asd toddlers and beds - question for you

[hungryhippo21]

ds1 is 2.4 he is not dx yet but has lots of asd traits. ds2 is 6 months and needs new cot. Question is what age where your los when they went into own bed and how did they cope with it. Ds1 is very good and will goto bed when his programmes finishes each night but i know he will not stay in it if no sides. I know this is a typical toddler problem anyway. DS1 has cotbed but he looks big in it, so dont know whether to ds2 new cotbed and leave ds1 alone or get ds1 new bed with rails and give ds2 the old bed. Any advice please!!!

Hello

my dd1 (ASD) was 3.4 when we moved her out of her cotbed into a proper bed. She is very tall for her age, but still just about fitted into her cotbed, and seemed comfortable enough.

I had dd2 by this stage, and when dd2 was 4/5 months old and needed a cot (dd1 was 2.11 at this point) I did wonder about moving her, so that dd2 could have the cot

I decided against it, because I wasn't at that point ready to deal with the resulting problems, should they occur. So we bought dd2 a cheaper cot. we did get a good mattress for it though, as we would have wanted to get her a new one for the cotbed anyway - after 3 years of dd1 jumping up and down on it, we thought it had done it's time

I ebayed dd2's cot and dd1's mattress (are you still with me? ) once I did move the girls around, and got back two thirds of the cost of the cot, which I was happy with.

FWIW, we had a few nights of dd1 being a bit unsettled once we moved her to a big bed, but we soon left her to it - she used to sing to herself, and look out of the window etc until she fell asleep, and then I would go back in on my way up to bed and put her in bed (she fell asleep on some cushions on the floor for about a week or so) and tuck in etc. After about 3 weeks, she was falling asleep on the bed 95% of the time, and she is as happy as anyhitng.

It made going away/staying with friends a lot easier too, as she used to hate the travel cot, but sleeps happily in any bed, as long as we take her blanket along

gosh, I've gone on a bit

hope it has helped a little

I think there was a thread quite recently with lots of recommendations, I can't remember what it was called who who posted on it though, fat lot of help . It wasn't long ago though so you might be lucky and find it easily or someone else will remember. We just treated DS's room as if it was a giant cot iyswim, he came out of the cot and had an Ikea toddler bed and could roam around his room but could not get out of his room.

We used a Little Tikes plastic car shaped bed, which took a cot bed size mattress. It worked brilliantly, because DS loved it and was happy to stay in it. It was a VW Beetle shape, and it had raised sides so falling out wasn't an issue. Sold it recently on EBay, there's usually a few available on there, and as they're plastic, they're fairly indestructible.

I posted on the holidays/enclosed bed for autistic child post recently about high sided travel beds but I was looking on-line recently (for alternatives to Tena pads/large nappies) and ended up on a Big Baby Fettish site!!! Please dont think I'm being pervy-there is a(kind of logical) reason!!!! Any way-not only do they do large size walking reins in girl/boy colours!!!! they also had an adult size, exact replica of a baby cot-with drop down sides to boot!!! How sturdy it would be (for challenging behaviour/climbers etc) I have no idea, but if all you need is something larger with high sides it night be worth looking at!! Just dont tell anyone where you bought it ! It cost £500 which is at least half the price of an SN cot/bed. (Ds1's cost £2.5k-funded through the Cauldwell trust)

That should be-Summer holidays-where do people go post. Sorry.

LOL monstarmansmum

I wonder if the cot would come in a large unmarked brown envelope like stuff from An Summers does?

Another alternative is a 'sleepsheet'. Its basically a fitted sheet that incorporates a'waistcoat' with a zip and a press stud. If your child is particularly active (like mine!) it will pull off the bed, but if all they need is a bit of encouragement to stay in bed it might work. I cant find a link in English-if you read German or Dutch you might be ok!! Made by a company called Zewi. Will keep trying

Just found on internet grobag first duvet set, ds has a grobag and will not have a blanket in his cot (even for naps in the middle of winter)may give this a try - the duvet attaches to the sheet iyswim so cant fall out but he will probably hate it as it is quite expensive. Dont want him trying to wander round the room whilst dressed in his grow bag with all the toys he leaves about he will go bum over boobie in 1 minute. Like the idea of the kids beds with sides. He has cotbed which says should last until 5 suppose he seems big compared to ds2 and he sleeps quite often flat on his back with arms out so seems bigger. Will investigate guards for sides when he is a bit older and just get cheap cotbed for ds2. Its such a pain in bum when he cant tell you what he likes but then I suppose if he could he would change his mind anyway.

Ive seen this duvet/sheet combination in TK Maxx recently-worth trying and it will be cheaper than direct from Grobag.

Ds had a toddler bed with a fold-down wooden safety rail from Mothercare. It worked quite well as luckily for us he'd never learned to climb out of his cot so he just automatically stayed in when the rail was up. This was ok until he got to about 5 or 6 when he got too heavy so that one night he rolled against the rail and his weight made everything flip over. We found him lying on the floor underneath the rail and mattress! After this he stayed in the bed fairly well but did have a gate on his bedroom door to stop him wandering in the night.