Help me find a suitable co sleeper cot!!

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

I want to get a bed side cot.

Initially decided on this MOthercare one but have been put off by the poor reviews.

In addition, we have <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/malm-bed-frame-birch-veneer__26419_PE111654_S4.jpg&imgrefurl=www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S39849855&h=500&w=500&sz=10&tbnid=_6F8syvHuz8S6M:&tbnh=130&tbnw=130&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmalm%2Bbed%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=malm+bed&usg=__zJE3lCTXF90JrY-O4G3TiOzl2Mk=&sa=X&ei=MEafTdWKCsLQhAeqtuX5BA&ved=0CEAQ9QEwAA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this bed and am worried about the gap between the mattress and the sides of the cot (we were going to purchase a custom made mattress to sit on the shelf around the bed, and then bungee the cot to the bed.

Not sure what to do now! Space isn't an issue as we are lucky enough to have a large bedroom.

Really want a co-sleeper as not practical to have baby in our bed, I may be on meds afterwards which make me drowsy plus DS still gets in with us as well!

Hi there

I have this one: www.cosatto.com/products/furniture/cots/close-to-me/005118

which I like a lot. I seem to remember a previous thread like this one, and someone said there was a much cheaper version in ikea so that might be worth looking at...

I have the cosatto one too, but to be honest you will keep the rail down all much of the time I expect so you could just get a cheaper cot and make extra holes to get the mattress exactly where you want it. There is nothing particularly special about the cot apart from the extra holes and the way the side goes down and under but you would have to pull the cot out to do that. In the end we didn't co sleep (long story baby was poorly and it just didn't happen) so I should have saved the money!

The bed is much like ours I had a thick cotton throw i rolled it up and it went in this gap very nicely and flush with the two mattresses. There are positioners (this isn't a word is it but you know what I mean) on the market if you are worried about baby rolling about, but at 6 months mine still doesn't move at all in the bed except for head from side to side! HTH

Hi there - We loved our "Troll" Co-sleeping crib from John Lewis....
I was sorry when DS got too big for it!

I have a friend who made a cot for his ds.
I am thinking of asking him if he could modify a cheaper cot to fit our bed...

The NCT website/shop has 2cosleeper cots. Both look lovely but expensive.

Hi Kara,

We bought the BabyBay Maxi (same one as NCT sell) from Germany, as it was cheaper than any seller in the UK. Ended up at about 150 euro plus 25 euro shipping...For memory, the website we used was called Skandic, it arrived within about 4 working days.
It's been great so far, so glad we got the Maxi size because DS is a big baby (75th centile). On the downside, I don't think he'll be in it any longer than about 6 months-ish due to that reason - even thought they market it for up to 14 month olds...
Hope that helps!

(Just realised that my only other post on MN is about the BabyBay - no I'm not a troll, lol).

I've looked at the baby bay one as well, thanks, but again it would not fit flush with our mattress due to the shelf on our bed.

I have been looking at the Armsrest co-sleeper, it looks like there you can have the side partially up on the bedside!

Going to talk to my carpenter friend...

Hi Kara, we have the same bed as you and we have the Mothercare cot! I got it for £35 in eBay though, wasn't going to pay £200 for it. I hadn't seen the reviews till now. We haven't yet tried putting the fourth side up so haven't had any issues with the clips.

What we have done is the cot is up against the wall, and then the bed right up against the cot. We have covered the hard wooden edge of the bed with a towel and then a sheet over that. It does mean that there is a harder bit of surface between the two mattresses but it hasn't caused any problems. We have the cot mattress on the lowest setting but it was still too high to be flush with the mattress, so we simply sawed 10cm off each leg of the cot to make it the right height.

Hope this helps. I would advise getting a full size co-sleeper cot (or even a normal cot and altering it) rather than the little armsreach type, as they are very expensive and you won't get all that much use from it before the baby outgrows it. We're still happily using ours as a co-sleeper cot and DS is 9 months; hoping to sort out his room so that we can move him in there sometime soon and then we'll just use it as a normal cot.

Do not think that you can just take one long side off and push it up to the bed
We did it with an IKEA one and the mattress base kept falling down. Now it could be because the fixings for the base are crap and any knock knocked them out. Luckily DD never fell but in the end we took it down and she co-sleeps and we all get a better nights sleep

I've just bought the Troll one from M&S and it should arrive any day-DS2 is 8 days old and I'm not happy with him in bed with me and DH but not got on with Moses basket at all. Will let you know how we get on.

Thanks, have decided to buy a dropside cot and our kind carpenter friend is going to make the modifications we need to turn it into a bedside cot that will work with our bed. Going to ask him to put some bolts on the base so we can lock it to the bed.
The one we have picked has had reviews to say it is still stable with one side taken off but our friend can do the work to ensure that this is true.

I am also very at Mothercare charging £200 for that bedside cot!! And that was the cheapest one we found!

But thank you for all of your input.

My DH adjusted our cot (from freecycle) to fit our bed and it works really well. If you need to you can put towels down the side of the mattress to fill in any gaps. DH needed to add feet to raise the cot and put in extra bolts to make the cot stable with only 3 sides. Purpose made co-sleepers seem a rip off to me. Good luck with your modifications.