bedside cots; any use, and for how long?

[bunnybunyip]

As in the type of cot form an extension of your bed on their 4th side. If you have used one of these, how old was your DC when they had to move onto another cot? Presumably once they can roll there is a safety issue, and you can't leave them unattended.
I'm just wondering if they are worth the investment.

My arm's reach co-sleeper is fab and can be converted to a four sided cot once DD is sitting. Estimate it will last her until she is a year (but she very long) and then become a playpen. Def worth the money, love it. is

DH has converted the cot we got from freecycle into one of these. He put blocks on the legs to raise the level to the same as our bed and extra bolts through so that the cot holds together with 3 sides on. We then have rolled up towels down the far side of the cot mattress so that the cot mattress is right up against our mattress. The cot is then attached with cable ties to our bed through holes drilled in the blocks under the feet and some screws attached to the underside of our bed. So all we had to pay for was the new cot mattress.

I love this arrangement - it is really convienient at night. DD is 20 weeks old and can only roll one way at the moment, so not yet a problem as she would have to roll over and over to get to the other side of our bed. Even when she learns to roll more I think that a few pillows on our bed would prevent her from going far. She is only in there in the evening/at night so is normally asleep except when she wakes in the morning and I am there next to her.

Last as long as a normal cot as you can raise the side when you're not next to him/her if you're worried about them rolling out.

Loved my bedside crib, particularly as DC2 decided to wake hourly for the first 4 months.

I got a bednest as I thought it would be much easier for night feeds (and didn't want to co-sleep). It was a waste of money!

My DS was a really good sleeper and I don't think he had any idea how close he was to me - we never laid there gazing at one another lovingly as in the marketing picture - he was always either asleep, or crying, and it was normally dark anyway. I don't think he cared though! I supose it was nice I could see him without having to sit up though...

With regards to night feeds, I thought that with a co-sleeper cot I'd be able to scoop my baby over towards me in the night, barely having to wake up (in fact I might have even read it on here) What rubbish! You can't drag a baby across non-slippery sheets, you still have to sit up in bed and pick it up, then position it properly on the boob etc, even to feed lying down.

A moses basket would have been just fine.

The only benefit was that it lasted longer than a moses basket as its bigger. He's five months now and we still use it as a travel cot when we go to my parents' house.

Oh, and re night feeds, I was up out of bed anyway everytime I fed as he needed a nappy change, and reswaddling. So all in all, definitely didn't help me have a less disrupted nights' sleep.

Actually I think I was just bit naive...

I do nappy changes on the co-sleeper, so I never have to get out of bed. But I am very lazy and we have had a couple of surprises. I also find that DD doesn't cry at night as she is close enough to me to wake me up without crying (or maybe she is just that type of baby). Probably not ideal if you are a light sleeper. She wakes at 6 or 7 am (or occassionally 4 am) hungry - but all I hear is furious thumb sucking. I pull her over to me and put a carton of milk in a bottle (all on her co-sleeper). She drinks what she wants and goes straight back to sleep, often snuggled with me, but can be back in her co-sleeper until 8.30. I am fairly convinced that I find her easy at night and she sleeps well because she is so close to me.

I used one with DS2; it was the only way that I got any sleep at all for the first 9 months of his life!

and I disagree with chicknlickn re moving him from the cot to me for a feed. I laid a crib sheet across the two mattresses and slid it towards me when he wanted a feed. I would then generally have him tucked up beside me for the rest of the night as I would invariable fall asleep whilst he was still feeding, but if not and I wanted him back in the cot, I'd sit up and gently pull the sheet at the other side of him and off he'd scoot back to his own "side" of the bed!

We bought a cot in IKEA which can have one side removed, and it was handily the same height as our IKEA bed. iirc, it only cost about £80.

Thanks for your replies everyone; I just have to convince DH as we already have a cot from DS1. DS1 usually ended up cosleeping with us anyway, but I think that caused me to sleep more lightly keeping an eye on where he was etc (still often ends up in bed with us now, which is another reason for giving the new baby their own space).
I will check out ikea as a low cost might sell it to DH more easily!

I have a cosatto bedside cot - it's normal cot sized so when ds moved into his own room he stayed in the same cot.

I never had to sit up to get ds out of his cot in the night either - he was in a sleeping bag and I just dragged him towards me by that! I often fell asleep again before the end of a feed so would either move ds back when I woke later or just have him in with me the rest of the night. I never changed a nappy in the night after the first few weeks either.