Co Sleep questions

samantha11 wrote: I was wondering if any of you co sleep with your little ones? I didn't plan on doing it until Samantha got sick, we let her sleep with us for a few nights and we were hooked. Not only Samantha, but my husband and I also liked it better. We could cuddle with her and we knew she was safe. If this describes any of you, I have a few questions.
1. What happens at nap time? We have been co sleeping for a while now but the other day, during a nap, Samantha fell out of bed. That scared both of us into putting her in her crib for a night. That didn't work, so now we are back to the bed but the problem is, when she naps we don't want her falling out of bed. She is 11 mo old and staring to really move around. Should we have her nap in the crib and sleep with us at night?

2. What happens when she is at other people's houses? We have grandparents watching her twice a week and they were having her nap in their beds.

During naps we had pillows around her but obviously she rolled over them. We just bought bed rails tonight, but I don't think they will fit on our king bed. What do you all think?

-Beth

kaitlynsmom replied: Since Kaitlyn has been teething I have started putting her in the bed with us when she wakes in the middle of the night or morning but during the day for her naps she sleeps on a "doughnut" - I don't know if you have ever seen one but its wonderful. It's a large(you get them round or rectagular) padded cushion like thing. I put it on the floor by her play area and she takes her naps on it.This way I don't have to worry about her falling off anything and she won't sleep/nap in her cot during the day.

Brenda2005 replied: I'm planning on cosleeping with this baby..i actually started cosleeping with the youngest one about a year ago and i love it..i put him in between dh and I.

My son has had overnight visits with my mother and he sleeps pretty good..maybe because he's older..i'm wondering how it will be with an infant/toddler.

kit_kats_mom replied: I co slept with Katherine, and I'm currently co sleeping with Lauren. I learned a few things with Katherine though and have made some changes with Lauren.

1. We made the mistake of never getting K used to the crib. Anytime we wanted her to go to sleep, one of us had to go to sleep too or hold her the entire time. that got really old. Once she got a bit older, I bought a nap mat and she would nap there. At least that way I wasn't scared about her rolling off of it. Lauren naps either in her crib or on a blanket on the floor next to me while I'm at the computer.
2. I'd get a nap mat if I were you. They are easily portable and if she gets used to it at home, she will probably nap just fine wherever you take it.
3. We have a king sized bed and this is what we did. We used the bed rails near the top of the bed and piled firm pillows on the foot of the bed. However, if you get the nap mat, you won't have to worry about it.

You can also just take the crib mattress and put it on the floor, in leau of the nap mat. That's what we did to transition Katherine from our bed to her own.

Mommy2BAK replied: Well, my family co-sleeps. We nevr planned to co-sleep, we have a cradle next to our bed, but while I was BF it was the simplist thing to do, and we just never stopped. So my answers to your questions:

1. What happens at nap time? Suprisingly she is fine. She will just sleep wherever, and we don't have to lay there. Sometimes if she is having trouble going to sleep I will lay there for a few minuteds, but then once she sleeps I leave the room.

2. What happens when she is at other people's houses? Well I am frequently at my mother's or my husband's parents when it gets to be nap time or bed time and I will just lay her on a bed and she will sleep.

DansMom replied: We've coslept with Daniel from day one, but after a while we encountered the same problem with naps and his mobility. Our solution, since he wouldn't go into the crib, was to ditch the crib and put a full sized mattress on the floor in his room (our friends use a futon mattress). Then I could nurse him there, or DH give a bottle there, and it was more familiar to him than being dropped in a crib. He got used to it in no time and now actually prefers his naps in there.

When we traveled, I put him down for naps in some pretty bizarre places! He napped on two couch cushions laid end to end in a little office room, for example, at my dad's house. I've noticed that he has to be really tired to fall asleep in a strange place though.

A&A'smommy replied: We co-sleep with our 15month (almost 16) old and have been pretty much from the beggining she slept in her crib some though and the first 3 months of her life she slept in a bassinet. We lived with my parents for a little while and when we did we didn't have enough room for a crib (nap times) so I stayed with her until she fell asleep and then I stuff pillows ALL around her and she wouldn't move (this was at like 13 and 14 months old. Now she sleeps in her cribs for naptime as for your parents she could make pallet on the floor or put a mattress down on the floor for her and make sure there are blankets around it too and you could do the same at your house too. Good luck!

toddzgurl replied: We started Damion in his crib and that was so hard in the middle of the night to get up when he fell back to sleep to put him in his bed. Now we have him sleeping on the couch in the living room. It is so much easier when it comes to feeding him in the middle of the night. we do co-sleep some of the time. We are trying to get him used to sleeping in his crib so that when he gets older he will feel safe on his own. What we do for his naps is we put him in his crib and he will wake up and we will rock him back to sleep and put him back. He eventually gets the hint that he is going to sleep there wether he wants to or not and that is his bed and he falls asleep.! Good luck!!

kimberley replied: for the boys, i just got one of those little kid's couches that pulls out into a bed. they loved it, i didn't worry. at other people's houses, i brought the pack n play.
with my daughter now, we have a bed rail on our queen size bed.. the kind that goes between the mattress and boxspring... and blockade the foot of the bed with pillows. she is squirmy. i agree about the mattress on the floor.. that works too.

kaitlynsmom replied: I keep the fact that we have Kaitlyn in our bed with us like some dirty secret as everyone around us has such extreme reactions , like "oooh, your'e going to regret it later" and all that sort of talk. So to save myself the hassle of trying to bl**dy justify my decision I just keep my mouth shut.
Do any of you have the same problem?

kit_kats_mom replied:
Sort of. My mom is super supportive of our choices since she read the Dr. Sears baby book before K even arrived. DH's family thinks that children should be spanked, not speak unless spoken too etc. I know that they don't approve of our child rearing techniques but Woody has warned them to not question me. He know's I've done my research. LOL

loveydad replied: We don't in the sense that our children are in our bed all the time everynight. They sleep in my bed (that is the older ones, Nicky-Tracy-The twins) if they're sick, scared, or just clinging to me. Usually i end up taking them back to bed. But every morning the three of them come into my room and snuggle up in my bed in the early mornign .it gets a bit crowded.

I don't hide the fact that I co-sleep at times except from certain relatives who are like yours it sounds like and say "oh you shouldn't do that they should be in their beds" and certain people who make rude comments.

momma2emily replied: I started co-sleeping with my dd when she was about 2 weeks old, it was the easiest thing for me since i was breastfeeding and needed some sleep lol.
When she hit about 4 months she rolled off the bed and i said no more napping on the bed so i had her play in her crib for awhile and started puttin her in there for naps. I Put her into her playpen at night and bring her to bed with me when she wakes up usually around 330am. I wanted her to be used to sleeping in different enviorements because we are on the go alot.
She is almost 8 mnths old now and its getting really hard to keep up with teh cosleeping which dh and i love, but she is so mobile now, i dont always wake up when she does and ive twice saved her from falling off the bed, she is fearless i tell ya! I have been trying to get her to sleep in the playpen more at night but she isnt going for it!

good luck with your baby

amynicole21 replied: We're still co-sleeping with Sophia, but will try not to with the new baby (no room left in the bed!) Don't forget that the bed rails probably expand. That was our problem - we left them at 2 feet or something and they weren't so effective. When we finally realized our oversite, we pulled them out to their full 3.5 feet and didn't have any more problems with her nearly rolling out.

As for sleeping elsewhere, mine never seems to have a problem sleeping by herself anywhere but in our house

Jamison'smama replied: We co-slept with Jamison (and still do at times) and we are now co-sleeping with Jack. I agree with the nap mat or just a nice blanket on the floor --I did that so I could nurse her and then get up without her realizing I had left. With the bed railings, we also have a king sized bed and the railings were long enough (well, for her short little body) but not tall enough so I would stuff a pillow in between the railing and the bed so it was taller than the railing by a few inches. Jack sleeps in his pack -n- play for naps.

Amanda8 replied: We co slept with our son from the very begging. He never got used to a crib or anything. Honestly for naps when I knew he was tired I would put on Blues Clues and he would fall asleep for a couple hours on the couch. We co sleep with our daughter but she is used to her crib and naps there she also falls asleep in it at night we bring her in the bed when she wakes up.