A question about sidecar cots

[MotherOfDragon20]

I’ve seen mumsnetters mention using a traditional cot as a “side car cot” specifically @fatedestiny advocates the use of them frequently. This is something I’d love to do and would definitely help me with my 8 month old DD but I can’t for the life of me figure out how you make this work! My daughter is an avid climber and absolutely needs the cot mattress on the lowest setting but with the side off this then means she’s nowhere near the level of my bed? Do people prop the cot up to make the heights match? I’m not sure this seems safe? Also what do you do about the gap between the cot and the mattress? And what about naps?

I’ve been considering buying the Chico next to me forever which addresses these issues but is very expensive just wondering if there is a way round this?

We have a Mokee mini cot and it works quite well. When having the cot on the lowest setting, many people use furniture risers so you can make it level with your mattress.

To get rid of the gap between the mattresses, you can use a pool noodle rolled up in a towel in between the cot mattress and the cot - not in between the cot mattress and your bed mattress 🙂

See photos x

Great photos otterbaby, they are really helpful for explaining.

OP - the best time for a sidecar cot is pre-6 months with cot matress on highest setting (when everyone else is using a next2me crib). It gets a whole load trickier once baby can sit up, because of needing to lower cot matress height so sides are higher. Three options here.

1. Lower cot matress so that you are now reaching down into the cot, rather than baby being at same height as you. Only works with solid sided bed (like a divan) that creates a barrier in the space below your bed matress.
2. Furnature risers on the cot, as explained above.
3. behave as if cosleeping. So don't leave baby unattended when awake. See below.

Once baby is crawling, as yours is, I think it gets easy again. Basically your sidecar cot just becomes an extension to your bed, but is equally an independant space. The difference between a crawling baby and a sitting baby (which needs the hassle described above) is motor skill developments.

As you have found, climbing very quickly follows crawling. Right from crawling you can teach baby to safely climb off the bed (crawl backwards to edge, dangle feet over while holding torso on bed, dangle and drop). They get it really quickly and loads of places to practice - stairs and sofa most obvious).

So once baby can safely get off the bed, treat the sidecar cot as if cosleeping, but independant cosleeping. So don't leave baby in the cot alone when awake, stay close by as going to sleep (even if you're just lying at opposite side of your bed as baby drops off to sleep). Then once asleep, no need to worry about climbing and baby can't roll out of the cot. If/when baby wakes, try to get to baby quickly but if you don't manage to, baby has the skills now to safely get off the bed unaided.

Thank you both! This is very helpful, I’ll try and adapt her cot this weekend!