Any Ideas on how to make sleepng safe for my sleep-crawling daughter?

[ctrygirlatheart]

My DD (7 mo) just started to crawl and the last two nights has been sitting up and trying to crawl in the direction of the edge of the bed at all hours of the night. I am really worried she is going to take a tumble off the bed but I am not sure if a bed rail thing would help as she would probably try to pull up on that. I have been putting her between DH and me but she thinks the sleeping (well, not really) bodies of her parents are her playground. I can't put the mattress on the ground as my husband's leg is broken so he would have a really hard time getting out of bed. I am very tired and wondering if maybe it is time for her to move to her crib even though I really don't want to do that. She would cry but at least she would be safe there. Is this just a short phase? Is there something I can do to keep her safe in the meantime? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

[myorianna]

I had the same issue with my DD at that age, and at that point I simply decided it was time to put the mattress on the floor. We bit the bullet and stored our lovely wooden sled bed, got rid of our box spring and moved the mattress to the floor. Then I bought a body pillow and put that alongside the edge so that she wouldn't "bonk" her hed if she did fall. Turns out we did the right thing- a few times we found her sleeping on that body pillow...

Later we upgraded to a King natural latex mattress...I don't care what people think when they see our bedroom- the result is so worth it. You will sleep much better at night.

[Beauchamp]

we're going through this, too. We chose to side-car her crib, so she spends the first few hours asleep in her crib, and then when I have to, I move her toward me to nurse. Sometimes I put her back, and sometimes she stays in our bed. Usually if she wakes up and crawls away, she goes into her crib, because she likes to pull up on the side, and I sometimes keep a lovey or two in there. (Hopefully to entice her to go that way versus off the end of the bed.)

That said, we lowered the crib all the way and put our mattress/box spring on the floor because she was pulling up to stand in the crib and would've gone over the edge on the higher level.

In your situation with your husband's leg...I don't know. Possibly try out the crib (four sided) right next to your side of the bed so you can quickly get to her, and see if she does okay?

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

Lately DS1 has decided to wake up in the middle of the night after a few weeks of doing so well. So when he does, rather then bring him to bed with my hudband and I, i have devised a makeshift bed on the floor in his room. When he wakes up, I grab my pillows and we snuggle up on the floor. He sleep crawls quite a bit (And has headbutted me a couple times ) so the floor is the safest place for him.

[Mya's Mommy]

I am going through the same thing with my DD (almost 8 months). I put children's bed rails on my bed (queen size bed). the rails do not nearly cover the whole sides so I stuff pillows at the top opening and along the bottom. That being said, I do not fully trust the set up and I go running to check on her if I hear the slightest movement on the monitor (when she is napping or if I am not in bed yet). I am planning to move her to her crib soon once she can fully crawl.

[amydiane]

I just came on here to post about this too. DD starts out in her playpen in our room, and then we'd bring her into bed whenever she woke up. But for a while, she was sleeping about 12 hours straight, so it wasn't really an issue anyway. Then she started crawling and waking up a couple weeks ago. We don't have room to put our mattress on the floor, and we can't sidecar the crib or get a cosleeper because our bed has big side rails.

[ctrygirlatheart]

I think what we will try tonight is to sidecar the crib and that way if she is getting rambunctious I can put her in there and not worry so much. This might be a nice opportunity to get her transitioned to her crib too, although I am really not ready for that! Thanks for the suggestions and I will post tomorrow with the results.

[savyjoel]

I'm going through this to with my DS. He is 13mo and is fairly active in the night. My DD 10yr also sleeps with me--husband sleeps in DD room. The other night he wiggled right over her and fell to the floor. Thanks God he was not hurt. But I do worry about him. I thought of doing the side-cart with the crib but then how will he take his naps? I don't stay with him for nap time. When he is old enough to know how to ease himself off the bed and not head dive I will do the side-cart. I will follow this tread for any suggestions. Thanks

[Theia]

When my DD started doing that the bed was pushed up against the wall on one side, and I padded that side with blankets and pillows and that became her side of the bed. Then to be safe I also put more pillows around the perimeter of the bed on the floor. Something I later discovered was to put a pillow on the bed on her side next to me by my knees or so. That kinda worked as a barrier to keep her from crawling beyond the pillow. I also tried to sleep with my feet near/under that pillow so that if she crawled down there I could wake up and bring her back. In fact, she is now 2 and still a very active sleeper so that pillow is still there and sometimes I still find her down by my feet sleeping.

My bed was also put on the floor, I understand why you don't want to with your DH having a broken leg. Maybe if this is still an issue when his leg is healed you could put the bed on the floor. In my case I used both the boxspring and mattress. There was some kind of weird rule in our rental contract that if your bed was on the floor it had to have a box spring under the mattress.