Co-sleeping and bedside cot questions

[babyphat]

i have just started co-sleeping with my 4 month old - she was in a moses basket by my bed but has now totally outgrown it and anyway, we were spending a lot of time trying to get her in it at night and back in again after her night feed/s. now i have finally cracked bfeeding lying down so can bf her to sleep and she can latch on in the night.

but i have lots of questions, oh wise ones:

1 - we bought a bedside cot, the mothercare one, but there is a pretty big gap (maybe 4 inches) between our bed and hers - i've seen people say they stuffed the gap with pillows etc, but i think they will fall through to the floor. i was thinking of a bit of hardboard to extend the base, then making a bolster to put on the side with bars so the 2 mattresses fit snugly together. any tips?

2 - all the advice mentions not using 'heavy' quilts with a baby in the bed. ours is a 4.5 tog and our room is pretty cold. she is in a babygro and short sleeved vest, covers up to her waist/armpits (she always keeps her arms out!). i know they are not supposed to come under the covers with you but if she is in a grobag it's harder to rub her back, cuddle her back to sleep etc and i'm worried she might end up under our covers anyway and overheat. under the covers is lovely and she definitely doesn't seem to be getting too hot. (it's a cold room)

3 - how do you position yourselves in the bed? i try to lie on my side facing her, with my legs curled so she can't wriggle down under the covers, but it's hard on the joints staying in the same position for hours. what about sleeping on my back, but with a leg to the side in the same way (does that make any sense at all?)

sorry this is ridiculously long-winded but very grateful for any advice (although preferably not of the 'rod-for-your-back' variety)

am on DD3 now so you're probably going to want to ignore my advice - just didn't want to see your post go unanswered

DD3 is 22wks now and when we waken up we normally have to find her somewhere in the bed inbetween us whilst we are balancing on 2inches each at either side

I normally place her on a pillow so she's at a decent height for feeding and once feeding done she goes into the middle in her sleepsuit/vest and sleeping bag

we tend to find the duvet gets pulled either side by us so it doesn't really reach her iyswim?

sorry, I don't think I've been any bloody use to you at all

oh and sorry we never had a bedside cot so am not sure about that one

shall leave now and hopefully someone with some decent advice shall be along soon

I do the lying on back & leg thing, with a 4.5 month old. Hard on the joints, but def not as hard as getting out of a warm bed on a cold night.

I can't think of a reason why your solution to the cot gap wouldn't work fine. We took a drill to our IKEA cot to get it the perfect height & stuffed a rolled up towel down the far side of its mattress to close a small gap.

thanks for the answers, have done the cot base thing and trying it tonight - looking forward (hopefully) to a chunk of sleep where i can stretch out before she joins me later! am getting more comfortable position-wise anyway so perhaps am relaxing a bit more iyswim?

am feeling silly now for buying a £200 bedside cot when we could have just taken a £70 IKEA one apart

I had the same problem with the mothercare cot. While DS young and unable to sit i kept the side up to its lower position, and pulled it right against my bed. The base was at highest setting, so was easy to lift him over from a sitting postion in bed, even after a c-section. The cot side isn't locked at this position though, so always had to be sure it was up against our bed, even when we weren't in it. One advantage of having the side slightly up was it made it possible to push cot away from my side to go to the loo, was hard shuffling to end of bed after the op! Once he was more mobile though had to have the side fully up and get out of bed to get him. Co-sleeping used grobag on top of our duvet, I often would return him to his cot at some stage in the night, so made it easier, not transfering onto a cold mattress and waking up! I would also sleep on both sides, when have safety of the bedside cot there it was ok for him to sleep on the outside of the bed, i rolled over to have him in the middle as swopped to other breast. or for joint comfort. Once he was older he always went always in the middle, and my milk supply went lopsided in favour of the bottom, easier to access boob! You have been warned!

we've got the mothercare cot - our little man wasn't really moving much at night so he was either tucked in with shhet and blanket or in sleeping bag with my pregnancy pillow down the gap. the cot had furniture overlapping the other side a bit so it couldn't go anywhere. when he ended up in our bed i slept on my side with the duvet under my arm so it couldn'tgo up over him. this was when the weather was warmer and some mornings he did feel really warm but it was just his legs really under the cover.