Co Sleeping question

A - posted on 07/30/2010

First off, we put OUR bed on the floor (off the rails). Just the mattress and the little box springs. So if there is a fall, its not that much. Otherwise, we've done a couple different things. First, we had a co-sleeper that attaches to our bed when our son was really small. But that didn't work. So I just slept on one side, my husband on the other, and baby would be in between us or on me somehow. We have also put our baby's mattress on the floor next to ours (this was around the crawling stage). He could crawl up from the floor to HIS mattress. If he had fallen off our bed..he would have landed on his soft mattress, but he never fell. Around 9 months of age he started to get the idea of "edges" and never fell off. At night when he rolled around, again he would be between us. Now, my son is 14 months. Since he was about 10-11 months old, he can climb up and down off furniture. Right now we moved his crib right next to our bed (like the toddler bed position with the drop rail off) so sometimes I nurse him to sleep in the crib so me and hubby can have the bed to ourselves until he wakes up throughout the night. He can climb off the bed without hurting himself so we just keep the gate to the stairs closed at night but he's never gotten out of bed without us. So just keep the bed against the wall and baby between you and the wall, or between you and your husband.

Leah - posted on 07/30/2010

My son is 11 months and I still co-sleep. I have a bed rail on my side of the bed. I used to roll over with him to nurse on each side in the middle of the night. Now I prop him on a pillow between my husband and I and I lay on my side and nurse from both breasts without rolling. He can roll over and is starting to army crawl and we don't have any problems with him rolling out of bed.

Lerin - posted on 07/30/2010

A note about bed-rails- I used them with both my girls, but when they started sitting & pulling up, it was no longer safe as they could easily topple over.

Nicole - posted on 07/30/2010

You should lower your bed for safety. You can just use your mattress and box spring on the floor until he is old enough. You could also put rugs on you floor around your bed so the impact won't be as great if he does fall off. Good luck!

Julie - posted on 07/22/2010

my husband and i cosleep with our son as well we never did bumpers or anything and recently our son started crawling and my friend suggested putting pillows on the floor on one side and the bed against the wall on the other so far this has worked for us

Geralyn - posted on 07/22/2010

There is also the option of a side bed rail - it needs to fit tight against the mattress so that there is absolutely no gap in between the rail and the mattress. There is a book written by by James McKenna, Ph.D., called "Sleeping with your Baby." He even recommends certain products as being safe. Co-sleeping is such a wonderful experience!

Amanda - posted on 07/22/2010

Thank you for your input. I may end up getting on of those mini cribs since I can't do the mattress on the floor thing either.

Lerin - posted on 07/22/2010

I co-slept with both of my girls since they were born. Most of my co-sleeping friends do the mattress on the floor- that wasn't an option for me b/c I don't have alot of storage space so I have things stored under my bed. We did always have a crib set up in the kid's room, so once they got to the point where they couldn't sleep alone on the bed, we would put them down in the crib for whenever they were sleeping and we weren't. If you don't have/want a crib, a Pack N play type thing would work too. My oldest daughter only fell off the bed once, but my youngest is an adventurer and fell off a few times but we have wall-wall carpet in the bedroom. Even with a rug, tile is really hard!

Catherine - posted on 07/22/2010

We just dealt with the same issue in our house. We ended up taking away the bed frame and box spring and putting the mattress on the floor (with the bed rails still in place). Now we figure that a fall off the mattress is shorter than him falling when he's standing, so we're not as worried about it. We also have carpet for him to land on. Is it possible for you to get an area rug to go under the bed so that he would land on that if he crawled out?