Tips for attaching cotbed to bed - plus concerns about position near window/radiator

[Jellybabie3]

We are going to attach DS cotbed to our bed soon (frequent wakings make it unrealistic to put him in his own room)

So:

• tips on how you attached
• how you filled the gap between the two
• does the mattress have to be level to the bed mattress (DS will actually be in a sleepyhead)
• when DS is 6 mo we will put him to bed without us while we go about our evening...is it OK to have no protection at the bottom half of our bed ( i assume he wont roll/crawl out and manage to fall off the bed..?l)

Also....cot bed will be next to a radiator and under a window....not ideal I know but only place it will fit...but I assume this will be OK if radiator is off and window does not allow a draught (we have a groegg). We will also ensure curtains cannot be reached by DS.

Thank you

Why don’t you put the cot with the sides up in your room? I’m not sure leaving the sides open would be suitable when baby is on the move

Hmm i thought the benefits of the sidecar cot was that you could bf still easily in the night...i just hadnt thought through what to do when hes mobile

Maybe a rethink!

I pinched the straps from my next2me and wrapped them around the cot base and my bed frame, but I have heard of people using bungee ropes to tether them together. If you don’t have anything like this. You need to push the cot mattress up to your own mattress and fill the gap at the end where the side is still on. You are supposed to use something quite firm, like the mattress to make it safe so I bought a couple of pool noodles and use one to fill the gap and one to tuck underneath the nearside of the cot mattress as it was sagging a lityle due to the differences in bed heights (I have mattresses at the same level) does this make sense?

My 10mo is quite a crawler so I have a video monitor on him while he sleeps in the evening so I know if he’s on the move! It is a bit of a pain as I can’t wait at all to see if he will settle himself as he would be over the edge of the bed , but tbh he never really does anyway so I pretty much immediately go to him or I’m by his side ready to grab him if he wakes.

I also have the cot near the radiator and window, I don’t really have the heating on at night and he’s not able to reach the curtains or windows yet so I’m not concerned!

We just pushed the cotbed up to the side of our bed. I used a rolled up blanket to fill the gap in between. The cotbed mattress is lower than our bed mattress but acts as a bit of a barrier to her rolling into our bed. DD is over two now and still sleeps in this set up for various reasons!

We’ve always had a video monitor on so when she started moving we could see. She never got far enough over to fall out of bed and now if she wakes up she stands at the door shouting Mummy!

Thats brilliant thank you. We only have a basic monitor that we brought while pregnant - we muttered something about the video ones being a gimic and yet here we are thinking we need to fork our for one again..... 🙈 but its a small price to get the set up right.

Much appreciated

Hi Jelly, we attached using bungee ties (you can get them from halfords and places). We also used gaffer tape to be double sure, and it comes off fine after. Once our little was out of her sleepyhead we took it apart and used the long bit to stuff in between the bed and cot to block the gap. You can also use towels or swimming noodles. In terms of crawling off the bed, I would get yourself a video monitor. I would have it in my view downstairs and race up if I saw her waking up and moving. But I have found she doesn’t go anywhere she just cries for me to come anyway.

Hope that helps! X