Should I get a bedside cot?

[gillhowe]

Thought I'd better start a new thread rather than hijack!!

DS has slept with me for some part of the night every night since he was born (9 months)

For the last 2-3 months DH has had to go to the spare room when DS comes in the bed as DS likes a lot of room and wont settle if all three of us are in the bed.

We've kind of treated the co-sleeping as a temporary arrangement, but looking at it realistically it isn't, I love it and so does DS

I'd like another baby at some point and would co-sleep from the off with number 2

So would a bedside cot help? Has anyone used one for such an old baby? Or would it be yet another huge waste of cash?

Ds is 7 months and has just grown out of his little bedside crib, so what we've done is to get rid of our bed, put the matress on the floor and a cot matress for ds next to it (with a barrier on the outside).

Only just done it, so give us a few weeks and I'll let you know how we get on.

I got the Mothercare bedside cot but, be warned, it doesn't fit flush against the side of the bed so you'd have to fill the gap somehow. We just use it as a normal cot for the start of the night then DS comes in with me and DH goes off to sofa. There may be better-designed ones that others can recommend, though...

Alternatively could you get a bed rail and a king-size bed?

I use a mothercare bedside cot. I have a 15m dd and ist used it for ds until he was 18m. We wedged it against the wall with our bed in our old house. Filled the gap with a body length pillow I used for sleeping when pg.

We have part wedged and lashed the bed post to the cot to hold them together in our new house.

We have a kingsize bed. Now dd is 15m we are not worried about her rolling off the bed, when she was younger I had the side of the cot half way up so I could still access her easily - but she was safe in the cot. Now it is easier to have the side down, me, dh and dd all sleep well most nights ('cept when she is teething).

In fact I am not looking forward to putting dd in her own room.

Their may be better cot beds on the market though so shop around. hth

I took the side of our ordinary cot and put the mattress at the same level as our bed and it worked perfectly.
I had it like that for both dc's and it was great for bfing in the middle of the night.

Thanks all

Already have a king sized bed and a rail - still not enough room!

I was looking at the mammas and pappas close and cosy bedside, but if we are going to have to deal with a gap anyway I'll look at putting mattresses on the floor - no idea where we are going to put the bed though....