Tell me about your family bed setup!

[lalemma]

Hello mamas (and papas):

We do family bed with our 5-mo, and we've been traveling pretty much since his birth. So we've had a wide variety of beds to sleep in. We'll be moving later in the summer, and I'm starting to think about how we'll set up our bedroom at that point.

Beds we've slept in so far:

1 full
1 queen
1 king
2 fulls pushed together (we called it the SUPERKING, and it was great - but I don't know that it'd fit in every bedroom)

Please tell me about your family bed setup!

One mattress, two mattresses, more?

Regular-height beds, platform bed, mattress on the floor?

What do you do for baby containment? Side rails, those tubular things, mattress against the wall?

How about bedding? Do you all share the same comforter? If you use multiple mattresses, does each mattress have its own sheet, or have you come up with a cunning solution for that?

What works and doesn't work for you guys?

Would love to see photos if you have any!

[~cassie~]

We have a King size bed, it just has the bottom and top mattress and is rather high up off the floor--I guess nearly 3 feet high. We do not have the bed against the wall, never have and do not have rails either. Dh and I both sleep in the bed and whichever child wakes up in the middle of the night also gets in. The baby is in there 3-4 nights out of the week--only on days he doesn't STTN. Dh and I have separate blankets-but that is the case at all times, even if no kids in the bed. I share my blanket with the baby.
He ONLY sleeps by me, not dh. I don't trust dh to wake up and have that instinct if he is too close to the baby. I think each of my kids have fallen off the bed 1-2 times max while cosleeping, but they were never hurt. It works for us

[Katie T]

We have a king size mattress and box spring on the floor. It is in the middle of the room. We don't have guards (we used to but I found the babe would pull up to them and then flip over so a longer fall than just off the side of the bed) We share blankets but in the newborn stage we don't.

We have 2 colseepers with us so we have dd2 on the "edge" (more like 2 ft from it lol) me ds and dh when we let him sleep in the bed. These days there just isn't enough room with him in there.

It works for us.

[lapis]

I'm trying to distract myself in a tww....

I've also been curious about pushing two full sized bed frames that have a lip (aka an ikea malm bed) together? yeah, the SUPERKING sounds like a good nights sleep!

[mkksmom]

Well, we have a king size bed, but our set-up has been ever-changing. Started out with a pack-n-play and our king with dd (almost 6). She ended up sleeping mostly on our chest, so we bought the arms reach cosleeper. Realized we were waking her up too much after a while and moved her across the room. Then we ended up putting her in her crib in the nursery for half of the night around 5 or 6 months and just bringing her in with the cosleeper attached again. Then around 11 or 12 months, we put our mattress on the floor and against the wall with a twin next to it. DH on the twin and dd and I on the king. She still stayed in her crib until about midnight. That was probably the best set-up. Then when she was older, maybe 2.5 or 3, we put a rail on our king and put it back on the frame and boxspring. She spent more and more time in her room, but we wanted her to be safe if she needed to come in with us. She went through cycles where she was in her room and then in our room. Stayed that way for a while. Then she was kicking too much, so we put a thin twin mattress from a pullout loveseat on our floor.

Now we have dd # 2 and she has been in a cradle, a cosleeper attached to the bed, a cosleeper as a pack and play, and then we moved the crib into our room. Last night, we tried the cosleeper attached to our bed and she started out in the crib in our room. DD was on the little mattress. I wish I could just sleep with a baby next to me, but I seem to worry too much unless they have their own space. I am most looking forward to the king next to the twin and then I guess another mattress for my 6 yo.

That was a lot of rambling. Sorry. I came here because I am so tired I can't think straight. I hope some of that helps. I love having a king size mattress, though. I am also thinking about getting a full so that when the baby is big enough, she has the option of sleeping with my older dd (if she still wants her lil sis in with her at that point).

[MsVyky]

DD is six months, and we sleep in a queen sized Malm bed. We don't have a rail or anything since the bed seriously sits about a foot off the floor, since we don't use a box spring, just that weird boards-on-a-string contraption that Ikea sells to use instead of a boxspring.

She alternates between being in the middle and on the end. I block feed at night and roll her over my tummy when it's time to switch sides (We nurse side lying and it's become a very low-key thing, though she still feeds frequently at night)

We'd like to get a king sized bed, but I don't think we can afford to once you factor in all the new bedding- bedding is expensive!

[To-Fu]

We have a king-sized Malm, and that's been fine for my partner and our 27mo. But we're expecting another arrival next month, so I guess we'll see how it goes!

We have the head of the bed lined with three pillows to prevent head bonks. We have a snug-tuck pillow on one edge, and my partner and I each have our own blanket.

It took a long time to get to this arrangement and there were a lot of experiments along the way!

Co-sleeping is great for travel, though, isn't it? You an sleep just about anywhere w/o worries of where to put the littles.

[cytogal]

We have full and twin mattresses and box springs on the floor and pushed together, so the result is a bit shorter than a king, but much wider. We have a satin comforter that we spread out over both mattresses (this makes it look like one big bed), and then we sleep on top of the comforter with separate blankets. I sleep on the full mattress with our one-year-old son (we share a blanket, though he seems to get warm faster than me, and kicks the blanket off within an hour of going to sleep), and DH sleeps on the twin with his own blanket. The bed is pushed into a corner of the room, with the side of the full mattress and the tops of the mattresses against the walls. There's lots of extra room, so I think it will last just fine as DS grows up, and then he can just take the full mattress with him when he wants to have his own room.

[faithsstuff]

we have a queen with a crib (with one side missing) attached. 16 mo dd falls asleep between us and we usually move him to the crib section. Around midnight he's back between us and laying side ways. The crib portion was great when he was younger but we don't use it much anymore. I think we're going to add a ttwin and detach the crib so hubby and I aren't balanced on opposite eges

[LindsC]

We have a queen size bed with a crib sidecarred to it. The crib was used for storage 99% of the time though since DD refused to sleep there. DH and I each have 2 pillows and DD would just sleep snuggled up to me. We all shared the same blanket a majority of the time unless it was super cold and we needed another one. It worked out as a great setup for us since we didn't have to worry about DD rolling out of the bed since she was typically between the two of us.

[Kiwiontheloose]

We've done various combinations over the months, including queen, king, king with sidecar. (11mth DD)
now we've figured out that we all like a LOT of space to sleep, but all want to be in the same room, and DD is able to crawl over us at night so beds don't work.

Now we have a king mattress and a single mattress next to each other on the floor - so basically our whole bedroom floor is covered in mattresses! we each have our own duvets - saves stealing issues, and DD starts out the night on the single mattress and usually ends up between hubby and I. If DD is particularly unsettled or wriggly hubby will sleep on the single and leave me and her to get on with it on the king.

fun times!