HELP! CO-SLEEPER COT OR NORMAL COT?

[Honeymoonmummy]

My dad has just been round and completely freaked me out by saying he went to a funeral a couple of years ago of a baby whose mother accidentally smothered it while co-sleeping in the same bed, she wasnt drunk apparently. I have been sleeping in the king size bed with my 5 and half week old (DH in the nursery single bed) as she wont sleep in her moses basket, its my warmth/ smell she seems to need. She wont sleep for long without me on the bed.

So I was thinking of buying a bedside cot - theres one in mothercare which has 8 levels and the side goes underneath. Is there any point paying the extra for this cot or will a normal drop side cot do the job? They dont need to be lined up exactly do they as the cot needs to be lower than our bed. I havent got a cot at all as yet.

We havent got a divan, does this also cause a problem?

PLEASE HELP! I need to go buy one ASAP! (Panicking emoticon)

Oh and we have a laminated floor and the bed is quite high too - will this be a problem?

We have just bought a normal cot but left the drop side off.

I think the cot mattress needs to be the same level as your mattress otherwise there is a chance the baby can roll against the side of the higher mattress and not be able to breathe?

I was just coming into sleep to ask a question about the gap between the cot mattress and the bed mattress and whether there was any safety implication there, ie the baby getting caught between the two of them. We have wedged a towel between the matress and the side of the cot at the other side so there isn't a gap, and the bed and cot are positioned such that they can't move apart.

It's a bit of a minefield isn't it?

We just took the drop side off our normal (mothercare I think) cot too. The mattresses were at the same height already, but it would have been very easy to have drilled holes at the right height to make them the same iyswim. I found this to be a great solution, and the first time I got some proper sleep when DD was small.

Ours isn't a divan either, just a frame with a mattress on. I did have to move the cot mattress across to make sure there was no gap between them, and put a rolled up cot duvet in the gap on the other side. I then put her sheet over the duvet and the mattress to make it into one surface. The cot and the bed can't move apart as the wall is on the other wide of our bed, and a bookcase perpendicular to the cot on the other.

I have two! unused moses baskets. DD has finally graduated to sleeping in the cot, on her own, in her room. I stil have to feed her to sleep though...

We've got the Mothercare bedside cot but never used it as one -- we couldn't get it to stay tight up against the bed.

I'll get a normal cot then I think - thanks.