Too short (and pregnant) to lift baby out of cot!

[HarryHarry]

My son is 11 months old and sleeps in an Ikea Gulliver cot. Though he isn’t standing or walking yet, we expect him to start doing so any day now, so we’ve put the cot on its lowest setting to avoid any accidents. The problem is that I am now unable to reach him without standing on tiptoes, leaning right in, and sort of balancing over the side on my belly, which I will soon have to stop doing because I am nearly 3 months pregnant. I have tried using a small step/stool but it actually makes it worse. I am just too short to reach into the cot (I am 5 ft 1).

The only solution I have found is to remove the side and convert it to a toddler bed, maybe with one of those safety barriers to stop the baby rolling out onto the floor. But is it safe to do this? Is there a reason that they advise you to wait until your baby can climb out on his own? And if it’s a bad idea, does anyone have a better one?

I had a small step stool stored under dd’s cot to get her in and out, otherwise I’d end up almost dropping her in for the last few inches! Worked a treat.

I bought a stool but it doesn’t help - I’m still bending in the wrong place, IYSWIM. If anything the stool makes him further out of my reach. The side of the cot is just too high for me.

We had a corned which you could remove a couple of bars when on the lowest setting, with the mattress practically on the ground, from to create a kind of cat/ baby flap It was German though, not sure you can get them in the UK. A crawling baby can get out themselves but can't fall out. If you or a family member is good at woodworking you could consider an adaptation.

Can you not drop the side of the cot?

We converted our cotbed to a toddler bed when DS was 12 months because it meant I could lie down next to him and feed him to sleep. It was pretty low to the floor, and we put pillows/thick gym mat next to the bed so that the few times he did roll out, he barely even woke up. We also totally babyproofed the room (strapped all the furniture to the wall etc) and had a baby gate on the door so he couldn't roam around. It worked fine for us.

Corned was meant to say cot bed obviously. Something like this, though ours was just plain wood:

thestorkhaslanded.com/collections/cots/products/pinolino-grisu-cot-bed

Although yes as PetuliaBlavatsky says you can drop the side in almost all cot beds, unless it's a travel cot!

Don't stand on a stool while pregnant to lift an 11 month old!

No I can’t drop the sides, otherwise I wouldn’t have this problem. Those types of cots are actually illegal where I live because some babies died in them.

As I said I can’t use the stool anyway.

Thank you @tillythetiger, that’s all I wanted to know, if it was safe to do that.