air beds for co-sleeping?

[mamabgood]

Has anyone any experiences of co-sleeping on airbed while camping?

I took ds camping at the weekend and ended up getting him onto the airbed with me as it was so cold.

We are taking him to cambridge folk festival next month and I want to plan ahead for potential co-sleeping. He was fine on the airbed but I didn't sleep much for keeping one eye open

any advice? I've looked up the thermarest but they are so expensive and I'm not sure if they'd be big enough for me, dp and ds? also are they as comfy and warm as an airbed?

Ds will be 11 months when we go btw.

Thanks in advance! :)

Ooh, a fellow folk-festival co-sleepee! We're headed to Shrewsbury Folk fest in august and I'm still dithering about tents.

I haven't got personal experience of co-sleeping on an airbed, but I know it's not recommended. If the airbed deflates with a slow leak, you could end up with the baby badly positioned against you or the mattress, and people often end up rolling into one another on airbeds anyway. Also, the ridges wouldn't be great for a small person, though I suppose you could always top the mattress with a smoother sleeping surface. I wouldn't use an airbed for cosleeping personally - we're planning to make a 'family bed' with self-inflating mats. I think you can join them with duct tape and then cover with a fitted double sheet.

I haven't slept on an airbed in ages but remember it was like lying on a bouncy, frigid marble slab! So if it's cold you're worried about, a SIM will be warmer. Look on ebay, or loads of people have posted on here about getting bargainous SIMs from Aldi? I already have a Wee Airic for DS1 from ebay that was a bargain and is lovely to lie on. Not sure I can justify buying the adult versions new from Alpkit, but a friend's lending us hers for this summer.

reshape do you know what the SIMs are made of? I also need co-sleeping mattresses,although my dds are older (4 and 6).I want to avoid PVC but am having no luck finding anything (just posted on this in fact).

We use Thermarests (which are self inflating mattresses, sort of) and a sheepskin on top for DD to lie on.

We have a double SIM from Vango - the 7.5cm thick one (which we have) is about £65 or the 5cm is around £45/50. We haven't co-slept with DD as she sleeps next to us in her Littlelife arc tent/cot thing but I think it would be fine (she is quite happy when she comes in with us for a while early morning). The SIM is flat with a dip where the seam is down the centre (which would be covered by a sheet or sleeping bag) and is quite comfortable to lie on and warmer than an airbed. Width is the only issue - even a double SIM is not as wide as your bed as home but I don't think an airbed would be either and if you end up rolling off it in the night, as least there is not far to fall!

The only problem with a double SIM is they do take up a lot of space in the car/attic compared to an airbed.

If money is an issue but you fancy a double SIM and have a Lidl near you, you could try these: www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/index_21729.htm, available from Thursday apparently. I have no idea how good they are though.

We have 2 queen size air beds from bell tent uk, the zip apart so 4 mattresses in total but we stack them 2 high side by side to make a giant family bed, it's fab! The dh is on one end and me the other, with dd2 next to me. She's 14 months, and the other two nearer to dh.

I probably sleep lighter as I'm aware she's there and of the safety worry, but she is fine, there's plenty of room and she can latch on as she wants!

Thanks everyone,

I've unfortunatly been too slow to get the bargains I think but will definately look into sim's on ebay... sounds like that's our best bet.

DS was fine on the airbed but i don't think i'll survive 4 nights of sleepless worrying! :)

Hmm, we're off camping at the weekend with our 18 m.o. and were planning to use airbeds and duvets which is what we used to use when we camped before. Now I'm feeling twitchy. At home we only use blankets in bed.

At home, DS sleeps in a gro-bag on top of the covers next to me. I'm normally dead to the world, although he does prefer to sleeping in his own space - I used to be more wakeful when he was cuddled up to me.

Would I need to get DS used to sleeping under a duvet before we go? He does tend to roll and end up 90 degrees from where he started - fine at home as he's on top of covers and is bounded by a wall.

How do you bf at night without either freezing or having the DC's head under the duvet?

Hi angeldog,

sorry you will obviously have already attempted your camping trip by now... hope it went well. I reckon he'll have adapted to the duvet and feeding underneath it...hope i'm right!?!

It was fine thanks, mama. I couldn't tell you how we managed feeding, but it was fine - moving my multiple layers of thermals was the biggest challenge! Now I feel confident enough to have the duvet on at home again which feels very luxurious after using just blankets.

He seemed the right temperature despite it being so windy it blew open the doors of our tent and ripped off one of our guy ropes!

The issue of rolling around didn't apply as we were on a steep slope so he could only roll into me: we enjoyed cosy cuddles. :)

We didn't brave/get around to camping with ds until he was 2.5 last year, and still partially co-sleeping at home. We took a cot mattress for him to have next to the airbed. He ended up in with us and was absolutely fine, as long as I was in the middle (dh being a larger man and creating something of a dip!)
I've been a bit worried about it this time around too, ds2 being 7 months old. We have 2 double airbeds so I think I'll have to sleep with ds2 in one, and dh with ds2 on the other.
For extra warmth we put old blankets under the mattresses to lift them a bit further off the ground.

We co-slept with two double SIMs next to each other, a duvet on top of them (under us). DH one end, our 4 and 2 yr old next, then our DS (now 6m but was 4m when we last went camping) then me. Cosy, cosy, cosy! :) Was absolutely fine and easy. DS was in a few zillion layers and a sleepbag so was just toasty!

WRT feeding in bed without getting frozen, I was planning on doing what I did in winter when DS2 was tiny - sleep in easily-accessible layers. So I'll wear an Emma-Jane bamboo bf vest, and over that some button-down PJs, and over that either a fleece PJ jacket or my hand-customised bf top, which is an old fleece sweatshirt with a horizontal cut hacked across the front! I don't know if we'll have sleeping bags or a duvet - not sure how feeding out of a sleeping bag works, and I'll have to be careful he doesn't get engulfed by it. But hopefully with that lot on, I won't mind being half out of the bag!

I'm more concerned about what DS2 will wear - he's a hardy little soul who kicks his blanket off at night next to me (he sleeps under a cellular one, or is meant to) and the cold doesn't wake him up, but obviously it'll be colder in the tent! He's never been in a baby sleeping bag because he's always been next to me and I didn't want him overheating. I was thinking - fleece babygro and grobag (2.5 tog??) and hopefully that'll be enough.

When we took DS camping two months ago (possibly slightly warmer weather during the day than it is now!) I had him in a vest, then a normal sleepsuit, then a fleecy babygro and a gro bag. Oh, and socks. Also had a little hat which we hardly used but glad we had it to hand. He was only 4m old though, so I'd possibly lose one layer when we go next week.