Family Of Seven Builds Epic Bed That They Can All Sleep In Together
The ultimate co-sleeping arrangement. [Photo: Instagram/Elizabeth Boyce]
Most people struggle to sleep with just one other person in their bed, so we’re struggling to wrap our heads around what it’s like trying to get a good night’s kip with SIX other people snoozing around you. But one family makes it work for them.
Elizabeth and Tom Boyce from Plano in Texas decided to build a bed that all five of their children could share – along with them. The makeshift bed, created from IKEA beds, allows for the whole family to get some sleep – and zero privacy – in perhaps the largest co-sleeping arrangement yet.
There’s an allocated space for every member of the family. [Photo: Wandering The World Below]
Pretty genius really. [Photo: Wandering The World Below]
Two of the children sleep on top of two regular single beds, while the other three kids and their parents sleep at a slightly lower level on one huge mattress.
On her blog Elizabeth explains what led them to this unusual family sleeping arrangement, after a picture she posted of the bed on Facebook went viral and she found herself on the receiving end of nasty comments.
In a nutshell, the family travel a lot and are used to sharing small sleeping spaces. Also, Tom is disabled and is often ill or needs care at night, while the five children were also keeping Elizabeth and each other up. So moving in together into one big room seemed the obvious choice.
“I was up helping [Tom], nursing a baby, putting kids back into their own beds, soothing a toddler woken by other kids… it was a mess!” Elizabeth writes on her blog. “When we moved everyone together, the toddler got a dark little cave to sleep in. Our anxious, insomniac 11 year old had a dark little cave to sleep in. Our wild sleepers each had their own space and I was still by Tom to help him if he needed it.”
The bed is designed in a way that each of the five children have plenty of room. [Photo: Instagram/Elizabeth Boyce]
It’s arguably one of the greatest IKEA hacks of all time. [Photo: Instagram/Elizabeth Boyce]
Looks pretty cosy, doesn’t it? [Photo: Instagram/Elizabeth Boyce]
The solution seems to work for the family and according to Elizabeth, everyone sleeps just fine.
“Everyone has easy access in and out of their bed. They get up to pee and get a drink and get back in without an issue. Even the baby waking up crying almost never wakes anyone. Tom snores, but well, ear plugs do the trick. And it would be sort of rude to make the husband sleep in his own room!”
Elizabeth even addresses the issue of sex in the blog post, to put as many of the trolls’ scathing comments to rest as possible. “Well the easy answer is that sex doesn’t have to happen in a bed,” she writes.
“There are plenty of 16 year olds who ended up in the back seat of a car to prove that! I think what it boils down to is your lack of imagination. I am sure you can figure it out. In our house, by moving everyone into one room, we suddenly had several other rooms that were completely empty at night and we no longer had small children wandering, crying into our bed in the dark.” Sounds pretty sensible to us!
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