Rating: 
Summary: NOT SAFE
Review: According to the book, the author is saying that there are benefits sleeping with your baby. I do not agree; then why do cribs exist. Babies should NEVER sleep in the same bed as the parents. There are NUMEROUS accidents of babies suffocating due to the parents rolling over. If the experts all state that a baby should NEVER sleep with the parents in the same bed, then perhaps we should all follow this advise. This book should should be taken off the market...we do not need people encouraging parents to sleep with their children. If there were ever an accident to occur, the parents will blame themselves and they should.
Rating: 
Summary: Validates co-sleeping
Review: An excellent book to help you feel that the decision to have your baby in your bed is the right idea. Great information to have on hand. However, the book doesn't tell you how to get your baby to SLEEP in your bed! For that I found a perfect companion to this in The No-Cry Sleep Solution a book that is supportive of co-sleeping and breastfeeding but also acknowledges that sleep is important, too.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read
Review: As a childbirth educator in training, I want this book available for all of my students/ all parents-to-be as a counter to all of the "sleep through the night" books out there. Almost every mother I've spoken with "admits" to the "bad habit" of sometimes giving in" and keeping her baby in bed with her. Now there is strong evidence demonstrating that not only that this is safe, but also beneficial for both infant and parents alike.I particularly like the chapter on quick responses to typical objections. We never used the crib or smaller cradle give to us as gifts by extended family members. What is amazing to me is the response I get when another mother asks for advice for solving sleep deprivation and wakeful baby problems and I explain why we can't commiserate. They inevitably try to convince me that we should get our child out of our bed! So we CAN commiserate, I suppose?
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: As a childbirth educator in training, I want this book available for all of my students/ all parents-to-be as a counter to all of the "sleep through the night" books out there. Almost every mother I've spoken with "admits" to the "bad habit" of sometimes giving in" and keeping her baby in bed with her. Now there is strong evidence demonstrating that not only that this is safe, but also beneficial for both infant and parents alike. I particularly like the chapter on quick responses to typical objections. We never used the crib or smaller cradle give to us as gifts by extended family members. What is amazing to me is the response I get when another mother asks for advice for solving sleep deprivation and wakeful baby problems and I explain why we can't commiserate. They inevitably try to convince me that we should get our child out of our bed! So we CAN commiserate, I suppose?
Rating:
Summary: A Doctors opinion
Review: As a Physician and Parent (of a 22 month old), I am very gratefull for this book. Please do not listen to the reviewer from Toronto who labeled this book as dangerous! I am a Family Physician who has looked into this issue long and hard. The "experts" who promote fear and guilt to mother's who are following their biological instincts to nurture their babies, are not 'experts" at all. The truth of the matter is that most Physicians and other Health Care providers know very little of the facts related to co-sleeping, and instead perpetuate the same ill-informed opinions passed on from their unenlightened mentors or their own families. This book presents in very clear terms the benefits of co sleeping that the majority of the world already knows about. For the last 100 years in this country, we have told mothers to ignore their hard wired instincts "for the benefit of the child". In addition to breastfeeding, co-sleeping became an abnormallity, and was viewed as a "primitive", "uncivilized" relic from our cave-dwelling past. Fortunately, the tide of breastfeeding is on the upswing despite the corporate formula interests involved. Today, even the conservative American Academy of Peditricians reccommends breast feeding till at least 1 year old (the World Health Organization reccommends at least 2 years). I hope that some day the irrational fears associated with co sleeping will gain this same type of informed acceptance. I think this book is a great addition to the growing body of EVIDENCE to counter the "fear of smothering or spoiling your child" brainwashing that we in the western world have in the past accepted without question.
Rating:
Summary: Thank you for permission to follow our instincts
Review: As new parents, we were baffled by the rules and regulations regarding feeding and sleeping our beautiful baby girl. The barbaric advice we were given in relation to 'crying it out' and 4 hourly feeds (even if you have to wake the baby!) set us off to a horror start. Attachment parenting is a lot more work. But lets face it, if a parent wants to hear the patter of a little, soft, trained and convenient addition to the family, they should buy a dog. The absolutely euphoric feeling I received when, as the dad, I watched my baby play on our bed and drift off to sleep without so much as a wimper, makes me believe everyone should give it a go. Prior to this, I was looking at months of night wakings and rocking/walking the baby to sleep. No wonder all the new parents are shell shocked and suffering chronic fatigue. The history of the dettachment parenting is alarming to say the least. Families scared of being labelled 'poor' if they have children sleep in the family bed or treating newborns and toddlers as dictators or tyrants are the most ludicrous of the philosophies that the book has dismissed. If you place a new skier on a black diamond run and treat them like a world class skier - they will probably kill themselves in the fall on the way down. Similarly with a new born. These are new humans who require lots of patient training and example before they will be able to act like an adult. Treating them like adults from birth will not hasten independence but provide therapists with years of work trying to undo the damage that convenient/dettachment parenting has produced. Just buy the book!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Judge a Book by its Cover
Review: I bought this book because of the adorable cover photo and my interest in the topic of co-sleeping. I was looking for practical information and perhaps some personal anecdotes, but was very disappointed when I found a philosophical, awkwardly compiled volume. I found it to be so unreadable that I could not bear to finish it. Fortunately, I also purchased a book called Good Nights by J.Gordon M.D and Maria Goodavage, which provided the practical information I was looking for in a very enjoyable manner.
Rating:
Summary: Use some Common-Sense!
Review: I can see from the reviews that I risk alienating a lot of people here, but if a review isn't honest, it's not a review! Three in a Bed takes a somewhat extreme view of parenting. Suckle your child until it's ready to stir its own coffee. Sleep with your child until it gets married and leaves home... yeah, okay, I know I exaggerate, but that's the problem with the book. It suggests extreme measures when a little bit of common sense will tell you that you can move gently towards this doctrine without swallowing it hook line and sinker. Maybe I'm biased. I was asked to read Three In a Bed by a friend who was practising the principles word for word. I watched how, over a period of twelve months, it destroyed her relationship with her husband (which is how she came to ask me to read it). Her husband felt alienated and eventually moved into another bedroom. Now he's moved to another country. I watched her child (now walking round chewing gum) lift his mother's jumper and demand 'Milk! Now!' (I'm NOT exaggerating). This sort of behaviour is perverse and it stems from taking this book literally. By all means have your child in bed with you (there are no physical risks as one reviewer suggests), but don't do it at the expense of your own or your partner's well-being. This book suggests that this can't happen. I assure you it can. Take Three in a Bed with a pinch of salt, and you'll raise happy, healthy kids. Take it too literally and you'll probably end up in the divorce courts... I'm only suggesting a little common sense.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I came across it accidentally in a bookshop, looked at the title rather cynically and thought mygod another of those nutty middle class obsessive books (like the ones that suggest three course lunches for your 1 year old). I picked it up and started reading it and thought, wow, this looks interesting and intelligent (i guess more than you can say for many baby books) and I bought it. It was very strange as it tied in with what I was feeling so much without me knowing. When I was getting a few things ready for my expected baby, my mother kept putting pressure on me to get a cot. I'd look at the cluster of cots in the shops forlornly - why did they remind me so much of cages? I actually found it distressing to imagine my baby-to-be in one. I just couldn't bring myself to buy one - I just said I can't afford one (which was true). THEN I came across this book and I knew I was right. But the book is not just about co-sleeping. MOST OF ALL I think its about having a happy, relaxed time with your baby without these nutty routines and disciplines as advised by so many of the 'experts' (one wonders how mothers managed before the mass production of clocks). It was a wonderful upbeat, positive book about being with your baby, and unfortunatley that seems so rare in most books that seem to emphasise the hard work and the disruption to routines and so forth. I read the book many times, it was so fascinating, dealing with breastfeeding, different fashions in baby-rearing, anthropology and so forth. I have found bringing up my baby so far a dream, and I thank this book in large part for supporting my instincts. For the first six months of his life he cried just twice in the night, just twice (most people don't believe me, but as I used to say Why should he cry - he's got his breastmilk to hand and me so he won't be lonesly either). When he woke up in the night crying I knew immediately that he was ill. My son who is now 16 months is loving, happy and independent - and we both have both slept well almost every night from the beginning, despite his wakes for feeds. Also, he doesn't need to take bottled milk to bed, or toys or teddies, or need complicated routines it seems. He just has a bit of milk and off to sleep. (He does need me though!!!!) A friend of mine once asked me why I didn't have a cot for my newborn baby. I said you wouldn't put a kitten alone in a cage so why would you do it to a human baby. She couldn't really say anything cos its common sense and true. A special big thank you to Deborah Jackson, for such a positive, helpful and loving book. I feel very fortunate that I came across it at the right time. It is a utopian dream I know but perhaps one day more babies will be breast fed and feel safe in the night next to mummy.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of compelling arguments, but a bit unrealistic
Review: I discovered Three In A Bed years before I had my son (actually, years before I even met his father!). Jackson's research is compelling, and got me started on the road to attachment parenting--something I'll always be greatful for. However, after my son arrived I found that things were much more difficult than Three In A Bed had led me to believe. Jackson's baby had an easy temperament, and she attributed this to her parenting style. I was expecting an easy baby too, but instead my wonderful son has a high needs temperament, with frequent waking and nursing, intense emotional reactions, etc. I was not prepared for the level of sleep deprivation I faced, as Three In A Bed had led me to believe that I could avoid all that. It's great that Jackson and many other moms could sleep through nursing, but I cannot usually do so. Also, in her question and answer section, she claims that if a baby co-sleeps from birth, there will be no problems with wriggling, kicking the parents, etc.--again, not true for high needs babies. Despite these problems, I still think that sharing sleep is the way to go, and this book is definitely worth reading. However, if your child has a high needs temperament, also read Parenting the Fussy Baby and High Needs Child by William and Martha Sears, which also advocates sharing sleep but does not claim it is a panacea.
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