co-sleeping bedside cot - worth getting?

[SqueezyB]

I'm currently 22 weeks with no.2. When DD was tiny and I was breastfeeding in the night I generally slept with her in bed with me - in the spare room as the mattress there was harder and also I was paranoid about DH squashing her!

That's not an option this time round as DD is now in the spare room and the spare bed is long gone. I was thinking of getting one of those co-sleeping bedside cots like this one www.kiddicare.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10751&langId=-1&p roductId=50033&source=froogle&cmmmc=Froogle--Shopping%20Sites--CPC--Froogle or this www.mothercare.com/Mothercare-Bedside-cot-Beech-finish/dp/B000IYQ0XO/ref=sr_11_1/277-8999072-7074554 ?_encoding=UTF8&mcb=core

Has anyone used one? Are they worth getting?

Also, our bed has a ledge on the side, big enough to balance a cup of tea on, similar to this one www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S39849799. Would the bedside cot work with something like that, does the cot mattress attach to the side of the bed and cover up the join, or is it just pushed next to it?

Any thoughts/experience welcome!

Thanks

Does the cot you have stand up with one side removed? Would it be possible to drill an extra set of holes, or put blocks under the legs, or some extra wood/foam under the mattress to raise it up to your bed height?

If so I would not get a special co-sleeping cot. I would just use the one you have. You would need to push the mattress over to be flush with your bed, tie the cot to your bed with string or something (Actually I never did this bit - it's been fine, DS is 15 months now and there has never been a gap, I check it every night anyway) and then push something - foam, or tightly rolled old towels, down between the cot mattress and the cot bars to plug that side of the gap.

I would say that a co-sleeping cot (well, modified normal cot!) has been invaluable for us. Too many good points to mention! I will happily answer any questions though.

We have a cot bed from freecycle which ds 2.5 is currently in, but when dd arrives in may we'll be taking off the rails (or maybe just the head end one) and bolting/tying it to the side of our bed. Then when we're all thoroughly fed up of co-sleeping (7 months last time iirc!) she can have the side up, then go in her own room.

As for the ledge on your bed, I'd put something in the gap then pull the cot mattress up against yours so it was all nice and level, and then block the gap at the far side of the cot with rolled up towels or something. They're more likely to lie near to you than the far side of the cot anyway, and you'll want them closer for feeding.

squeezy we have a bedside cot which we love - an blooming marvellous one that looks similar to the mothercare one.

this weekend we're going to change our bed to a habitat one with a ledge, like the one you've posted, so I'll let you know on monday how it works! currently we also do the towel thing and push the mattress up to ours - i think all bedside cots have a gap when the side is up.

the arms reach one attaches to the bed - but its not true co-sleeping i as theres a small raised barrier between the cot and bed i think??

DD is still in her cotbed, so the plan was to put the new baby in the moses basket for now until DD is ready to move to a toddler bed, so we don't have a cot we could adapt anyway.

Good idea about pulling the mattress over and plugging the gap on te other side, I hadn't thought of that.

Does it make it easier for nightime BF then? I used to just attach DD when she woke up and then go back to sleep! Would that work with me lying on the bed and baby in its cot?

needanamefast, I think we crossed posts! I'll have a look at blooming marvellous, and if you could let me know what it's like with the new bed that would be great!

I have a bedside cot and it is working generally pretty well. I can just attach and go back to sleep. the only disadvantage is that DS has got a bit wiggly at nearly 4mo so shuffles himself over to cuddle up next to me so we end up co-sleeping properly which I don't like as I can't sleep well.

When this growth spurt ends (cue hollow laughter - now 2 weeks) I'm going to try putting the side on the bed and then slowly moving it away to become seperate. Hopefully it will work...

I would definitely recommend having a proper bedside cot. We've got an old Global one, which seems to have been discontinued, but this brio one looks similar.

The really good thing about it is that the side slides up and over the top, rather than under the mattress. That means I can put her to bed in her cot with the side up, and then when she wakes wanting a feed in the night I just swing the side over to the far side of the cot, slide the mattress over and wedge a blanket down the side as BertieBotts describes.

Obviously with a newborn you don't need to worry about having the side up, but if you were thinking of using it for any longer then it is a very useful feature. If the side slides under the mattress, you can't put it on and off without moving it away from your bed.

And yes, yes, yes, it makes nighttime bf a million times easier. I love it.

I have an ikea bed with ledge on and got the mamas and papas bedside cot which has an extra bit of mattress that flops over to join the bed. You can also adjust mattress height to get it to match your bed. I haven't actually checked they still sell it, I got it a couple of years ago.

However, I hated it! it was in the way when I wanted to get in and out of bed and I could never just reach over and slide her over. In the end I just used the cot as a normal one and went downstairs and sat on sofa to feed her!

We got an old mothercare one from freecycle, which DS (19mo) still uses. When he goes to bed, we pull the side up, when we join him, it comes down, we push the mattress over so it's snug against ours and shove a rolled-up blanket into the gap, and he can roll in and out of our bed. It has wheels so is easy to move around if needs be.
We've found it to be a great solution, what everyone said about nighttime breastfeeding above, and also my DP wasn't too keen on the idea of co-sleeping at first but saw this as a compromise since DS has his own "zone" if required.

bedside cot is fabulous, although even with an 'official' bdside cot you still need to stuff the gap so you may as well try to convert your old cot as previously suggested. Also, I stretch a sheep over the cot mattress and onto 'my' sleeping area to ensure there's no way little arms can get caught in the crack between the mattresses.

Stretch a sheet, obviously, not a sheep. That would be cruel. And a bit weird.

That gave me a giggle.

lol at the sheep!

Well when you are feeding the baby is not in the cot, but cuddled up to you, and yes to be honest in the first couple of months the cot was a useful nappy/blanket/spare clothing/water bottle/emergency chocolate storage rather than a sleeping space! I probably would have kept this arrangement until DS could roll but XP got a bit jealous and one day at about 2.5 months cleared it all out and put the blanket in there and made it all look nice, so when we went to bed I would feed DS and scoot him over when he was asleep, which left me free to sleep any way I wanted, including with my back to him. When he woke in the night I'd scoot him over to me and feed and usually go back to sleep so I got comfortable sleeping for the first part of the night and baby snuggles for the rest of it. It's just nice to be able to scoot him over into his own space if I want to sleep on my back/front/facing away (or for example if I've had a drink) and not worry about rolling on him, or him falling out. It also creates more space in the bed as it's just a double. Now he is older he tends to feed and roll over by himself into the cot, he doesn't sleep cuddled up with me any more.

Oh and if you are not keen on the idea of the baby wriggling its way back towards you, a good idea is to set the cot mattress slightly lower than your mattress so that there is a bit of a ledge for them to get up. I quite liked him being able to help himself as I am lazy and I always woke up enough to turn over if I did have my back to him.

I bought the Mothercare one when DD was about 6 months - it was a real relief as our bed was too small for such a wriggler. I stuffed the gap with towels and blankets. It got her used to sleeping separately - which she naturally decided she wanted to do at 8 months. The only problem was that I ended up in it half the time!