Definition
Co-sleeping refers to any situation in which a committed adult caregiver, usually the mother, sleeps within close proximity to her infant, so both parties can respond to the others’ sensory signals, permitting mutual monitoring and regulation.
Introduction
For humans, mother-infant co-sleeping reflects adaptation for intensive parenting. Among mammals, co-sleeping with newborn offspring is universal as infants are born underdeveloped, typically without hair and therefore require mother for thermoregulation and continual nourishment. Social primates derive additional benefits from co-sleeping (i.e., mother-infant, but also group-sleeping with other kin) such as protecting an infant from predation, within-group competitive interactions, and infanticide (Nunn et al. 2009). Co-sleeping for humans in the early stages of infancy allows the mother to...
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Oxford, J., Oxford, D. (2017). Co-sleeping. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_799-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_799-1
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