Awareness of the edge of the bed during naps

[Harmony96]

This is not my current scenario, but I'm just asking questions for hopefully a future scenario.

Let's say I had a mattress on the floor that we all slept in at night, with DH and I as bookends and the kids in the middle. DH doesn't fall off the bed. Neither do I. But if the kids don't have "access" to the end of the bed, how would they learn not to fall off of it? And how early would they do it? I am curious b/c then what would I do for naps, if I and/or some older child(ren) would not need as many naps as the younger child(ren) would?

[kgreenemama]

You pose an interesting question. I never thought of their awareness of bedspace as a learned skill, but I suppose it is. This caught my eye, because just this week, we moved DS from his crib with the front off, shoved up against our mattress on the floor, to a twin mattress just a few feet away, across the room from us. He's a toss-and-turn sleeper, so he's fallen out every night, but it's only 12 inches down and onto well-padded carpet. Once, he just stayed sleeping on the floor. So, I suppose, he's learning that skill now.

Maybe naptime would be a good time to introduce The Edge of the Bed. If you don't think so, perhaps they could sleep on a flat surface during naps?

[Honey693]

DD was usually between me and the bed rail (I didn't put the mattress on the floor) and she very very rarely rolled anywhere near it. Now at 21 months she prefers to sleep as close to the edge of the bed as possible. She's fallen out once (and it was her bed, not the family bed) so I let her do it.