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Bed bugs are little biting parasites...that hang out in beds. Fortunately, I don't think they are a problem in most homes today. The only information I can offer is that the English started using the word "bug" in 1642, and "...Americans use the word much more than the English; thus we coined 'bed bug' around 1809, with the expression 'crazy as a bed bug' appearing in 1832 and 'snug as a bug in a rug' in 1842."
(From "Listening to America" by Stuart Berg Flexner Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982.)
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According to etymologist Eric Partridge, the catch phrase "sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite" is the American version of a British "children's goodnight" which differs only in that it specifies "fleas" as the critters to be avoided. Partridge traced the phrase back to the late 19th or early 20th century, although he speculates that it may actually be much older, since, he notes, "This is the type of phrase that ... escapes the attention of lexicographers, even light-hearted ones."
As to where "sleep tight" itself came from, the Oxford English Dictionary lists "tight" in this sense as a form of the adverb "tightly," meaning "soundly." Although this "tight" could once be applied to anything done thoroughly, the OED notes that the only modern usage is in the phrase "sleep tight."
As a former child myself, I cannot fail to note the double-edged quality of "sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite" as a bedtime farewell. No one I've ever met sleeps soundly after having been reminded of bedbugs. I submit that the phrase is, in fact, probably the diabolical invention of a child, and (judging by my personal experience), most likely an older sister.
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