Co-sleeping may sound like a hippy-dippy practice only maintained on communes and by Maggie Gyllenhaal’s delightful character in Away We Go, but it’s actually far more common than you might realize. In fact, studies have shown that co-sleeping is widely practiced and widely underreported. Why? Parents simply don’t want to admit they’re co-sleeping, because of stigma and presumed risks. Because yes, the practice has ben linked to sleep-related deaths — but there are absolutely ways to co-sleep safely, as the celebs ahead (and so many of us moms who also do this, either out of desire or necessity) can show. In fact, a Yale University study showed that the number of parents and kids who co-sleep nearly doubled between the ’90s and 2018.
Board-certified lactation consultant Leigh Anne O’Connor tells SheKnows that not only is co-sleeping safe when practiced correctly; it actually decreases the SIDS risks if the parent is nursing the co-sleeping baby. “The baby and their breastfeeding parent attune to each other in a specific way when they are breastfeeding. The baby picks up the breathing pattern of their parent,” O’Connor explains. As for co-sleeping with older kids? Well, there’s really not much of a risk at all there — other than, you know, a potential kick to the eye and/or a dent in your sex life.
And although co-sleeping has spurred major debate, there are plenty of celebs who swear by it for reasons as varied as the families themselves. Plus, co-sleeping is just one spoke of the whole attachment parenting wheel — along with practices like extended breastfeeding, baby-led weaning, and baby-wearing — that hopes to encourage family bonding and closeness in a safe, natural way. Who can argue with that? (You can, of course — but if you choose to do so in the comments, please do it kindly. Alanis Morissette may be watching.)
A version of this story was originally published in March 2016.
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Adrienne Bailon
Image Credit: Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images. Adrienne Bailon revealed to People that she and her son co-sleep, and because of that, they transformed his bedroom. “The reality is we co-sleep so we don’t call it his bedroom anymore,” she said.
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Rumer Willis
Image Credit: Michael Tullberg/Getty Images In a Dec. 2023 Instagram Q&A, Rumer Willis said she and Derek Richard Thomass have coslept with their daughter Louetta (who was 1 at the time) “from the day she was born.”
“My dear friend and wonderful mama and doula Carson Meyer gave me an amazing book called Safe Infant Sleep that gave me so much confidence,” she said.
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Ice-T & Coco Austin
Image Credit: Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty Images Ice-T said has a special bond with his youngest child for a surprising reason. The rapper revealed in a 2023 episode of That Moment with Daymond John podcast that his then-7-year-old daughter Chanel (b. 2015) sleeps with him and her mom Coco Austin.
“I am so much more connected to her than my other kids,” he said. He has two grown children — Letesha and Tracy — from previous relationships.
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Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi
Image Credit: Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for MTV Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of Jersey Shore fame told Us in 2021 that she sleeps with her daughter Giovanna (b. 2014) and her husband Jionni LaValle sleeps with their son Lorenzo (b. 2012) in his bed. Baby Angelo (b. 2019) sleeps solo. Snooki said she feels “no shame” co-sleeping.
“[I] still make time for romantic times [with Jionni]. We’ll text each other and be like, ‘Want to meet me in the guest room?’ It’s kind of cute that we have that, like, all over the house.”
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Julia Fox
Image Credit: Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty Image In Jan. 2023, Uncut Gems star Julia Fox revealed on TikTok that she sleeps with her son Valentino (b. 2021).
“He only wants to be in Mama’s room,” Fox said. “He, like, doesn’t even sleep in [his room]. He sleeps in bed with me. Yeah, we’re co-sleepers. Sue me, I don’t care.”
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Jamie Otis & Doug Hehner
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images When Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner — who met on Married at First Sight — moved their family of four into an RV in an attempt to “declutter” and “simplify” their lives, their daughter Henley (b. 2017) moved into their bed. Otis told Us Weekly that her sex life with Hehner was “dwindling” with Henley sleeping in their bed but noted that the change made her “grow closer” with her daughter.
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Kourtney Kardashian
Image Credit: Getty Images Kourtney Kardashian has been very open about co-sleeping with her children, and in an interview with Amanda Hirsch on Dear Media’s Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, she revealed they still co-sleep. “[Penelope] has slept with me every day since she was born and pretty much still does,” she said. “Unless she has a friend sleep over or unless she leaves me to go sleep at Travis’ or Auntie Coco’s [Khloé] or Auntie Kiki’s [Kim]. But besides that, we are so close.”
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Christina Ricci
Image Credit: Michael Buckner for Variety. Christina Ricci recently told People that her son Freddie, 8, sleeps with her still, saying, “The fact that I can put her down in her crib and she just goes to sleep when my 8-year-old still sleeps with me is amazing.”
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Kristin Cavallari
Image Credit: Christopher Polk for Variety. Kristin Cavallari told stylist Dani Michelle on Instagram Live in May 2020 that she and her kids reverted to co-sleeping amidst the relative chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic plus Cavallari’s divorce from husband and co-parent Jay Cutler.
“I don’t normally let my kids sleep with me, but I’ve been rotating my kids for the last week,” Cavallari said on the IG Live session for Revolve. “It’s cute but those are the moments that will never be the same, we’ll never get those back. So in that sense, I’ve been trying to really enjoy that time with my kids.”
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Leah Messer
Image Credit: J. Merritt/FilmMagic. “They all sleep in bed with me. It’s so crazy,” Teen Mom star Leah Messer, who is a single mom to three girls ranging in age from age from 9 to 13, told SheKnows in an exclusive interview in April 2020. “Addie laid right on top of me and the twins laid on each side of me until I couldn’t breathe anymore. The other night Addie tried to sleep in her bed, but it was too hard. Addie will say to her sisters, ‘You guys are old enough to sleep in your own beds now!’ And they just don’t yet. One day I’m going to miss them not sleeping with me. If I had a spouse it would be different, but I don’t so we all sleep together.”
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Milla Jovovich
Image Credit: Samir Hussein/WireImage. Milla Jovovich has been a proud advocate of co-sleeping. In a Romy and the Bunnies blog post in 2015, the actor wrote: “I always thought that the Western way of raising kids was so disconnected. Everyone has their cubicle at home, babies go into nurseries, little kids have their own rooms. You are so separated from one another! We have been co-sleeping for years with our daughter and I feel that it’s helped us so much to stay connected as a family.”
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Tia Mowry-Hardrict
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety. Tia Mowry-Hardrict does not hold back when it comes to parenting struggles, whether it’s pantyliner art projects or co-sleeping’s effects on her sex life. “My son was in our bed until he was four,” she said on People Now in 2019. At the time, she and her husband, Cory Hardrict, were continuing to co-sleep with their 1-year-old as well. Her sex life solution to having one or two kids in bed every night?
“There are other rooms in the house!”
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Tori Spelling
Image Credit: Christopher Polk for Variety. Tori Spelling wrote on her website that she loves “having the kids in our bed to cuddle, and I think the bigger the bed, the better.” Hey, if you’ve got the real estate, a California King will work wonders for everyone getting along – and getting some sleep.
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Alicia Silverstone
Image Credit: Getty Images. The Clueless star and SHE Media #BlogHer Healthy at Home speaker is well-known for her sometimes controversial stances on motherhood and attachment parenting. An entire chapter of her book The Kind Mama is devoted to co-sleeping, in which she says, “Sharing a bed with Baby means you can tune in better to her needs, which in turn builds security and trust.”
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Gwen Stefani
Image Credit: Getty Images “I don’t want to look back and say, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t sleep with Zuma that time because I was too tired,’ so I’ll just snuggle up with him tonight,” singer Gwen Stefani has said of bedsharing with her little ones. “It’s probably why I work as I hard as I do — I don’t want to look back and see the things I didn’t do.”
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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
Image Credit: Getty Images “Right now, Pax is sleeping in our bed,” Angelina Jolie said in a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair. “It’s kind of nice, him immediately knowing and feeling comfortable with us. Mad slept with me until Brad and I got together. They’re fun to sleep with. We have family sleep on Sundays. Everybody sleeps together.”
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Heidi Klum
Image Credit: Getty Images When her daughter Lou was born, Klum said, “She needs to be close to her mother. She will sleep now for a year with us in our bedroom — just as her siblings did. It’s easier at night if she is hungry.”
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Alanis Morissette
Image Credit: Getty Images Alanis Morissette wrote an entire blog post dedicated to her strong feelings about attachment parenting, saying that “I personally believe that the attachment stage, done well, can circumvent countless addictions later in life because many of these addictions are often a temporary attempt at feeling this sense of connection.” She is quick to meet her child’s need to be close to her at all times because “During the attachment stage, dependency reigns and is appropriate.”
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Josie Bissett
Image Credit: Getty Images The former Melrose Place star hopped onto the attachment parenting and co-sleeping trains easily: “He takes a nap and so do I,” Bissett said of her routine with her son Mason. “He’s with his dad when I’m not with him.”
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Phoebe Cates & Kevin Kline
Image Credit: Getty Images For Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline, co-sleeping was natural for their family. “There is a theory that a child has to teach itself to go to sleep, and if every time it cries you whisk them out of their bed — the jury is still out on that. But our kids still sleep in our bed,” Klein told OK! magazine in 2007.
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Nia Long
Image Credit: Getty Images Actress Nia Long is a self-proclaimed “hands-on” kind of mom. She loves her close relationship with her son Massai. When he was 9 years old, she admitted “my son still sleeps in bed with me… and I love it.”
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Salma Hayek
Image Credit: Getty Images Salma Hayek is a proponent of attachment parenting and stold Parents she heeded her aunt’s advice to put her daughter Valentina “to sleep yourself every night. Sing to her and cradle her in your arms and sit by her side — every night. Because one day, you won’t be able to carry her anymore, and it’s going to happen really fast.”
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Mayim Bialik
Image Credit: Getty Images The Big Bang Theory star and Ph.D. is such a strong advocate of attachment parenting, she literally wrote the book on it. “Safe co-sleeping is not difficult,” Bialik says on sharing a bed with her children. “It is completely normal and natural.”
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Leah Remini
Image Credit: Getty Images The King of Queens star often let her daughter snuggle up in the family bed. While being “interviewed” by her daughter Sofia, in 2010, the then-6-year-old revealed, “I like to sleep with you and Daddy sometimes. But sometimes I kick Daddy out of bed by accident and he ends up sleeping on the couch.”
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