Baby in own room - cot or straight to bed?

[JoysBlueHair]

Baby is currently 3 months old and in a next to me in our room. We haven’t bought a cot for their room yet but a few people have said if the baby isn’t moving out until 6 months they would just go straight for a floor bed (the type with a rail all the way round apart from a gap at the bottom).

Has anyone done this? Is it a mad idea? Will the baby just constantly crawl to the bottom and crawl out?

I’ve done the exact opposite and still have my two year old in a cot!

Theoretically a floor bed would be great but she’d just climb out and play with her toys in the night, and now we have a 4 month old as well, so putting the eldest in her cot as a quick safe space is really convenient if there’s something dramatic going on!

We have a cot bed that converts to a toddler bed (can remove rails) mine would absolutely have been out of a floor bed every chance he could - I have heard good things about floor beds though especially if baby is a good sleeper.

We’re not experts as DD went from her next-to-me to our bed…

But, when my friends struggle with 5am/6am wake ups we’ve never had that. Since she was around 10m old she’s been able to get out of our bed and play with her toys in the morning. I wake up to her pottering around/reading next to me. Sometimes she’ll read her books and then falls back asleep.

I don’t think I’ve ever got out of bed with her before 7am (she probably plays happily for 45mins or so) then I bring her back to bed for us to hang out whilst I drink my tea. Cannot imagine having to wake up to a screaming child and have to be ‘on it’.

Cot until they can stand up and climb out.

It's one of those lovely things I thought would be wonderful when I was pregnant and had no experience of babies. Mine would absolutely crawl out of it and he's only 10 months.

Hhmm yeah we have a 6 year old already and had a cot that time but just wondering if we can skip a step.. baby crawling out all the time is my worry but it sounds like it might be baby dependent…

We had DS1 in a cot till he was 3! He totally could have climbed out, but he didn't. Maybe once or twice. Anyway, we didn't rush to put him in a bed as soon as he was capable of climbing out. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but he's 4 now and never gets out of bed when he's not supposed to.

We tried this - moved from a mix of co-sleeping and short periods in crib to a toddler mattress on the floor. It helped a bit with independent sleep/not being so reliant on boob because I could lie next to him
and he wriggled about until he dropped off. But we did eventually get a cot, can’t remember why, and he immediately started sleeping a lot better, thought it might have felt more secure. Who knows. V child dependent I’d say. You could always get a mattress you’ll use later on anyway and if it doesn’t work out get a second hand cot.