Cot advice needed please...

[OverweightandUnderpaid]

Hi,

My daughter is just approaching 5 months old...she's a healthy, hefty, thriving baby! She has been sleeping in a moses basket by our bed, and she generally sleeps fairly well. Sometimes she sleeps through the night, but on the whole she tends to wake up once around 4-5am-ish for a feed. She'll take her feed and then sleep through to 8-9am-ish.

However, she is now almost too big for the moses - her head hits the top, so my partner has today built up her cot in our bedroom. We put her in it this afternoon for a nap, and after a bit of grizzling she fell asleep. When she woke, i played with her for a while whilst she was in the cot.

I'm wondering how best to go about getting her used to the cot though...?

I'm a bit worried as she seems so small in the cot. We'll be putting her in a sleeping bag, or using our cellular blankets, and when she was having her nap this afternoon i put towels at the top of the headbase to try to cushion her head. (She was wriggling her way up the cot and hitting her head off from the headbase). However, during our 'playtime' in the cot, she was pulling on the towels and pulling them over her face.

I'm thinking of putting her in the moses basket in the cot tonight, and then putting her down for her naps in the cot tomorrow daytime, to try to get her used to it.

I've heard pros and cons for cot bumpers - do you recommend them? Also, i put my daughter's cuddly toys in with her, to try to distract her - are there any dangers to this?

Please give me your tips on how you made the transition from moses to cot, and any safety issues i need to be aware of.

Many thanks.

We put the moses basket in the cot for a few nights/days with ds1.

Cot bumpers are SIDS risk, so best avoided.

Toys are fine if no sewn on eyes/ribbons hanging etc.

Hth

I never even considered there might be an issue & just put my DD straight in. Took a few days for her to get to grips with it and I ended up buying the air wrap cot bumpers and putting them round 3 sides. They are safe for SIDS. The other side is about 5cm from the edge of the bed.
I put her in at about 8 or 10 weeks, my Moses basket was obviously very small!
She started sleeping through the night not too long after that.
I also have a lambskin lining the cot with a fitted sheet on top. It is very cosy, I could climb in there & have a little snooze!

We've just moved our 11 w/o DS in to the big boy cot. Bought an air wrap bumper, as YogaMummy suggests and also this cot divider: www.amazon.co.uk/Safababy-Sleeper/dp/B001I1CZR6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311537697&sr=8-1. It just helps to break the cot up a bit and it means that he can feel a bit snuger.

So far so good. He's still in our room and is managing to sleep from about 7-2/3 most nights before his forst wake up. I think that it coincides with developmental changes, but he's happy in there. We had a couple of icky nights before the new additions, so in mind, it was £50 well spent.

He's a wriggler and so I have got two different tog sleeping bags rather than blankets...as I worry he might get tangled. I also keep the teddies on the other side of the divider. But our DS is much smaller than your DD, so sure it's OK to have a couple that she likes in with her.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I chickened out of putting her in it last night, as i wanted one last night of relative peace and harmony! However, i start back working fulltime on Monday so really want to try to iron out any major sleeping/cot issues before then...I know, i'm giving myself a week to do it - i am clearly expecting miracles!

I put her in the cot for her nap just now, and after a bit of tantrum, she is now snoozing peacefully, so i think i'm going to go cold turkey with the cot tonight and just persevere.

Thanks again for your help.