What's the Next Step?

[Lillitu]

So my son is 7, almost 8 months old and has been co-sleeping with us since day one. We never used the Arm's Reach co-sleeper as a bed, as he cried in it and stopped once he was in smelling range of us as a babe, and now, he is used to sleeping with us.

He is newly mobile, crawling all over the place, and nap time is becoming a challenge. We cannot leave him unattended in the big people bed (even though we have a drop down safety rail on it, and have loaded the edges with pillows and such) because he can and WILL climb over and kill himself.

The Co-sleeper has been used as a changing table, and the mattress is frankly too high to the top for him to be safe in there, either.

Is it time to get a crib? I am at a loss at what to do!

[karika]

Although I do not think a baby falling form a bed onto pillows is likely to 'kill him..." I understand your concern. I always laid down with babies for naps until they are at least a year old.. with dd2 I did it nearly every nap until 16 mo, well except the naps she took while sleeping on dad in the recliner as he watched sports.... what I did was to put the mattress on the floor, then use all my extra pillows on the floor surrounding all open edges. That way, when I am not in the room I don't have to worry she will hurt herself trying to come to us. this solves it all for me.

[Lirazel]

I was in the same boat just a few weeks ago! My solution is that I took the crib mattress (from the crib we bought and never used) and put it on the floor in our room. It's small, but I'm comfortable nursing DS to sleep on it and then I close the door so he can't crawl out and fall down the stairs or something. I put him there first thing at night too until I go to bed and then I bring him in with me.

I'd love to have an extra twin mattress to put on the floor instead, but I didn't want to shell out for it and the crib mattress works just fine.