Letter: Let the children into bed

THERE is so much left out of Sarah Litvinoff's discussion of family co-sleeping that it is misleading on the issue ("Just the three of us", Real Life , 18 October).

Until recently it was normal for the majority of the earth's people to sleep together as family - but in dwellings and beds very different to ones used by your readers. My ex-wife and I believed that it was indefensible to lock or exclude from our bedroom; also that childhood feelings of isolation and exclusion - especially at night - will cause or worsen a later neurosis or depression.

Never did our own two children abuse the promise we gave that they need never be alone at night. Always they would make their way to our bedsides in the dark safely and ask if they could come into our bed. Always we said yes; always, after a brief period would they voluntarily agree to go back to their own beds. Behind our excuses for not having children in our beds is a fear of closeness and a fear of sex.

GRAHAM CAREY

Bingley, West Yorkshire