Not enough room to cosleep?

[FloridaBorn]

My home was built in 1953 and has tiny bedrooms. My husband and I share a double bed (I know that made some of your jaws drop right there, lol!) with room on either side for both of us to have a bedside table. We keep our dressers and clothes in another room, the bedroom is that tiny.

I have already read from posters here as well as other natural parenting websites that the best bed for cosleeping is a king size bed. Honestly I could not fit a bed that large in any room in my house, except for maybe the living room!

I don't know if having a cosleeper/sidecar set up will work either because of the space issue. I have thought of using a moses basket type of bassinet for the first weeks and then transferring our child to a crib in another room, but I'm afraid that would disrupt the baby's sleep.

This is my first child and I'm not sure what my options are. I appreciate any help y'all may have to offer

[butterfly_mommy]

We live in a house with very small rooms as well. Our bedroom is 10 feet by 10 feet with a window on one wall, French doors on the other and a fire place on a third. Also we do not have slosets so I have 2 wardrobes in the room. My husband and I sleep in a double bed as well (and we are not small people) I like it and I like to be snugly and don't ind touching someone when I sleep and neither does he. We have an Ikea crib side-cared to our bed, it is simple with minimal material and space even though it uses a standard crib mattress. I love this arrangement . However if I could fit it I would have a queen bed just to buy me a wee bit more room when DS is sleeping between us.

This is how it now works for us and has been since DS was about 5 mons or so with lengthening times he goes between nursing during sleep.

DS goes to sleep with me lying comfortably in our bed and nursing him and then sometimes patting his back till he is asleep, I then roll him into his crib part (our mattress are perfectly even) and make a little pillow barricade along the line were the bed and crib come together. If he cries out I just move the pillow wall and jump into the bed and nurse him back to sleep. Then I go to bed some hours later and remove the pillow wall and usually sleep nurse DS so he will stay asleep and not wake me like 15 mins after I fall asleep! Usually when DS wants to nurse sometime in the early morning I roll him into the middle of the bed between DH and I and scootch my bum into his crib area (he has a natural rubber crib mattress so it is really comfy) or if he gets cold in the middle of the night I will roll him in between us and snuggle him up to warm him, I roll him back into his crib area when he starts kicking the duvet off and uncovering me.

I have slept with the 3 of us in a double sized bed with no side car and it was horrible, I hardly slept at all. A queen is doable for a few nights and a king is great if you have the room. I have read of some families taking their whole room and literally making it a bed room, just mattress from wall to wall, keeps it baby friendly for when they are crawling (although I never had a prob with DS in the above mentioned set-up).

[rzberrymom]

We have really small rooms too. We've literally got a room full of bed with no other furniture and no room to walk. I've also got a hammock hanging over our bed for my newborn. I got the idea from when we lived in the Netherlands, the land of teeny tiny houses--they hang a bassinet over the bed there. We've also had a crib mattress on the floor next to our bed for my older DD--smaller than a twin size, but it was still plenty big for her as she got older.

[bobandjess99]

We have a house built in the 20's, back wen humans were apparently much, much smaller thanthey are today, ROFL! Our bedrooms are 10X10...we do actually have a king size bed in there. It's the ENTIRE room, but hey, we just need to sleep in there.
Honestly, you can probably fit a king size by skipping one of the bedside tables.

[To-Fu]

Would you have room to ditch the bedside tables and make a wall of beds by adding a twin or crib mattress?

[RockStarMom]

I'd move the tables and add a twin bed.

[FloridaBorn]

If I did that there would be NO room to walk around the bed, make it up with clean sheets, or sweep under the bed. Sorry, but I just don't understand the daily logistics of a room full of bed

Buying a new bed (twin or king!) is not an option right now for financial reasons. I'm not even buying a new crib, but a used one.

The hammock idea sounds feasible, though!

Thanks for your input.

[Chamomile Girl]

It is possible to co-sleep on a double bed. My husband and I do it when we have to (that is when we visit family). The real only issue we have is that my husband is so tall his feet hang over the end...but otherwise it totally works. I think it depends on the two of you and how aware you are.

[lalemma]

We do the family bed in a full-size bed (I would not recommend it, but until we move again, it's the what-is) - it's cramped, but possible. My husband is also really tall, so we put the mattress directly on the floor. When the baby is between us, we tend to sleep on our sides: if we need to stretch out a bit more I put him on my side of the bed, with a pillow bumper between the mattress and the wall.

[BrittneyMarie]

We must be an overly snuggley family because dh and i are by no means whatsoever small (or even average, really) people and we bedshare with our 4 month old. id love to have something a little better when shes bigger, but its not at all feasable right now. we do fine!

[FloridaBorn]

After searching for baby hammocks I'm totally drooling over the Kanoe!!

Thanks so much for all of you who responded who are family bedsharing in smaller beds... with bigger husbands! Mine is 6'2" and about 225!

[Drummer's Wife]

We used to cosleep with an infant and toddler in a full size bed (I wonder how, now that we have a king and only one in bed w/us) but we did it somehow.

[FourTrees]

My son and I sleep on a full sized (I think?) futon. It fits snug against a wall with no cracks. My son sleeps against the wall, I sleep in the middle or to the side. My SO spends about 2-4 nights with us each week. On those nights, I sleep in the middle, and he goes to the outside. While a bigger bed would be cool, I'm comfortable with the arrangement. It might be because we are both side sleepers?

[rzberrymom]

Originally Posted by FloridaBorn

Sorry, but I just don't understand the daily logistics of a room full of bed

For me, it's much much easier to deal with the logistics of a room full of beds than to deal with dragging myself out of bed several times in the middle of the night and schlepping down the hall to get a baby that is now wide awake because it took me so long to get to her.

If you do decide to get the Kanoe, you might want to rent it first and try it out (I *think* they do that)--we spent $300 on it and have barely used it since our babe prefers to snuggle with us. I SOOO wish I had rented it first!

[To-Fu]

Originally Posted by FloridaBorn

If I did that there would be NO room to walk around the bed, make it up with clean sheets, or sweep under the bed. Sorry, but I just don't understand the daily logistics of a room full of bed

If you put the mattresses on the floor, there's nothing to clean under.

But if that option doesn't sound like it would work for you, then maybe the hammock thing would be better. I think the Kanoe goes up to 30 lbs., and renting it first is a great idea. It does cost almost $300, though, if you get it new.

[provocativa]

We have lived in a similar house, but our bedrooms were 10 by 11. We ditched the bedside tables, had some clothes storage in another room, and had a twin pushed against a queen, with dh, myself, and both dds in the giant bed. It was really fun.

[Lilly Milly]

Our bedroom is like yours, but we do have a queen bed. A nightstand on each side. One dresser at the end of the bed. No room for any other furniture because the closet comes into the bedroom.

For us, it was important to have a bed that is not on the floor. My husband probably would have been okay with the bed against the wall, but not me. I just can't stand that; it's just a personal thing. These were our boundaries in regards to cosleeping.

With the bed against one wall we probably would have been able to have a more typical cosleeper or bassinet, but this is the one we got:http://www2.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx...38|62702|62721

It is not great, but it is cheap. It was the only thing I could find that wasn't more than 18 inches wide. She started out there for the first 4 mo but usually ended up between us most of the night. I had to jump onto the bed and scoot to the top to get past the bassinet though which was a little annoying but not too bad. Our bed is really high so we considered putting this bassinet on blocks (to save my back), but never did because she was mostly between us.

This set-up probably did lead us to end cosleeping earlier than most though because my LO really likes her own space and outgrew the bassinet. Now she's in a crib in the next room. If my LO hadn't transitioned well to her crib, I would have probably given in and put bed against on wall and try a side car setup.

[cristeen]

Honestly - my DH and I shared a Queen bed before the baby arrived. Since he arrived, we haven't shared a bed. For a while, one of us was on the couch, the other in the bed, and now I'm in the guest room with the baby and he's in the bedroom. We just could not make it work in a Queen with all 3 of us. We're looking into buying a King so that we can share a bed again.

Since a King isn't an option, I'd look at other options... we used a bassinet for a while, but the baby hated it after about a month. Right now he sleeps most of the time in his bugaboo stroller. While the AP side of me hates it, the practical side of me loves the fact that he'll take a 3 hour nap in it, and many nights will sleep 5 or 6 hours straight since we got it. So think outside the box.

[bobandjess99]

Originally Posted by FloridaBorn

If I did that there would be NO room to walk around the bed, make it up with clean sheets, or sweep under the bed. Sorry, but I just don't understand the daily logistics of a room full of bed

.

Okay. Once i stopped laughing, I realized that this is your FIRST child.
You see, once you actually HAVE the child, there will be no more of these "daily logistics" that you speak of. Changing the sheets..okay, maybe, once in a while....sweeping under the bed? Uh.....I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to there, lol. Maybe you could explain it, with some pictures perhaps?

Really..a room filled with bed that you literally collapse into as you cross the threshold into the room will make PERFECT sense to you in a few months