Co-sleepers with toddlers - how do you manage little one's bedtime without having to go to bed with them?!

[rubyGsmum]

Hi

Just wondered what other co-sleeping parents do at their toddler's bedtime. My DD is almost 14 months old and still at the stage where she doesn't realise the danger of crawling beyond the edge of the bed! Up until recently she was going in her cot for the first part of the evening, (around 7.30 -ish at end of bedtime routine) but lately that's all gone to pot since she dislikes her cot intensely, (long story). Now she'll only fall asleep in my bed, (a double she shares with me - poor DH is still in our bed..... or should I say, "lucky" DH)? And because of worries around safety, I'm having to park myself beside her and while away the time by reading etc., until it's my own bedtime.

What do you do? I thought about fixing a bed rail to the bed, but even though she's in a grobag, I worry that she'll somehow be able to vault over it. Obviously, any movement would be picked up on the monitor and I'd hopefully be able to sprint back upstairs before she got to the other end of the bed, (her side is against the wall).

Any experiences of bed rails and toddlers? Any suggestions you could give? I'd quite like to see more than a brief glimpse of DH of an evening!

Cheers!

[mummyji]

I used to put the mattress on the floor from when ds1 started rolling over and a stairgate at the top of the stairs. Did try a bed rail but found when he learnt to stand up he tried to climb over it and its further to fall so went back to the mattress on the floor until I moved him to his own bed at 2 1/2.

[OrribleOliveoil]

would it not be easier all round for her to get used to her own cot?

dd2 has the occasional evening when she won't settle so I lie with her and then put her back in her cot when she has calmed down.

Not sure I could deal with lying in bed all evening until bedtime.

[rubyGsmum]

Thanks to you both for your replies.

I'm seriously considering the mattress on the floor idea, although this would need to be a mattress in her room beside the cot, (which may actually be the best move since it gets her used to sleeping in her own room again), because of space constraints in our current room. We've got house guests coming for a few days, so the sleeping arrangements we need to have for that won't allow any changes until after they've gone. I guess that's why I'm looking for a more immediate solution.

We do try every night to put her back in her cot but even when she seems sound asleep, she wakes with a start the minute she goes anywhere near it. We are planning sleep training, (one of the gentler methods) in the long term but can't do this while she's teething, (she's in the midst of that at the moment, further complicating and worsening the whole sleep thing).

Thanks again for your input! It's much appreciated.

[Papillon]

Our dd has her own mattress by the wall which goes right up next to our bed... so she would have to go along way before falling off the bed.

Could she go on a mattress on the floor? or level with your bed?

Another option is to temporarily remove your base and just sleep on the mattress.

[moondog]

My sister does the mattress thing too.Clears the room of anything dangerous,closes the stairgate and leaves her ds to it.

[rubyGsmum]

Hmmm. Cheers Papillon. I wonder whether I could do something with her cotbed mattress at floor level in our current room. That's certainly got me thinking. Make it like a bit of an adventure, (with a safety gate on the door of course). Might try that out this afternoon at our "play" time, with some of her favourite toys, just to introduce her to it.

Thanks!

[rubyGsmum]

Thanks to you too Moondog! Didn't get your message til after my last post.

[hub2dee]

Would the Global Bedside Cot / Cotbed be useful ? She'd have her own space, but next to you with or without rail security...

link

[Clayhead]

We did mattress on the floor and it worked for us!

Never bothered with the cot either, just got beds at 18 months.

[rubyGsmum]

Thanks hub2dee and clayhead!

DH has sort of hinted that further expenditure is not desirable, (especially since we have a perfectly good cotbed that's hardly been used over the past 14 months), but that sidecar arrangement looks ideal. Might try to do a similar arrangement with our existing cotbed although DH has doubts that it would work. Only one way to find out!!

Thanks again

[rubyGsmum]

Just checked our cotbed. There would be a dangerous gap between bed and cotbed, so I think we're going to go with a mattress on the floor arrangment.

Thanks again for all of your comments. It's much appreciated.

[hub2dee]

You could perhaps try either a wrapped up cellular, or alternatively a cotton / non cellular blanket, like a sausage, wedged in the gap between the cot and your bed maybe ?

Tie the cot's legs to your bed's legs so the wedging of the aforementioned sausage does not cause it to drift away, LOL...

If you are desparately clever (and desparately desparate), could you get a sheet made which covers your bed but then stretches to include the cot, so the 'sausage stuffed sheet' thingy was covered ?

(All a bit crazy, I know. Ho hum)...

[rubyGsmum]

Crazy perhaps, hub2dee, but desperate times call for desperate measures ..... Ingenious all the same!

It's amazing what we'll do to ensure our little ones get their sleep safely, (nothing whatsoever to do with us getting some precious time to ourselves)

I'll certainly bear your cunning plan in mind should the mattress thingy not work out.

Cheers!