What to do about sleeping arrangements?

[lisa1980]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post but I'm looking for some advice from those who have been in a similar situation.

We currently still bed share with my DS who is nearly 2.5yrs old. He was an awful sleeper so we started out of desperation but it has worked really well for us and I'm in no particular hurry to move him into his own bed until he's ready. He is still a bit hit and miss with sttn anyway.

The problem is that I'm pregnant with my second, due September, and I was thinking of bed sharing safely from the start with this one but four in a bed isn't going to work and I know that having a toddler in a bed with a newborn, even separated, isn't necessarily recommended. I looked at co sleeper cots but I'm worried as they're all quite expensive and DS literally wouldn't sleep in his cot AT ALL so I'm reluctant to shell out for something that may end up unused.

We've bought DS a toddler bed which has been set up in our room and I'm thinking of trying to transition him to that first and then maybe to his own room when he feels ready but I feel horribly guilty that he will feel pushed out when the new baby comes, and tbh so far he's not overly enamoured with his own bed....

Any advice would be appreciated. Is there an easier way that I've overlooked? Is it at all possible to bedshare safely with a toddler and newborn?

Thanks ladies

 

[Rachel_C]

I think it's possible to have four in the bed safely and comfortably... depending on the size of your bed of course!

I would have the adults in the middle of the bed and the kids on the outside with bed guards. I think you'd need at least a king size bed for that to be comfortable! Or you could have your toddler in the middle and the baby on the outside next to you, but that depends if you want to be dealing with both kids yourself!

If you don't think the bed is big enough, how about using a normal cot as a co-sleeper for the baby? That's what we did. We had a standard (cheap!) drop side Mothercare cot. I took the drop side off, adjusted the mattress to exactly the same height as ours (it meant I had to drill four new holes, took a minute of measuring and a few seconds of actual work), then fastened the cot to the bed frame with some kind of strapping stuff we had. Then the baby mattress was pushed up against our mattress and I stuffed the resulting gap at the far side with an offcut of my first LO's mattress but most people use tightly rolled towels I think. I also used some rolled towels underneath the overhanging bit of cot mattress as our bed frame wasn't high enough to support it properly. There are tutorials/photos online of how different people adapt normal cots. Do you still have your first's cot?

I did transition my youngest to a toddler bed in our room when she was about 18 months old but she was keen to use the bed as it was her sister's old bed - she thought it meant she was a big girl too. At first we just used it for naps, reading, playing hide and seek etc. Then I started putting her to bed in there - I would lie in it to feed her to sleep and sneak off after. If she woke in the night she would come in our bed. Eventually she was happy to stay in there. If you're going to switch to the toddler bed, I would do it before baby arrives so it doesn't seem like the baby has taken his place.

 

[lisa1980]

Thanks for your suggestions

We do have a king size bed so I guess it might work...my toddler tends to sleep sprawled across it and my husband and I curled against either side currently

So far we've put DS in his bed for naps and he starts the night off in it (he still falls asleep on me after a story) but he usually comes in with us when he wakes in he night.

The idea about converting a normal cot is a really good one; I'll definitely look into that.