Our family of four co-sleeps, including our two daughters (6 and 12 yrs).

Brandon and Meagan Deal from Alabama are a family of four who all co-sleep together - despite the eldest daughter being 12 and the youngest six. The couple had welcomed a son James Mitchell, but sadly he was stillborn.

The Deal family have been sharing their life on YouTube and TikTok, and recently, a video of Brandon explaining their co-sleeping habits has hit 5.2 million views and has polarised viewers. In the video, Brandon said: 'When people find out we're a co-sleeping family they think we all pile up in one bed but that is not the case. This is our king bed, I sleep on that side, Meagan in the middle, and little Sarah Grace right here.' He also pointed to the twin size bed at the bottom of the king and said that's where Mckenzi, his deaf daughter sleeps.

When Brandon asked Mckenzi why she likes sleeping in the same room as her parents and little sister, she said: 'I don't know, it just feels a little safer.' Brandon continued: 'You might wonder if Sarah Grace gets too big to sleep up here with us, what are we going to do? Put another bed in here? I don't know, we will figure that out when we get there.'

The couple explained that co-sleeping is a 'regional' practice common in their neck of the woods, and they were 'shocked' to discover after going viral that it isn't the national norm. Brandon and Meagan both co-slept with their parents growing up, and they said: 'I think Southern parenting is just completely different than Northern parenting.'

While the children do have their own rooms, they still choose to sleep with their parents. Many have been supportive of the family, with one person commenting: 'We were a co-sleeping family. Our kids are 33 and 36 now. Our daughter is 36 and sometimes has to come home and sleep by her daddy when something goes wrong.'

Others weren't so keen on the idea though, questioning how the couple are intimate and how their kids will gain enough independence. Rosey Davidson, sleep consultant and founder of Just Chill Baby Sleep, said that co-sleeping can be a very normal part of family life, and Laura Jones, a birth doula and Kundalini yoga teacher from South London, said she shared a bed with her son until he was 14 years old and believes the experience brought her closer to her child.

Rosey explained that there's no official guidelines, but most children will naturally start to want to sleep on their own at some point. Laura said: 'I knew in myself that when the time was right he'd sleep in his own bed.'

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