Co-sleepers (and fellow barers of similar backrods)...

[Sparklyboots]

... do your DCs sleep in your bed alone? I ask because my 5 month DS is becoming mobile, and I am worried about the early evenings when we put him to bed. I sort of wedge him in the middle of the bed with pillows at around 7 when he goes to bed but it seems potentially a bit unsatisfactory as he is closer and closer to crawling. We go to bed around 11. We are in a very very small flat - one floor and he is never more than 20 metres from us, even if we do decide to press ourselves flat up against the furthest wall. (We haven't yet but are planning more children .) What did you do at this stage, or are sling in the early evening or matteress on the floor our only options?

We actually started co-sleeping after our son was mobile due to a variety of reason, mostly because he refused to sleep anywhere else. We just put pillows around him.

He mostly sleeps in his own bed now with a bedrail. When he sleeps with us there are pillows on the floor on his side.

Oh and I don't think it's making a rod for anyone's back and hate that expression. It's doing what you need to do to make sure everyone gets as much sleep as possible.

My DD is 8mo and has coslept from birth.

I used to go to bed with her but these days from approx 6-10pm she does sleep in bed on her own. I have a big bed - one side is the never used cot (complete with wrapping) as a barricade - I put her close to this which has pillows stuffed down the side.

I then recently got a bedguard for the other side of the bed. I purposefully sleep this side though as it's not as good as stopping her from falling as the cot (I'm a single parent so we have lots of room in bed!)

It works for us. Is ur bed against a wall? Have u thought about getting a bed guard or 2?

DS3 is coming up for 5months old now and we are co-sleeping due to growth spurt feeding (and my laziness) - he basically just snoozes on the sofa or on a blanket on the floor with us or on DP's big cushiony belly chest til we go to bed. If your DS is put to bed earlier than you anyway could he go in a cot or do space issues not allow?

Bedguards! very good! .. no cot, chucked it and got a beautiful mirrored wardrobe, so all of our stuff can fit into somewhere. Much better - we'd never used the cot and love co-sleeping. The whole 'rods' rap is crap, as far as we're concerned, just wanted to forestall any recourse to it

Thanks all x

I have a cot and choose not to use it! Don't worry. I know where you're coming from. It works for us. I really like it :) bedguards though just on the safe side!

When DD was smaller and we were still co-sleeping I had a bedside cot one side and a normal bedrail the other for her to sleep before we went to bed. When we go away camping or to my Aunties where we still co-sleep we use this:
www.amazon.co.uk/CHILD-FOAM-BED-GUARD-RAIL/dp/B002NYC5LI

Which she also has on her own bed at home after she decided at 34 months she wanted her own room! The handy thing about it is you can leave it on the bed easily and still get a grown up in and out with no trouble!!!!

Yes, DS sleeps alone in ours. We used a foldable Lindam bedguard till he started pulling up (when they're not safe), and then put the mattress on the floor against the wall and a couple of pillows on the side to give him a softer landing (he's only fallen out a couple of times in 18 months despite usually rolling around a lot).

We still have the mattress on the floor, but it'd be hard now to have the bed frame as we have 2 single mattresses pushed together rather than a big one. He's too big now to be in a single with me like he used to be!

Co-sleeping is lovely. I hope DS doesn't want to give up any time soon. :)

I also love co-sleeping. We just pushed our bed against a wall and put pillows on the other side. He is 2 now and quite big so we took a side off his cot ( not used for 18 months) and put it next to our bed. He now happily sleeps there but is still free to climb over us if he wishes. He usually stays in his cot though, enjoying his space.....and mummy misses him

hmm...belated hijack here. any suggestions gratefully recieved...ds would be straight over a bed rail...he's been know to clamber up the sideboard using handles as toe holds ... Mattress on the floor isn't really an option as i'm fat pg and getting up will be increasingly difficult....we currently keep him downstairs with us till i go up...just wondering if i'm missing another option?

DD is a roller and we have bed guards, she's 6 months, we only co-sleep once DH gets up early and goes to work, so only for a few hours in the morning. We have the one's you see in the JoJo Maman Bebe catalogue that are plastic and mesh and about a foot high, held down by the mattress. Got them at an NCT sale and they are brill.

We had a cot on both sides of the bed for our two! We also got rid of the bed frame and had mattresses on the floor for a while. Now ds1 and ds2 share a mattress on the floor in their room and we have our proper bed back, but they still come in with us at some point most nights. We haven't got rid of the cots yet, so although they are too big for them they still sleep with their heads in them IYSWIM.