually their children will move out and into their own room.
Meagan said: “Mckenzie is getting close to having her own room. She’s extremely independent.”
Brandon added: “We wouldn’t be sad if they wanted to sleep in their own room. It’s up to them.”
Meagan Deal, 31, and her husband Brandon, 32, have been letting their daughters share their bed since they were babies.
Their eldest Mckenzie, 12, has always struggled getting to sleep and stayed in the couple’s king sized bed until she was 10.
Now she has her own bed at the foot of her parents but youngest Sarah Grace, six, still curls up in between them.
Meagan and Brandon say it’s left up to their daughters to decide when they want to sleep in their own room despite some people describing it as 'toxic'.
Stay-at-home mum Meagan, from Montgomery, Alabama, USA, said: “Mckenzie was really tiny.
“We had a really hard time with her sleeping by herself. She stayed in our bed and just never got out of it.
“She has tried her own bedroom but never makes it through the night.”
Meagan first decided to try co-sleeping with Mckenzie when she was a baby to help her to drop off.
She then lost her hearing aged six and felt “scared” to go to sleep in her own room as she couldn’t see or hear her parents.
Meagan added: “It’s a comfort to have us right there with her. We would sing and she’d feel our throats.
“With Sarah Grace – she was an active baby. To get her to sleep I’d have to nurse her. She’s still in our bed.”
Mckenzie started sleeping in her own bed aged 10 but remained in her parents room.
Meagan said: “She was getting bigger and everybody was starting to get less sleep.
“I was pregnant with James Mitchell, who was stillborn, and I was talking to her saying we were about to have a baby - and less space.
"At first she just lay there but wouldn't sleep on it. However by the age of 10 she started sleeping in her bed."
Meagan and Brandon set a strict bed time to make sure they get time as a couple when the girls are asleep.
Megan said: “8pm is bed time [for the children].We go to bed at 10.30pm or 11pm.
“With co-sleeping we make alone time a priority.”
Brandon, who works in fire protection systems, added: “People ask ‘how do you get alone time?’
“It’s important as a couple to have alone time. We watch TV, we stay up and talk. We get to have some childless time.”
“They say ‘it’s toxic for your children’. But I knew a lot of friends growing up who used to sleep in their parents bed.
"It's more of a foreign conversation in Northern America."
Both girls have a shared room they can sleep in, but currently choose not to.
The couple believe eventually their children will move out and into their own room.
Meagan said: “Mckenzie is getting close to having her own room. She’s extremely independent.”
Brandon added: “We wouldn’t be sad if they wanted to sleep in their own room. It’s up to them.”
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FunTranscript
00:00 Hey, me, Molly, and Sissy's about to lay down.
00:02 You gonna be all right here?
00:04 I don't know.
00:04 I thought I could do it, but I don't think I'm ready.
00:07 Well, that's fine.
00:08 If you don't think you're ready, just come lay back down with us.
00:11 It's just that when I take my processor off, I can't hear.
00:14 And when I can't hear or see anybody, I just don't like the feeling.
00:18 All right, that's fine.
00:19 Come on, jump in bed with us.
00:20 All right, girls, where y'all at?
00:28 It's time for bed.
00:29 Here we are, we're ready.
00:31 Here we are, we're ready.
00:32 Those babies are not going in bed with us.
00:34 Dad, we want to co-sleep with our babies, just like you and Mommy do.
00:38 If you want to co-sleep with all your babies, you do it in your own bed, not ours.
00:41 Are you serious?
00:42 Okay, I'll tell you what.
00:44 Y'all can take the babies to bed, but as soon as y'all fall asleep, the babies is going on the floor.
00:48 So a lot of people have given us crap for being a co-sleeping family, right?
00:55 But I guarantee you, you watching this video right now have co-slept.
00:58 Let me tell you why.
01:00 Co-sleeping is not just one family in the same bed.
01:02 It's one family that shares the same room or bed.
01:05 So if you stayed in a hotel before, you have co-slept.
01:08 So when people find out that we're a co-sleeping family,
01:10 they think we all pile up on one bed.
01:11 That is not the case.
01:12 Let me show you how it goes.
01:13 So this is our king bed.
01:15 I'll sleep on that side, Megan in the middle, little Sarah Grace right here.
01:19 This little twin-sized bed at the foot of our bed is where Mackenzie sleeps.
01:22 You say, "Why does she sleep there?"
01:23 Mackenzie, why do you like to sleep in the twin bed in our bedroom?
01:27 I don't know. It's a little safer.
01:28 And you might wonder if Sarah Grace gets too big to sleep up here with us,
01:32 what are we going to do?
01:32 Put another bed in here?
01:33 I don't know. We'll figure that out when we get there.