HELP! Need to get cosleeping 10mo into his cot! Or use mattress on floor???

[kleeen]

We have just moved to a 2BR flat, so DS can finally have his own room (and us ours). We have been cosleeping for the past 6 months, as he refuses to sleep in his cot. I wouldn't mind cosleeping, but he is a light sleeper, and our movement seems to wake him. He also BFs back to sleep, which can range anywhere from 3-10 times in a night! I'm (hopefully) about to go back to work, so getting some sleep is going to be very important.

He can play in his cot for up to 10 minutes before getting fussy, but if we put him in there in the evening/nights, he will scream the house down. I've tried BFing to sleep and then putting him in the cot, but inevitably he wakes up as I'm putting him down.

I'm not opposed to a little crying, but he really sounds distressed. I've tried to stand next to him and shhh pat, stroke his hair or back, sing to him etc. He just stands up and screams. Will he ever tire and just lay down?

Are we better off getting a mattress to put on the floor in his room? He would go down just fine like that, it would just be a matter of him waking in the night, which I assume would decrease as we wouldn't be there to wake him. But is it safe?

I'm at a loss!

Oh definitely go for the mattress I reckon! Just make sure the room is baby proof, it'll be fine, and a lot easier than trying to force him into the cot which he doesn't seem to like much!

I've certainly considered the bed on the floor thing, but he's a crawler, so I fear that he would crawl out of bed. Does anyone else use a floor mattress? Is crawling an issue?

I'm about to try DS (13mo) in his toddler bed, having been co-sleeping with his cot with a side taken off and pushed up against our bed since he was born. He has been walking since 11mo and can get in and out of our bed if he wanted to, but so far he never has at night. He sleeps in a sleeping bag which I think helps as it makes it harder for him to move! I put him down for his nap in his new bed today, for the first time, and I must admit I expected him to get out of bed when he woke up, but he didn't - he just sat up in bed and called out for me.

With the mattress on the floor I guess your DS might try and move around, if he's awake enough to bother, but if the room is safe is that so much of a problem? If he wants you I'm sure he'll let you know about it, and if he doesn't, well, let him get on with it?

DD (now 13mths) has slept on a mattress on the floor since she was around 8mths I think - we put the mattress up against the corner of the room, and stuffed the edges with duvets/pillows so she couldn't get stuck down the side. We bought doubled bed rails - so she couldn't roll out of bed in her sleep,

We baby-proofed her room, so in the morning she crawls out of bed (pillows on the floor, where she crawls off so that she doesn't bash her head on the way off) and plays with all her toys - we hear her gurgling happily on the monitor.

You may get some raised eyebrows for it, but dd hates the cot, and we were co-sleeping quite happily until she started rolling around and hitting me and dh in our sleep - we were also all keeping each other awake with snoring etc. - we all sleep much better now!

I think we'll keep her on the single mattress until she's big enough for the divan base, no point getting a toddler bed as she's happy!

Our dd2, 13 months, starts off on our bed then does at least part of the night on a cot mattress on our floor and then if (who am I kidding-when!) she wakes up comes in with us. It works okay, I make the floor safe and she doesn't wake up fully to begin with so doesn't crawl around. But she does roll in her sleep so a bigger mattress would definitely be better. If you'd told me this would be our sleeping arrangement with dc3 when I had dd1 I'd have laughed at you. But, given that dd2 is not keen on sleeping and this gives us the best sleep at the moment this is what we're doing.

Gotmygoat-please can I ask which doubled bed rails you bought? Sounds as if they might help dd2 with her rolling habit!