Transition to a side-car?

[haurelia]

Hi all!
Looking for some experienced opinions in using the crib as a side car.
When I got home from a class this morning, I found DH setting the crib up next to our bed! He said he's tired of having to run in with every peep on the monitor during naps or bedtime (babe goes down around 8 pm and we stay up for a couple of hours to watch a movie or whatever). DH feels that the side-car setup will be safer when DS is sleeping alone for naps and that post-bedtime period, although I don't really follow that logic. DS does a lot of noisy position changes when he sleeps, but doesn't crawl around unless he's totally awake.
At any rate, I'm willing to try it, but as we are now, DS spends the night nestled in under my arm, for the most part. In my secret heart, I'm pretty confident that the side-car setup will fall by the wayside, but we'll see.

Anyone with word of wisdom?

Oh, we also had a fight about how to set up the side car, so any pointers toward "official" recommendations on setup would be helpful.

Thanks mamas!

[henny penny]

I LOVE our sidecar! Ds nightweaned around 10 months and we set it up then. He is a very active sleeper and is hard to sleep with so it worked great for us. We have ours set up so that the crib mattress is about 8" lower than the adult mattress so ds can climb up if he needs a snuggle but has his own space to thrash about in the rest of the night (or naps). It's perfect. We have the crib frame strapped to the adult bed frame with nylon straps that go all the way under the adult mattress to the other side of the adult bed frame. And the crib is pretty much against the wall anyway so it can't accidentally scoot too far away. Ds is two now and it still works for us! Everyone gets good sleep!

[noobmom]

We love our sidecarred crib too! Although I like to snuggle DS and he still sleeps between us a lot of the time, the sidecar gives us the feeling of more space in the bed because you can sleep right on the edge without feeling like you're about to fall off. And sometimes when it's really hot or I'm sick, it's nice to have DS sleeping over in the crib area to give me some space. Or if I want to cuddle with DH instead. What happens a lot is that when DS goes to bed earlier than us, we put him in the crib area. Occasionally he stays there all night, but more often he crawls over to me in the middle of the night. We prefer our crib mattress flush with ours, but if you're worried about rolling off, you might want to make the crib lower. DS is old enough that we just use pillow barriers. Our crib is a convertible, so we just switched it to the toddler bed configuration, but with the mattress set at the right height. It's lashed to the bed frame with bungee cords--no way it can move. We used pool noodles to fill the extra space between the crib side and mattress.

[Bridie's Mama]

We side carred our 2nd baby's crib from day 1 until he was at least 18 months old. LOVED it. He started out having his own space, but literally right next to our space. And b/c our daughter was still sleeping with us, it made the bed less crowded. Here's a GREAT site to show how to do it discussing safety and not having any area where they could fall accidentally, etc. It's very thorough and we actually had to use the high density foam which the site discusses b/c there was a weird gap between the 2 beds...it worked beautifully!

http://www.freewebs.com/sidecarcrib/index.htm

HTH!

[sunshynbaby]

Originally Posted by Bridie's Mama

http://www.freewebs.com/sidecarcrib/index.htm

We set ours up like this except we used a couple pool noodles instead of the foam. I like it because I can swaddle DS and move him to the side-car if I need some space... if he lets me, lol!

[beebalmmama]

We tried it with ds 1 when he was a baby. Honestly for us it just didn't really work. Ds would scoot over to snuggle with me anyway leaving the crib empty for most of the night. We never attached it to the bed but had it snugged up between the wall and the bed.

[haurelia]

Oooh, thanks all! Keep 'em coming!

Thanks for the link to the photos...that's helpful. Also, silly me, I didn't even think of having the crib a bit lower than the bed for kid containment! Depending on how it goes tonight, we may have to try the lower setting tomorrow.

I nursed him to sleep about an hour ago, finishing on the side car where he is still sleeping normally after I snuck away. He looks so big in there! I feel a little weird since I've had him right next to me since the day of birth, but we'll give it a whirl. Maybe I'll end up loving it like some of you ladies!