sneaking away and safety?

[jump mama jump!]

I'm curious what you all do about this: if you're baby falls asleep in your bed and you sneak away, what do you do to keep them safe?

My almost 5 month old used to fall asleep on me then I'd transfer her to her crib but lately has been sleeping better cuddled up to me in bed. Sometimes I can transfer her to the crib after she's out, sometimes she wakes up. She's more likely to wake up if it's for a nap than nighttime sleep. So now I'm afraid to leave her in the bed but don't want to wake her and can't sit around the bedroom all day. She's starting to army crawl too so I'm worried a retaining wall of pillows won't do it, and could pose a suffocation risk. Do you all have rails? Video monitors? What works, what doesn't? thanx

[LadyCatherine185]

we always did pillows around him. my DS is almost 2 and has never fallen off of the bed during naps this way. i keep a moniter on, and as soon as I hear any shuffling I ran back to him. He always called out when he woke up anyway, never tried to just crawl off the bed.

[akind1]

DS is also in bed with us overnight, so we have a guardrail on my side of the bed - pillows work, but this gives us more bed surface area - for naps, we put up a bolster/body pillow on the other side of the bed as well, since we aren't in it to block him.

[mama myssie]

My daughter is 8 months, co sleeping and has just begun napping alone. I nurse her to sleep and "roll away". She only naps for 30-45 minutes and she's alone in bed at night for 3 hours or so. We use 2 king size pillows and 2 body pillows as barriers (our mattress is in a corner on the floor). She also army crawls so I put the audio monitor on the bed against the wall at the head of the bed. We can hear if she's moving. We have gotten really good at recognizing her rolling sound, crawling sound, changing position sound etc.
I used to be totally freaked out about her falling, I searched and searched for alternatives as we'd love to have her in a side car but we cannot move her once asleep. She ALWAYS wakes up and you can't nurse in a side car but maybe one would work for you. As time went by, i just got comfortable with the pillow arrangment. She hasn't even come close to a fall.
Happy Sleeping.

[Frankie'sMom]

This is exactly what I've been dealing with for months! My son is now 14 months and we've been doing the pillow thing too. I've been searching for some kind of roll-off barrier, but there's nothing really out there. So far, he hasn't rolled off, but we do have the bed off the floor with a futon mattress that slides out from underneath. We pull it out when he's on the bed just for extra security. At night if he wakes up he just sleepily rolls around, but for naps he'll just wake up and will start moving a lot so that's when I have to be extra vigilant.

You can start teaching your baby how to get off the to bed on her belly, feet first. 5 months is pretty early to master that skill, but they get it quickly and it makes me feel better knowing that my kid can get off the bed safely, without falling off. Also, they'll do that with stairs too so that's an added bonus!