Kids and bunk beds - anyone have them?

coasterqueen wrote: We bought Kylie a bunkbed set for her bedroom this past weekend. It won't come in until May, though. We are going to move her full bed set into Megan's room. The bunk bed set will go into Kylie's room. Kylie wants to sleep on the top bunk. Ok, I'm fine with that. Then I calmly started freaking out about it . I guess I'll put a monitor in there for a while. My fear is her getting up in the middle of the night and not being coherent enough to get down the stairs without hurting herself. I guess worse things could happen. Dh and I both grew up with them from an early age.

So anyone have their kids in bunk beds? Any tips? Any no-nos, fears, etc? I'm sure many don't agree with them and that's fine - so I'll take those opinions too.

mckayleesmom replied: I grew up on them....but they make me nervous for the same reason....But you got to let them spread their wings....

I suggest just making sure they have some kind of side rail and maybe a dimly lit lamp...That way they can see if they wake up.

BAC'sMom replied: My boys have bunk beds in their bedroom; ours have a double bed on bottom and a single bed on top with side rails. My oldest son sleeps on top and my younger son sleeps on the bottom but that will change after my youngest gets older. I just don't think he is ready yet to be on the top bunk.

mommy~to~a~bunch replied: Quentin (12) & Ethan (8) have bunkbeds, and that works out fine. Ethan is on top. We want bunkbeds for Hannah (5) & Kayla (3), but we're still just thinking about that.

coasterqueen replied: Kylie does sleep with several dim lights on in her room . Don't know how she does it, but she does. Also, I forgot to mention that we looked at several bunk bed sets before buying the one we did - the one we bought has very sturdy higher than normal side rails (normal meaning compared to the other ones we saw) and we wanted one with a ladder that had flat steps on it, making it easier to go up and down on. So I think we made a good choice with the bed we did buy. Honestly if she hurts herself it's no different than the billion times she walks into a wall, trips over her own feet, etc. Poor girl doesn't see anything in front of her.

kimberley replied: the boys had them at about 4 and 5 and were fine with them. my big problem was them not playing on them when they were awake. maybe try to talk her into sleeping on the bottom for a while first. she can put pictures on the "roof"

TrulyBlessed replied: We got bunk beds for the girls that you can seperate, so we go back and forth between the two. Unfortunately, the last time we had them up our 4 year old fell off the ladder and fractured her arm. We have them down right now, but when the baby gets here we will put them back up because they will have to be in the same room.

My3LilMonkeys replied: We have them - Brooke sleeps on top, Madison on bottom. They've had them for about 5 months now maybe with no problems. Brooke doesn't really ever get up in the night so maybe that's why it's not an issue for us.

kit_kats_mom replied: With my clumsy kids, I thought for sure that the loft bed was a bad idea. However, no one has gotten hurt yet and K gets down in her sleep at least once every night to go pee. She sleepwalks and hasn't gotten hurt.

The only problem I have with them is that they are kind of hard to make and my monkeys can't stop jumping on them, from them etc..

coasterqueen replied:
That's good to *hear* because Kylie is so clumsy it's terrible. But I can't shield her from all her clumsiness. The other day I was unloading the dishwasher. She walked past it to show me something then turned around and fell right over the door and hurt herself pretty badly. She knew it was right there. Silly kid.

Anyways, on making the bed......it gets made when company comes. Actually the girls sleep on top of their bedspreads and cover up (which isn't often) with a light blanket so there isn't much to do to make the bed.

MyBlueEyedBabies replied: Matt and Johnny have bunk beds. Obviously Matt is on top.... Johnny the super climber went up the ladder long before he could walk so the ladder had to be taken down. Matt now does this spiderman inspired scaling of the side of his bed to get up and down and has had no issues at all. he too is one that gets down in the middle of the night to pee and has never fallen.

ZandersMama replied: I have been thinking about them for the boys too, but both of them already think they are invincible so maybe in a couple years

DVFlyer replied: We have them. So far, the only incidences have been on the ladder. Two times, now, one of them has slipped on a step (round steps). I want to replace them with boards to avoid this.

I have a strict rule for No Playing on the top bunk. And jumping is never allowed... but isn't really a problem since the ceiling usually lets them know it's a bad idea.

MommyToAshley replied: I wouldn't even consider a bunk bed for Ashley, she's too active of a sleeper. She is never in the same position long... sometimes she ends up at the foot of her bed with limbs hanging off her bed. We have a guard rail up now on her twin bed and half the time she will be laying against it or bump the wall on the other side. She has a canopy bed... not as cool as bunk beds, but the next best thing in her eyes.

I do know a few of Ashley's freinds have either bunk beds or loft beds and have no problem with it.

coasterqueen replied:
You know Kylie is a very active sleeper, but has never hung off the bed or fallen off - otherwise I wouldn't consider it either. She doesn't have a side rail on her bed now and hasn't fallen off (while sleeping ) but her bunk bed does have a high side rail on it so actually I'll feel safer about it. If she has an accident on the top I'll just keep her on the bottom.

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied: Currently the boys are in two twin beds that make into a bunk bed when we're ready. The top twin has a built in rail (removable) and of course it comes with a ladder. We plan to set it up as soon as we find a home. Wil does really good in a twin now, stays put for the most part. Where Wesley is still learning, so he rolls around a lot (he has the rail right now), so of course Wes will be on bottom. With a night light, I don't see a problem with it. I think all kids are clumsy at this age.

:.Mrs_Mommy.: replied: My 2 girls have a bunkbed.

They both sleep on the bottom and on the top (sleep together most nights). We haven't had a problem at all. I was a little bit worried about Lily when we first got the bunk because she gets up to go potty and is asleep the whole time.

Now she does great.

I like having the bunk because it takes up wayy less room in the room. Although making the bed is a feat in itself.

luvmykids replied: Kylie and Macie have bunkbeds. My only issue is that it has a slide that I had to take off because there was just too much monkeying around. Once they learned to play the right way on it, they got it back and we haven't had any injuries.

coasterqueen replied:
They have one of those COOL bunk beds, don't they? I wanted one for the girls, but Dh reminded me how bad of a decision that would be for our girls. Still would have been cool.

luvmykids replied:
They got it by default It was Nikkas but she never used it, and it does have the cool thing on top to look like a fort or castle or whatever but I got tired of putting all the flaps on after they thought it was fun to take them off

The slide is REALLY slick for some reason, awhile back I thought I'd be a COOL mom and slide down it.....and busted my tail because I couldn't stop at the bottom

paradisemommy replied: Taven has been sleeping on the top of his bunk bed from the time he was 3 and i was totally paranoid too but he's never had any accidents or problems. BUT we co-sleep with your kids so i'm in our room with skyler on our queen bed and dh is in taven's room on the bottom of his bunk bed (when he's not working his 24 hr shift). It works for us!!

Insanemomof3 replied: My kids have bunk beds. Tristan, my 6 year old sleeps on the top bunk. He was 4 when we got it though. He did very well though. I of course FREAKED about him being on top and worried all the time, but he only fell out once and that was less than a year ago because he was playing on it. He was fine, and I was mad. LOL But it worked out well.

coasterqueen replied: I'm glad to see others have done it and it worked out well.

I can't wait until they come in!!!! Sometime at the end of this month or by mid-May at the latest.

jenzz3bbz replied: Both of my boys have them.. my younger son 6 1/2 has a regular size & height twin bunk bed.. he was allowed to begin sleeping on the top bunk once he started kindergarten this fall.. he does just fine.

Our older son is almost 8, & has a full size loft bed w/desk below.. it's a lot higher than the regular bunk bed, so our younger son wasn't allowed to sleep up there with him until he was 6. Our 5yr old daughter, who is a sleep sitter upper & arm flaler flipper cannot sleep on a bunk bed EVER!! She very often throws herself off the queen size bed we have for her.. close to the floor!! No way will she ever be sleeping on a bunk bed!

redchief replied: Our boys had bunk beds from quite young. Rick was 4 and John was 2 (on the bottom bunk). The only real issue we had was they kept finding creative ways to dismount as they got older... BOYS! The girls also had bunks but they were older.