breastfeeding and co-sleeping

[misdee]

just spent the whole weekend (4nights) with no cot, and dd3 co-sleeping with me. i know she fed more throughout the nights than usual. At home she starts the night in her cot, then comes into my bed anytime after midnight most nights. i will let her settle down back to sleep, wither by lying down next to me, or by feeding her. but over the weekend she fed to sleep. She helped herself a lot, and i found her latched on several times during the nights (at one point she was upside down and kicked my nose).

Surprisingly i felt we actually slept better, i had no worries about her climibing out as the bed was quite low, at home i worry she will fall out so tend to pop her back, so if she then wakes again i have to get up again.

if i could get rid of the base of the bed and put the matress on the floor i would, but i have nowhere to store the base.

so now i am back to bed hopping for dd3

would a safety barrier for the bed help?

\link{http://www.mothercare.com/invt/le7227\something like this?}

no, afraid not. my mattress is super thick, and the bed guard wouldnt reach the top of it

Can you put the bed against a wall instead?

I don't know how old your dd is, misdee, but bed against the wall may not be a safe place to sleep (Lact8's suggestion). Babies can get wedged between bed and wall, dangerously.

If she falls out, she prob won't hurt herself as long as the landing is not hard.

my bed is againt the wall already, its a king sized bed, and dd3 is 16months old.

She's safest on the outside of the bed, then misdee.

I can see what you mean tiktok about it not being safe in some circumstances. My bed is against the wall on both sides as its in an alcove in our odd shaped bedroom. Its wedged in so tight i can't even tuck the covers in down the sides so no danger of dd getting stuck

have you got a spare quilt/sleeping bag that you could put on the floor to break her fall just in case she did roll out?

That sounds ok, Lact8.
The tragedies with beds against walls have happened (if I recall correctly) when the mattress has moved a little way from the wall, leaving the base against the wall. Baby gets trapped in the gap.

It doesn't bear thinking about tiktok

After always complaining what a useless space the alcove is I'm finally glad to find some use for it.

When I've co-slept with ds's I've had them on the outside with my arm tucked under them and a quilt on the floor incase they've fallen, but then lay there worrying they would fall out and get tangled up in the quilt instead [parental angst emoticon!]

And the truth of it is the small sounds they make are the only things that actually wake me, I can quite comfortably sleep through alarm clocks, telephones ringing etc.

Just out of interest would you always recommend they sleep on the outside as they get older? Say they'd had a nightmare and wanted to get in bed?