How to balance co-sleeping baby with wakeful toddler

[Jessbags001]

At the moment I am co-sleeping (unplanned) with my 8mo. She sometimes goes in her cot, which is right against my side of the bed, but mostly is in our bed. She wakes a lot but goes back to sleep quickly with a bf so it's working for us at the moment. My husband tends to do the getting up in the night for out toddler (or if I get up, he is in the bed to keep an eye on the baby).

The trouble is, he starts months of horrible shift patterns in Dec, many of which are nights. Do any co-sleepers have experience with managing on their own whilst having to get up in the night for another child? Do you leave the baby in the bed and just hope they won't wake up and crawl out?! I don't think I could do that... And I don't think transferring her to the cot when the toddler wakes would work as she'll wake too and then I'll just have two screaming children to deal with!

Thinking I'm going to have to spend the next 3 weeks getting her to sleep exclusively in the cot, but desperately hoping someone out there can offer some other ideas lol!

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

This is exactly the situation we are in, except that my husband is in another room!

My daughter is 8 months old and my son is 26 months. He still wakes for various reasons (reflux, cold, "pillow all squished up"), and it's generally my husband who sees to him. My daughter is a terrible sleeper too (reflux again, plus, well, she just likes to be held ... all night ).

When I do need to go to my son, I have often taken my daughter with me (eg if I'm feeding her, or she has just fallen asleep and I know she'll wake up if i try to put her down in the bed). If she's already asleep, I have left her on the bed and come back as soon as I can. Thankfully my son usual jt settles quickly.

Now that she is crawling, though, I think we're going to have to take the bed apart and have a mattress on the floor. Have you considered that? Not pretty but at least if its much closer to the ground if they decide to go a-wandering.

Could you try a bedguard to stop baby getting out of bed? Or pillows round edges ? It's a tricky one though

I have a 4 week old and a 2 yr old, husband works long days so I have both to see to on a night. I just bring toddler in with me, well he comes into our bed. Husband goes into spare bed. Baby comes in too when he wakes. Sometimes it is wonderful being between both my beautiful sons, sometimes it is a nightmare but it isn't forever

Put your mattress on the floor! It's too stressful worrying about them falling out otherwise.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

The mattress on the floor idea is definitely a good one (and one that hadn't occurred to me, so I'm glad I poster here). The only issue is finding somewhere to put the rest of the bed!

Taking her in with me is a good idea too, but one I think she's just outgrown. I used to take her in when she was a newborn and DH had nightshifts. It worked well and I'd bf while I sang toddler back to sleep. However, the last time I had to take her in (about 5.5 months old) she woke right up and started crawling round toddler's room squealing with delight. Not helpful for any of us!

There haven't been any nightshifts since and I had been blissfully ignoring the fact that the issue would be back soon.

Pillows etc as barriers also a good idea but experience shows they will be just be trampled over/shoved to the side (she's a strong little bruiser!) so I'd rather not risk it. The bedguard I will look into but I fear it would need to be pretty high and go around all sides of the bed to be safe enough.

Now if only someone made a double bed sized cot...!