Questions- SideCarring a Crib

[WindyCityMom]

Hello everyone! Please bear with me

DD1 didn't co-sleep. Our arrangements were a bit strange, I was young at the time, my father was somewhat holding us hostage until my 18th birthday, so I stuck it out for six months.

We had our own room, I slept on a big ethan allen chair with ottoman (never had a bed over there, so we couldn't co-sleep), and she was a foot away in her crib (slept in a bassinet for the first 2 months though). She wasn't breastfed for a number of reasons, I never could get my milk going back up after all of the issues cleared up so she was bottle fed. Granted, as a FFed baby, she STTN much earlier at 6 weeks, but I do know how difficult it was to put her back in the crib after feeding without waking her. I can imagine that it is all the same with a nursing baby. When I moved out and could finally be with my husband (please don't give me grief or flame me!), our room was so small that DD had her own room, and she did well with it. We have since moved. DD1 has her own room again, is in a toddler bed, and sleeps like a miracle. We do co-sleep in the mornings and occasionally for naps, but she's mostly on her own.

We've got a new baby due this december, a girl. I'm whole-heartedly planning on nursing (no bottles, and no supplementing, just EBF) and am not letting anything get in my way That being said, I know that BFed babies STTN much much much later than FFed babies. I also would like to co-sleep since I never got the opportunity to do so, and because I know the benefits, etc. I also can't see myself getting up to the crib (which is in our room right now) to pick her up and bring her back every time she needs to nurse.

DH is the most restless sleeper I know, really. I was browsing the forums for ideas about a bedrail when I saw something about a sidecar crib- and I want to know more! Here are some questions I have.

For reference, here is our crib: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index...ductId=3013016

1.) Do I just take the front of the crib off and voila? I'm going to experiment with the mattress (we don't have one right now, it's in DDs toddler bed and we need to buy another) when DD wakes up from her nap to see how it lines up with the bed.

2) How much securing needs to be done with it? It looks like it will be level to the bed when the mattress is added, and it will be up against the wall (sleigh style back) and our bed pushed up against IT.

3) We have a pillow top mattress, very soft and squishy. Naturally, this worries me. Any advice?

4) Since the top most mattress position on the crib is all that will work to be level with our bed, what do we do when baby becomes mobile? The sides of the crib are not all that tall, although the back of it is. Input, please?

5) If it makes a difference, we have a queen sized bed that is on the generic metal bedframe that came with it.
Thanks in advance everyone

[Spring Lily]

Ours is side-carred, so I'll take a stab at your questions.

1) This will depend on your crib, but you'll most likely need to put something in the crack between the bed and the crib. We've used blankets & pillows shoved in there, but I've also heard of people using pool noodles, you know, those styrofoam things? Whatever works for you.

2) I wouldn't do it without strapping it on, personally. We went to the hardware store and bought straps and buckles. We have the straps go around the middle of our boxspring, and then strap to the bottom of the crib. You'll have to look at your crib to see where would be the best place, and then measure. The straps we bought are thick and sturdy and come on a roll, so you just have the store cut them to the length you need.

3) We've also got a pillowtop. I bought a flat waterproof mattress pad, crib-sized, and put it between our regular mattress pad and the sheet. Not only does that protect the mattress, but it also makes a flatter, less pillowy surface. It's probably not recommended, but it's worked with us for 3 babies and I wasn't going to buy a new mattress.

4) Lower your bed. We took ours off the frame and put the boxspring on the floor. That way you can lower the crib matress to its lowest setting, and when the baby gets mobile there won't be far to go to the floor. It'll be low enough that you can teach the baby to go down feet first on their tummy, and they will be able to do it by themselves.

5) Pack away the bedframe for awhile.

[WindyCityMom]

Thanks so much, that really helped!

Here is DD in her crib at a few months old, the mattress is at the upmost position, so you can see what I mean about the lack of room there.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...DSC00574-1.jpg

We've got a very tiny place, and have clothing storage under the bed, so I'm dreading finding a new home for that stuff. Hopefully I can pull this off for the first few months (until baby starts sitting up, pulling up, etc.) and then figure out what to do with our junk

[noobmom]

For our side, we had a convertible crib. So we just converted it into the "daybed" configuration, but the mattress higher so that it was even with our mattress. Then we used two pool noodles, cut to the length of the crib, to fill the gap that was created between the crib back and the crib mattress. We strapped the crib to our mattress frame with bungee cords. Kinda makes changing the sheets a pain, but DH takes care of that most of the time.

If your crib isn't convertible, you need to make sure it's still solid and stable if you take a side off (i.e. it's not dependent on that side). Definitely bungee or strap it to your bed. As for the pillow top, I would suggest keeping the baby mostly on the crib mattress and that you slide over to nurse her. Or, can you flip the bed and use the non-pillowtop side for a year until the baby is older?

[WindyCityMom]

The other side of the mattress is like a board, lol!

It's a convertible crib though.

I checked it out and at the topmost setting it is a tad lower than the bed, but not a huge difference. If I can rig a bungee setup, it will work