# Co-sleeping with crawler--"Adult-sized crib" or guardrails for adult bed?



## late-night nan (Jan 28, 2003)

Hi there--
We've been co-sleeping since birth, and ds is now 11months. I'm generally happy with the arrangement, but I am worried now that ds is more mobile. Often I'll nurse ds to sleep and then get up to do a little work or straighten the house. My concern is that ds sometimes wakes up and starts to crawl around. We have the crib as a side-car and a barrier, but theoretically ds could crawl to the foot of the bed, which would be dangerous. Usually he cries when he wakes up, so I've always managed to catch him before he went anywhere. But my concern has made me start contemplating a crib, which I suspect will be a waste of money because ds is a very picky sleeper!

Does anyone have suggestions for making co-sleeping safer?

I don't want to put the bed on the floor if I can avoid it because of the dust (We live in an old house) and it's also colder there in winter.

I wish there were an adult-size crib, or safety gates for at least two sides of a bed, since we push our bed into a corner. Does such a thing exist? We have a set of bedrails, but it's too short and low. I think most bedrails are to help prevent toddlers from falling out of a child's bed, not to protect infants from crawling off an adult bed.

Help us avoid getting a crib!! TIA for any advice!


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## sntm (Jan 1, 2004)

i'm interested also. my son sleepcrawls, and though we don't have bedrails, i don't see how they would make much of a difference as he could climb over those easily (while sleeping!)

he fell out of bed again last night








he was back asleep almost instantly (mattress on the floor so fell only a foot) but i felt awful -- i usually wake instantly as he starts to move but he was fast and i was really tired. i had forgotten to put an extra pillow on the floor too.









will have to work on this upper boob/lower boob nursing so i can keep him in the middle.

nan, fwiw, we just usually keep one of us hanging out in the bedroom when he is there, or in the computer room (basically a large closet) which is just off the bedroom. i use my laptop, read a book, do some work, sort laundry, occasionally watch tv with the volume low.


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## eminer (Jan 21, 2003)

Unless your bed is unusually high or sharp, you might consider just letting him do his thing, maybe with minor modifications like blankets to cushion his fall.  If he does crawl off the bed (vs. just around on it), maybe he is intentionally trying to get off the bed? My dd started doing that a couple of months younger than your ds is. I put a barrier next to the bed to keep her from falling off, but she circumvented it. I felt major nonconstructive mommy guilt (of course) and starting putting her on the floor for naps. But in the morning I would get up out of our family bed before dd, and when dd woke up, instead of just sitting there or calling for me, sure enough I found her crying on the floor. It took me awhile to catch onto the fact that she obviously wanted to learn to get out of bed by herself. The whole process took about a week or two, during which she hit her head on the floor several times. Once or twice it left a mark, nothing serious though. But at the end...I couldn't believe I was seeing this tiny baby climb out of bed! Since then, her instincts navigating heights in general have been very sharp. I don't need a railing to keep her from falling out of bed. She enjoys climbing and does it a lot, sometimes to my chagrin.

Anyway, I guess my point here is that unless there is a danger that ds can't understand (like some hidden sharp thing on the bed -- which maybe could be fixed? blankets on the floor where you expect he might fall?), his own mix of self-preservation instinct and urge to learn will probably take care of him.

Erin


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## sntm (Jan 1, 2004)

erin, that's a good point. my son tends to do it mostly suddenly in the middle of the night, i think when he is still asleep (DH sleeptalks/walks). but that may still be a part of it.

we talked about teaching him to get off the bed, but thought he was too young. maybe we'll reconsider?


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## late-night nan (Jan 28, 2003)

I think we'll try to move our boxspring to another part of the house to lower the whole bed. It's too high to let the babe try to crawl down on his own.

He actually hasn't made any attempt to crawl off the far end. I just didn't want there to be a "first time" in this case because it's too dangerous with both the mattress and boxspring.

Another option I am considering is those mattress-top bedrails, but instead of putting it on the side, I'd put it on the open end of our queen bed. Has anyone tried this?

The only thing is that it would have to flap down; otherwise, *we* wouldn't have a way of getting into the bed!


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