Can anyone tell me if this is safe?

[sleepyhead32]

Posted a lot about this lately, apologies! Short story is dd (10 months) is struggling to adjust to her cot having previously been in the next to me. As a middle ground I've bought her a travel cot as it's a bit more similar to the next to me than a wooden cot with bars.

As she'll be using it as a main bed for a while I also got a separate mattress. It was from Amazon and paired alongside the travel cot I bought as being suitable/compatible with the model. I noticed that while it does fit and the dimensions seem right, she is able to create a small gap between the mattress and the bottom of the cot if she pushes her head against it. Not big enough to get trapped down or anything but enough so her head is at a slight angle. Because she has always slept with her head butted against the top of the next to me I suspect she's doing the same in the travel cot.

Is this ok? I've spent loads of time looking into whether travel cots are suitable as permanent beds and got all the recommended stuff (separate mattress etc) but I'm still worrying.

So say your baby is in the travel cot, and she pushes the sides of the travel cot out, then that creates the gap between the sides and the matress?

It's unlikely she will get caught in that and suffocate andnot be able to move, could her feet or hands get caught in there?

I'd be wary of stuffing the sides with blankets to seal the gap as these could get tangled around her if they work loose.

Placing a softer matress in the travel cot means they could roll themselves into a position where they get stuck and cant get free, that's why babies are supposed to sleep on firmer surfaces and if you put blankets on her, she is supposed to be on the feet to foot position to stop her wriggling and ending up under the blanket.

The Lullaby Trust have a fact sheet on their site you can refer to for safe sleeping including using a travel cot.

Why not just take the mattress out and try her without it? If she sleeps fine, great, problem solved. If not, look at other options?

I remember my brother slept better in his travel cot than a normal cot so my mum used it all the time and it didn't have a proper mattress, just a thin board.

The danger is entirely with suffocation, OP. Babies can suffocate remarkably easily, but the risk does drop off significantly after 4mo and again still after 6mo. Babies can roll into crevices and not have the practiced arm / torso strength the roll back. The gap doesn’t have to be one she could fall into, just one that could cause her nose and mouth to become trapped in a funny position which reduces airflow. Reduced airflow isn’t always a death sentence; sometimes it’s just enough to damage the brain etc. Their little brains are very delicate.

As with everything, the advice is based on lowest common denominator and statistically unlikely to happen… but still a possibility. And you don’t have to follow the advice at all. It is your choice entirely.

My husband doesn’t practice feet to the bottom of the cot, whenever he puts a baby down. It drives me insane. He just doesn’t think it’s important. They worry a lot less than us.

I have always been ultra cautious with sleep safety and car seat safety. But I play hard and fast with other rules, because I’m on my third and you panic way less by then. My daughter fell off the sofa the other day and it’s no longer the heart stopping moment it was with my first! 😂

I agree with PP you could try removing the mattress all together and see if baby's comfortable that way.

One thing you mentioned few times is a blanket on top your baby's sleeping bag, Lullaby trust advises against it: www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/safer-sleep-winter/#:~:text=Firmly%20tuck%20in%20sheets%20and,becoming%20covered%20by%20loose%20bedding.&text=If%20you%20are%20using%20a,sleeping%20bag%20is%20not%20enough.

I don't know what the exact risk is, just remembered that rule. I wish they actually explained things better.

And as much as I like co-sleeping, that some posters mentioned, not everyone wants it and if my baby was ok sleeping separately I'd be happy to keep it that way.
Good luck! Sleeping is such a minefield.

Try putting her in her cot for naps during the day, then she may be easier to settle at night

I don't understand why mattresses for travel costs would be sold if they were so dangerous and unnecessary.

Sadly lots of baby equipment isn't safe I.e. cot bumpers but stores can still sell them. Trust what the Lullaby Trust says - they have done a lot of research into SIDS and their advice has reduced the number of babies dying from it.

If your DC needs to be in a bigger cot now could you sleep in their room as they adjust to it?

Thank you for all of the advice. We ended up playing musical beds at about midnight and brought the wooden cot in. I think she was very confused but she did settle in it eventually. I'm 99% sure she would have been fine in the travel cot but that 1% was just too much to ignore. I couldn't settle.

Only issue now is that the cot has gone right next to a radiator as it literally is the only space. So that's had to be turned off which isn't ideal in this weather!

The hard bottom is the mattress. I know it's much harder than a cot mattress. Those third party mattresses aren't illegal because anybody can make anything and market it, but if you read the manual of your travel cot I bet it will say not to use an additional mattress. Amazon pair stuff to make sales.

I totally get where you're coming from OP, as I had the same worries with the next to me cot we have when DS was sleeping in it. He always migrated diagonally so his head (and face) was right against the side of the cot. I had the side down against our bed but there's still a lip of material and I would wake up to find his forehead against it most mornings almost from birth.

I asked the midwives and HV so many times was it ok, and all of them said it was fine as it was obviously just how he felt most comfy and the material would be breathable. Still scary though!

I don't think I would worry too much about the set up you describe. A 10 month old is big enough to move and surely the sides of the travel cot are like mesh anyway?

Can you send us a picture? I would be wary of thinking 'amazon bundles' might necessarily mean its appropriate... there's alot of unsafe stuff on there.
Can you afford a chicco next to me 'forever' crib and continue to co sleep that way if you're desperate Totally understand if not though, they are expensive, and there should be more similar lower priced co sleeping 'cots' available IMO.

Unfortunately travel cots do often have rubbish mattresses, but then again they are only supposed to be used on odd occasions, not all the time for sleeping.

How big is the gap? My travel for mattress fit as well as the normal cot one. My kids would never sleep on that board. It’s not only that it’s hard but there is a metal crossbar underneath which can be felt very clearly through the board. Used a few different ones but perhaps there is a different design available? Have you tried putting her to nap in her cot to get her used to it?

As another option have you thought about side-carring the cot?

Thanks all. The wooden cot is in our room now (just!) so she's going to be sleeping in that. Hopefully it'll mean she gets used to it and when we do finally move her into her own room at least it'll be in a bed she's familiar with.

I did take the extra mattress out of the travel cot earlier to have a proper look at the one that came with it and there was no way she could have slept on that. It wasn't the thickness as such that was the problem, it just wasn't flat. It had ridges and bumps inside that you could feel. Not ideal.

Anyway hopefully I'll get a better nights sleep tonight!

By the way, OP - all of my kids had to go against the radiator in my bedroom. Naturally, we had it all the way off. They were all born in summer and moved into their own rooms at 6mo, but we had to have a free standing oil rad when it got cooler. It was annoying but our only option.

Every time, the health visitors had a fit. And it’s written in every single red book “mum advised to move cot away from radiator”. They wouldn’t take my word for it, that we would keep the thing switched off and treated me like a criminal. 😂

One health visitor suggested that baby and I move out into a different room altogether. My husband looked very pleased, for just about as many seconds as it took me to remind them both that I didn’t get myself pregnant and he would not be getting off lightly, thank you very much!

We've actually had to put a board between the cot and radiator because the damn thing is so old it won't fully switch off. She can't touch it now and it's not hot enough to cause an overheating issue but woe betide me if a HV saw it

I had a similar problem and just filled the gap with rolled up towels at the foot end of the travel cot with a sheet covering both that and the mattress. All was fine, but I am someone who is probably too lax in other peoples eyes, and can see how some wouldn't do it.

The problem with filling the gap is that the sides of a travel cot are flexible, that could in theory cause them to stretch. There is one thing going around saying if you've ever put a third party mattress in a travel cot it's already stretched and must be thrown away which I think is a bit ridiculous/OTT, but since the flex is the problem in the first place, it's more of an issue.

Babies do push and get into weird positions when they sleep. I have a bedside cot and it hooks into the side of the bed, but we changed our bed and I didn't want to scratch the new frame, so I thought no problem, I don't need to attach it. You have to push it quite hard to move it. DS3 is 18mo and only cosleeps part of the night now. Well he kicks it away most nights and makes a gap to fall through. He only actually fell out once. I'm probably just going to get rid of it because I don't see the point in scratching the bed or trying to rig up another method of attaching it just for the sake of a couple of months.

If you wanted to show DH here is a story where the baby unfortunately died. It's Australian but their travel cots aren't any different to ours.

www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/coroner-finds-ringwood-east-baby-died-in-padded-out-portable-cot/news-story/e3a3442b281141bbafaa4f1c3da5efd7