Get out of my bed

Watch A Volvo Commercial That Sweetly Normalizes Co-Sleeping With Older Kids

The car company shrugged off the stigma surrounding co-sleeping past toddlerhood in a commercial that captures everyday family life.

A 2022 Volvo commercial normalizes cosleeping with older children.
YouTube

If you’re a parent that exercises attachment parenting, it’s likely your kids slept in bed with you in some form or another when they were babies or toddlers. But what parents talk about less openly is how prevalent it is to bed share with older kids — kids who might sneak into your room under cover of darkness or kids who might not be able to go to sleep all alone in their rooms quite yet.

Whether you choose it or not, co-sleeping with bigger kids is a regular part of life for millions of families. And yet it’s often treated as unnatural, coddling, or just pain weird, especially in American culture.

Because of that, it’s always refreshing to see it spoken about openly by celebrities, spotted in movies and books, or, as in this case, glimpsed as a part of everyday life during a car commercial.

More: Yes, My 9 Year Old Still Sleeps With Me. Deal.

Recently, car company Volvo normalized big kid co-sleeping in a cute and touching ad — and it wasn’t even for minivans.

The advert, which promotes their new Volvo Recharge Hybrid Plug-in model, is titled “The Chase” and features two parents and their daughter, who looks to be in elementary school. Focused on the rough and tumble day-to-day of all families, the one-minute spot is filled with scenes of their morning routine, scrambling to work, and kid pick-up meltdowns. The daughter, who is grade school level, starts off in her bed and always ends up right in between mom and dad in the morning. Sound familiar?

In the opening scene, we see mom hanging halfway off the side of the bed and dad totally knocked out with an arm on his face. Towards the end of the commercial, the next morning, the little girl is now sprawled upside down, and again, mom is hanging on for dear life while dad dodges her long limbs.

I could not think of a more accurate depiction.

Even celebrities are being more open about co-sleeping with older children these days, like Alicia Silverstone, who recently admitted she still sleeps with her 11-year-old son, Bear.

“I’m a natural mama, and I’m a loving mama. I believe in love, I believe in nature, and our society is scared of nature and love,” she shared on The Ellen Fisher Podcast.

Yellowjackets star Christina Ricci also revealed she co-sleeps with her 8-year-old son, Freddie, but not her youngest, Cleo, who is nine months old.

“The fact that I can put her down in her crib and she just goes to sleep when my 8-year-old still sleeps with me is amazing,” Ricci told People.

When it came to how she decided on sleeping methods, she admits both of her children were different, and while Freddie preferred co-sleeping, using the crib with Cleo was what worked best for her, saying, “It was like she was ready and she wanted to do it, and it was right for her.”

There is no right way, just any way that works best for your kids. Kudos to Volvo for depicting a reality we don’t normally see in advertisements!