We have 1 schnauzer in the house, and 3 outside. These are one of the best intrusion detection systems in the world. They will bark if a mouse farts 2 houses down. If someone so much as rattled a window or bumped an exterior door, they go off. So I'm not worried about someone getting to my gun in the middle of the night. But when we leave the house, the nightstand guns are on us.
Mostly the same here.Here's my siuation: There's only a handgun in my nightstand while I'm sleeping, because it's my carry gun. Carry it all day, put it in the nightstand at bedtime and put it back on in the morning. I can't carry all the time (my office), so I take it from the nightstand to the safe then. Don't leave a gun in the sightstand if you're not within reach of it.
Just my $0.02
I keep my daily pistol on the nightstand at night. I think the important thing, at least in my family, is proper education of children. All my kids were raised with firearms in the house. All of them were taught from a very young age to respect firearms. This does not mean that I am careless in any way, I always have them out of reach except at night when sleeping. I do feel a little better with a condition 1 1911 then other pistols just due to the manual safety and grip safety. YMMV