Cosleeping after crawling?

[SarahDC]

This probably gets asked here a lot, but I couldn't find any recent threads with answers to my question... we cosleep with our mattress on the floor. DD goes to bed around 7 pm, usually nurses or just cuddles to sleep lying with us. Then we go to bed around 10. She is now 8 months and just started crawling, and tonight about 15 min after putting her down, I hear screaming-crying and run in, and she's fallen out of bed on her face.

What do you do when your cosleeper can fall off of the bed now? Nursing or cuddling really works well for us so I hesitate to put her in her crib for 7-10 pm but I suppose that's our only option. Would love ideas.

[nanamar]

I used pillows around her and have the monitor on, so if she makes a peep, I can run upstairs.

[Beauchamp]

I'd actually put the pillows on the FLOOR around the mattress, not on top. This way, if she fell off, she'd land on a pillow and have a slightly softer, shorter fall. Yes, she'd wake up from falling off the mattress, but onto a pillow is not as bad as hitting the floor if she scaled over some pillows on top of the bed during sleep and then hit the floor.

DH desperately wants our bed frame put back together, so I am back to the drawing board, though, for a new solution. I'm not willing to let her fall THAT far!

[Angelorum]

baby monitor. He's fallen off the mattress a couple of times (it's on the floor) it's so sad! But, he's never gotten hurt. I resisted getting a baby monitor for a while, but I really like having one and I think it's reduced his night wakings because I could get in there and comfort him back to sleep before he was too upset, so now he trusts that I'm always close by.

[dahlialia]

I use a bedbug bumper on dd's side, and a rolled up rug to replace me until I get to bed.

[leam811]

I actually do start her off in the crib (after nursing to sleep, which can take forever, but that's another topic) - and even there she sometimes bonks her head or sticks her leg through the slats and wakes up, but at least I know she's contained. Our crazy ramshackle house, though, is not a place where I can have her loose, even asleep, unless I'm right there (baby monitor notwithstanding). Crib is next to our bed, so once we're in bed, I just bring her over at the next waking.

[bloodbank]

We make a "pillow moat" around the bed & have a video monitor. That way if she's asleep without us (naps, early part of the night), we can see her on the move before she does too much damage.

That said, it seems to only take a few falls to figure out how to properly get on/off the bed.

[SarahDC]

Thanks everyone for your replies - it's so helpful to hear about what other families do. I think I overreacted a bit. She hasn't fallen out again since - I'm listening super closely to the monitor. We'll be teaching her to back off of the bed safely as soon as possible.

[kismetbaby]

My guy has learned to crawl off the mattress and did so in a matter of days. In fact, he just learned to crawl back up onto it too. This is good, but now when he wakes he just comes crawling out of the room. . .nice if he's ready to be up, but not so great if he still needs to sleep but is keeping himself awake by crawling around!

[SarahDC]

Originally Posted by kismetbaby

My guy has learned to crawl off the mattress and did so in a matter of days. In fact, he just learned to crawl back up onto it too. This is good, but now when he wakes he just comes crawling out of the room. . .nice if he's ready to be up, but not so great if he still needs to sleep but is keeping himself awake by crawling around!

Exactly! I'm often able to get her back to sleep if she's just fussing a little bit... but not if she's crawled off the bed already Parenting comes with new challenges every day

[lookatreestar]

we did the pillow moat at my mom's house and taught her how to back off the bed.

at home we have mattress on the floor and it rocks. we also have our door locked and the room is babyproofed (ie just a mattress and dresser in the room, plus a few toys/books)

[Katie T]

We have the mattress and box frame on the floor and I will put pillows or blankets around the bed. DH teaches them as soon as they get mobile how to climb out feet first. They learn much earlier that I thought they would (the first time I saw him doing this I thought he was crazy lol) but before long they are doing it on there own. Still doesn't help rolling off the bed hence the pillows and blankets.

[MsVyky]

We installed a bed rail after our DD fell out of bed a couple times.

[Katie T]

Originally Posted by MsVyky

We installed a bed rail after our DD fell out of bed a couple times.

We had one, but my DD2 was persistent and would fall over the guard to the ground. Worked great for the other 2 though.

[mizzoh]

when this happened with ds we started putting him in his crib asleep and then bringing him into our bed when we were ready to go to sleep. 4 years later and this is still our routine! he has never woken up during the transfer. it actually works out really well because after ds is asleep dh and i are able to spend some private time in our bed every night

[Funny Face]

I ended up having a small portable crib at the foot of the bed and put ds in it until I came to bed.

There was even a time when he had to sleep in the crib between nursing at night because he WOULD NOT stay still in the bed and was nearly falling out of it constantly.

I don't look forward to that phase again. I got so little sleep. Especially since ds started crawling at 5 months and didn't learn to sleep 'still' until he was about a year.

ETA: Ds started pulling up at about 5 months too and scaled bed rails and fell out that way too which made the crib my only workable option.

I never understood how other people just let their kid fall out of the bed onto pillows. Maybe their babies were better sleepers? It took forever to get ds to bed the first time, I didn't want to have to do it every time he tried to walk/crawl out of the bed.

[MsVyky]

Originally Posted by Katie T

We had one, but my DD2 was persistent and would fall over the guard to the ground. Worked great for the other 2 though.

LOL, our DD can be persistent too, she rolls and rolls until she falls out of the other side of the bed. I heard a thump, and went upstairs, but took my time because she wasn't crying, so I assumed it was one of the cats, and I found her mostly under the bed, :rofl

[SarahDC]

Originally Posted by mizzoh

when this happened with ds we started putting him in his crib asleep and then bringing him into our bed when we were ready to go to sleep. 4 years later and this is still our routine! he has never woken up during the transfer. it actually works out really well because after ds is asleep dh and i are able to spend some private time in our bed every night

This is exactly what we're trying to do now. She's stopped falling asleep nursing now anyway (unfortunately!) so I rock her after nursing and then put her in the crib... we'll see how it goes!

Thanks so much everyone for your replies... I see this is a common problem with beginning crawlers!