An end to co-sleeping? How do you keep your crawler in the bed?

[mergirl]

Right now I have an actual fort of blankets around the bottom of my bed. I mean like three comforters folded and stacked up at least 3 feet tall.

My 7 month old started crawling and the first thing he did was somersault off the bed. Twice. In two days. I saw one of them happen he literally fell off the bed head first and somersaulted over.

Now I'm terrified of future injuries and God forbid, spinal cord injuries!

Everyone says to put him in a crib. Is this the end of co-sleeping?

P.S. At night when we are in bed with him we can kinda keep a hand/eye on him. It's naps that are the problem......

[Theia]

I'm sorry he fell. That is scary.

When DD was that age I had my bed on the floor. I put the boxspring and the mattress down off the frame. Then I also put a few pillows in DD's "exit area" (she always used one place to try getting down) so that if I didn't get to her before I realized she was awake at least she had a cushion and was closer to the floor. She's 2 now and my bed is back on the frame and she can get down safely on her own. And we are still co-sleeping snuggle bunnies.

[mergirl]

There's no way my DH would agree to putting our bed on the floor. He would vote for a crib before doing that.

I have a video monitor and have to watch it constantly while he is napping. As soon as he wakes up, he heads straight for the bottom of the bed, where the blankets are piled up. We have mesh bed rails on both sides of the bed.

My fear for the future is that he will pull up on the bed rails and topple over that way.

[AustinMom]

One of the walls of our crib raises and lowers, so we took that wall off, and pushed the crib up to the bed to extend the bed more and get baby "used to crib" If you want, leave the wall on during naps, and off during night time. Worked great for us. You are not alone, we did the pillow wall with the crib pushed up on the bed without the wall on, and I walked in to check on him and he was sitting on the end table, that had a little more room than his hiney would fit. Freaked me out.

Also, my lo tumbled off the bed head first too. I think babies are built to take a couple falls, their designer had that in mind

[Theia]

That's too bad your DH feels like that. I think I only needed it down like that for a few (2-3) months. DD was a late crawler, but once mobility was not so new she figured out how to go down feet first on her belly off the bed after a while. Can you maybe help him figure out how to do that? And still have the floor area that he goes to to get down padded and clear of things he could fall onto or into. I worked with DD on it when she was awake and playing on the bed. If she would get to the edge I'd stop her and show her how far away the floor was, and that she could fall and get hurt. I'm not sure how much she completely understood, but after some repetition of that, and assisting her in learning how to get down I felt a lot more relaxed during her naps.

It would not be an immediate solution, but in time could be safer.

And a crib is still only a temporary solution. Many babies figure out how to climb out of them and still fall to the floor. I've known several frustrated moms with an 18mo who was a crib escape artist.

[YayJennie]

We sidecarred the crib to our bed (like so). Because of the crib we use and the way its set up, we can actually put the side back on the crib after he falls asleep laying next to us in bed. PM me for more info...no time o type atm!