Q I’m the mother of an adorable six-year-old who still shares our bed. Both my husband and I are aware it’s time for her to sleep in her own bed but we are loth to let her go. She’s our only child and has probably become a bit of a conduit for our relationship. In fact, I’m slightly nervous about sleeping alone with my husband. How should we tackle this?

A I wouldn’t get too excited. Studies into the minefield that is parental sexual frequency show that most couples with young children have sex only once or twice a month, and couples who co-sleep don’t have sex any less frequently than other parents.

The good news is that frequency increases as children get older — couples with children aged 5-18 engage in sex more often than those with children aged 0-4. It is also worth remembering that sexual frequency is only a physical or factual measure of behaviour, whereas marital sexual satisfaction is a psychological or subjective measure of perception. Even if you and your husband are not rocking the headboard every night, you clearly have a deeply caring relationship and even when the frequency of intercourse is low, the sensuality (defined as exchanges of tenderness, hugs, kisses, cuddling, and caressing) in a relationship is known to compensate for sexuality.

I doubt you advertise the fact that your daughter still sleeps with you to friends and family. In Sweden children routinely co-sleep with both their parents until school age, but British people get a bit stiff upper lip about it. A year-long study led by a team from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Durham found that 65 per cent of children in a small town in the North East co-slept with their parents but, tellingly, their parents were covert about the practice because they feared the disapproval of health professionals and relatives.

Getting a baby to sleep is often a case of “whatever gets you through the night” and for some parents that means taking baby into bed. The alternative to safe co-sleeping, “leaving them to cry”, clearly works for some parents, but research by Dr Margot Sunderland, of the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, suggests that babies who are left to cry for prolonged periods show elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol and brain activity similar to that of a young child in physical pain, whereas co-sleeping up to the age of 5 combats separation anxiety.

As a mother I can totally understand how it would seem punitive to send a small girl off to sleep alone while her two parents cosied up with each other. However, in about 18 months, the tsunami of girly sleepovers will start and it is important that your daughter is sleeping independently by then.

Any concerns you might have had about her safety or vulnerability should be long gone, but if her bedroom is up or down a flight of stairs and you worry about her wandering in the night, close her door once she has gone to sleep, and use a baby monitor so that you can hear if she wakes in the night. Your peace of mind is as important as your daughter’s, if only to ensure that you have no excuse for sabotaging the separation process. As soon as you are all settled, you and your husband should try to get away for a weekend without her. Two nights alone will give you time to reconnect with each other and when you get home, sleeping without her won’t seem so strange.

Giving your bedroom a makeover would symbolise a fresh start too. Ideally this would involve repainting, new bed linen, fresh cut flowers, mood music and lingerie, but a set of clean sheets and a quick hoover under the bed will suffice.

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