OPINION:
Is the key to a good night's sleep sharing a room with your kids? Gib shortages, broken pipes and staffing issues have put the rebuilding of our downstairs behind schedule. With the master and spare room out of action, we've billeted family members around the house. I've been sleeping on the floor of my son's bedroom. He hates it. I love it. Why? My theory is that I'm resting easy because I am there ready to defend my child if a ninja assassin breaks in and attacks. Even in slumber, I feel the natural ease of a protective parent doing his job. My son, on the other hand, isn't sleeping at all due to my horrific snoring.
Obviously, sharing a room isn't uncommon in New Zealand. Most people hit the hay with a significant other. It's a healthy lifestyle choice in some ways but it doesn't create the primal protective buzz bunking with a kid does. That's because fellow adults can get themselves out of the house in an emergency. It's the little ones down the hall you unconsciously stress over. Sleeping on the ground, ready to fight for your dependants is powerful. Whatever benefits you get from sharing a room with an adult are wiped out by her duvet hogging, reading with the light on and watching Netflix on her laptop with the sound up.
Digs in South Africa's Border Cave archaeological site suggest family and tribal groups have been communally sleeping for more than 200,000 years, according to Professor Lyn Wadley, of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
"There is evidence that multiple people slept on grass surfaces at the back of these caves. They worked there too. We know this because debris from stone tool manufacture is mixed with the grass remains of the bedding".