Co-sleeping: help! how can we do it:?

[Ceec]

We want to co-sleep but can't work out how to do it!

We have a 3.5 month old son, who sleeps in our bed at night, and in an "arms reach" co-sleeper when we're not in bed (like a shallow cot attached to the mattress). He is getting too big for the co-sleeper and we can't work out what to do next.

Any recommendations about what to do?

Are bedside cots are any good? (I'm a bit worried about the gap between cot and bed)

Should we bite the bullet and shell out for a king-size bed? (if so, what do we do when we're not in it? e.g. naps/early evening)

I'd be really grateful to know what experience anyone has had with this. We are imagining we'll co-sleep until he's 12 months at least - are we kidding ourselves?

Yep, a king size is highly recommended by the Davina household.

At that age DS slept up between the pillows and we pushed the bed against the wall so if he was on the other side of me for a BF and I fell asleep he wouldn't roll out. For naps he slept on our bed surrounded by pillows. he rolled off (only once) and around the same age seemed able to go into a cot as long as he was asleep enough. From 6 months of age he always started the night in the cot. He started napping in the cot shortly afterwards. Now (15 months) he comes into our bed at the first waking for a BF and often wants back into his cot afterwards. It was all pretty natural and he's totally fine with his cot.

We tried a bedside cot arrangement for a couple of months when he was around your DS's age but it didn't really suit us, he was such a light sleeper that moving him over disturbed him.

I've gone from being adamant I wouldn't cosleep to really missing his little soft warmness next to me when he's made it clear he prefers his own space

Hope it works out OK for you.

We had a queen size bed and bought a single mattress. The mattresses are all pushed together on the floor. DH sleeps on the far left with our double duvet over him. I start the night under that as well, tucked round my waist with DS (16 months) on the rest of the queensize under his blankie. We have a cot mattress upright against the wall on the far right so that DS can't fall down the gap or bang into the wall (he is a big wriggler). Sometimes I need to swap over to the other side of DS to get comfy or swap boobies if he's night fed a lot so we keep a single duvet at the bottom of the bed which I can then throw over myself without disturbing DH.

Sounds complicated but we all get a pretty good night's sleep (teething allowing). We've always co-slept so I can't imagine having to get up and go to a different room, or not being able to just reach out and cuddle.

Thanks all for your help so far! Snippety - what do you do when little one needs to sleep when you don't e.g. naps etc? Do you just have him on the queensize bed? Could he get stuck down between the single and queensize mattresses? Or do you cover the gap somehow?