It isn’t completely clear who constructed The Great Co-Sleeping Survey and keeping mum on the identities of the survey designers’ “us” seems a deliberate move. In a culture where a “very special parenting choice that you had the instinct to make is now being considered NEGLECT by public health officials and may someday be illegal,” designer anonymity makes a statement about a culture that paints all parents who choose co-sleeping with the same brush. After all, co-sleeping is the infant sleeping arrangement used by human groups since the beginning of time, and it is used—safely based on statistics—by the majority of parents worldwide.

Survey designers may be keeping their identities to themselves, but there is nothing hush-hush about their purpose. According to the survey “about” page, designers aim “to prove that there are many people co-sleeping and bed-sharing safely…” and intend that survey “results will provide relief for anyone who has ever felt pressure, or is currently under scrutiny” from others for choosing to co-sleep or let an infant or child share the parents’ bed.

This survey isn’t about scientific rigor. It’s about demonstrating that many responsible, caring parents in our culture believe that co-sleeping or bedsharing is/was the most responsible, caring, safe sleeping choice for their babies or children.

Survey designers want current and former co-sleeping parents to stand up and be counted, and they give every participant a chance to let others know why the parents’ bed was deemed safer than another sleeping arrangement. At the time of writing this post, parents of almost 5500 current or former co-sleeping families had responded. If you’d like to be added to their numbers, head to the survey page now. Perhaps you’re more interested in understanding how responsible parents could ever make the choice to co-sleep. If so, go to the co-sleeping survey results page and scroll through the comments.