Cotbed to help with co-sleeping

[RufousBartleby]

Following on from the excellent advice I had earlier this week about co-sleeping (which I'm now embracing!) I was wondering if anyone had used a cot-bed next to their bed to give more space if needed?

I can't work out from looking online if it is possible to just take one side off while still having them in a raised position.

Has anyone got any recommendations?

Hi Rufous, we just bought the cheapest Ikea cot and drilled holes in it to make sure that the base and cot mattress were level with ours and then put it together minus one side. We used plastic cable ties to secure the pieces together on the "side without a side" and wedged it up close to our bed. I put rolled up towels at the far side to push the baby's mattress us to ours and job done. Our room is very small so her cot was more or less against the wall which helped to keep it all together.

It worked really well, DD could be fed and put down there at her bedtime and then was close to me for feeding during the night. In fact, most of the time I hardly woke up! When she was really little I put a bolster down the far side to keep her a little closer as the cot felt really big then, but she got used to having her own space too when she was bigger. It worked perfectly for us and I definitely got more sleep that way.

Moving her to her own room was a different story mind you, but everything is fine now (she is 2.6) and I am glad that I had that closeness with her Hope it workds as well for you.

We did exactly the same thing with the ikea Gulliver cot - drilled, tied, wedged; works great. DS is 15 months old and still sleeping like this as we're still in a one-bed flat. It definitely helps me get more sleep as he still wakes very frequently, so I can just pat him, hold hands, feed him or whatever without moving. Have a Google on sidecar and Gulliver, and you'll see that lots of peole have done similar things.

We have done same with ikea cot (though tbh not with the proper drilling etc...ds was a bit older and we are wedged against the wall).Just measure the height of the top of your mattress from the floor. Then in store measure the cots with different mattereses on to find a combo that is the height you need.