Co Sleeping With Crawlers - HELP!

[Quootiepie]

Hiya,
My DS has long been crawling (he's 10 months) but has discovered he can do a back to front roll now and woke me up climbing over me Tonight I put him in his cot to sleep (was a bedside one, but obviously he could crawl out of that, over the bed and off the end aswell) so I put the side up. He went to sleep fine, but we both love co -sleeping. Can it work with a roller/crawler? Or do I have to quit, or wait until he is not crawling off the end of the bed?

Many Thanks xXx

Oh, he can crawl over things very well, so those big cushions wouldn't work xXx

I am scared DS will fall off the bed, it is low but still about a foot high and easy to tumble off the end. Room is child proofed anyway, just in case

I'm still doing quite a bit of co-sleeping with my crawling DS (11 months), so I know it can be done, at least for the part of the night that I'm in bed too. I start by putting him in his cot: he will go to sleep there OK and is safe because of the high sides, so I can have an evening without worrying he is about to nose-dive over the side of the bed. He almost always wakes up when DH and I go to bed. If he won't re-settle in the cot (and last night I re-settled him 3 times between 11pm and 12.30 am before giving up!), I take him into the spare bed and co-sleep with him there. He does try and crawl over me, but it always wakes me up so I'm not too worried.

LOL at the idea he will ever learn not to crawl off into oblivion though - he fell from the top to the bottom of the stairs a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday made a break for the open stairgate and got one hand over the edge of the first step - I caught him just as the fall began... He has no sense of danger yet, and seems to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie already... (I'm not a neglectful mother, honestly, he made a break for it in the 1 second between my opening the stairgate and turning to pick him up to carry him down)

Muminfife, your DS sounds sooo like mine! Though he's too little to do most of the things you talk about, he whoops with delight if I pretend to drop him, loves to be spun around and around, loves to be held upside down (knows what is going to follow if I say 'DS, where's the upside down baby?'), wants to climb the bannisters and, yes, heads straight for edges of things with a glint in his eye. He's already slammed his hand in the kitchen cupboards trying to get to the safety catches.

I know the experiment you are talking about with the glass surface and the drop btw, and I remember reading somewhere that there is a 'class' of 'impulsive' babies who don't get it for much longer, and cheerfully crawl straight to the danger. I think we may have that type! Good to know your DS figured out not falling off the bed, there is hope for us...

For what it's worth (and I only have the one so far) I reckon you worry about all of them, especially if they show early tendencies to be a rock climber, base jumper etc etc

Can you put the mattress on the floor? That way the floor isn't so far away... We co-sleep with me 13mo dd with two mattresses on the floor (our double + her cot-size mattress alongside). When she wakes up, she can get up and walk/crawl around without risking a head injury. But, I suppose that assumes you have space to store the bedframe... It could be a temporary solution until he gets a better grasp of the dangers of crawling off the edge. If not, some pillows at the foot of the bed would help.