The 4yr old part-time bed sharer and pregnancy/new baby

[jessica_s]

Hoping for some feedback on our situation.

I have a 4 year old who is bed sharing with us part-time. He'll be 4 1/2 when the baby comes. He starts out in his bed, then comes to sleep with us at some point in the night. He does this on his own without us waking.
He's been doing this for about a year, and it's been no big deal for us.

The issue of course is that we have a new baby on the way and I'm already seeing a pretty big downgrade in sleep quality (at least for me and DH) because I require more room to get comfortable. I think my DS could sleep anywhere as long as he was touching someone. The problem with putting us DH, DS, Me, New baby is that we
1) don't have enough bed real estate we barely make it with us three right now
2) my DS is ALLLL over the bed and is a pretty rough sleeper. He kicks, wakes up and sits up then flings himself back down, grids himself into you aka cuddles, is a 45lb, 45" starfisher, the whole bit.
3) my DS and DH don't get along at night. By that I mean DS cuddles and DH gets hot then gets cranky and can't get back to sleep, that sort of thing.

I was thinking of a couple of options. One being side caring the crib we had from DS (who never, once, slept in it ) and giving us all some more room. The problem being I bet that I'd find myself and the new baby sleeping in it most of the time.
The other being trying to get DS to stay all night in his bed, most nights. He's done it before on his own, a handful of times. If for some reason we put him *back* in his bed after he's come to us he usually stays there the rest of the night. I'm not really sure how to swing this last one.

Any feedback/other options you can think of for us? TIA

[karika]

the fact that ds and dh don't sleep together well cuts my suggestion out. is ds still nursing? My first thought is to have ds and dh in a bed so you can be alone with baby in the beginning at least. I was too nervous having dd1 in the bed with me when dd2 came because she is all over the place and flings her arms which hurts, etc. She slept with her dad instead for a while (he and I cohabitate but have separate rooms). When she did sleep in my bed, I would make a spot for her across the foot of the bed, or a pallet on the floor beside bed (which is already on the floor). she always had her own cover.

In your situation, the sidecar crib may work well if you want to all remain in the same bed, or you may consider putting a mattress on floor beside your bed for ds.

I have heard of some people putting a twin beside a queen, then sleep sideways on it, it will be as big or bigger than a king... I don't have the space so I have not tried it yet.

[jessica_s]

He's no longer nursing so he's not looking for anything other than a snuggle or it's just the comfort of coming into bed with us.
I think that we *might* be able to swing a twin + our queen in our room although DH was resistant to the idea before DS came. I usually have to break it down for him, better sleep or things not looking the way you like.

[VisionaryMom]

DH also gets hot & cranky with the kids snuggling. Then he seems upset when they say that I'm the better cuddler.

DH can sleep with only one child in the bed, however, especially if we put a pillow on the other side for them to feel something there. That's worked for us since both 3YO and 5YO want to sleep in our bed. I usually end up in one of their beds with them, and the other one sleeps in our bed with DH.