Those of you co-sleeping with toddlers-where does your LO start the night?

[lemontree]

DS just turned 16mths.  We co-sleep.  He nurses to sleep and 99% of night wakeups...(he is an intense, spirited little bubba and he has many many many night wakings...)  For a while I was able to nurse him to sleep and then scoop him into a crib in our bedrooom until his first night waking, buying myself 45 min to 2 hours. But since his molars started coming in around Xmastime, he has needed me in bed with him in order to stay asleep.  Because I am so exhausted and sleep deprived I usually fall asleep (we are talking like 630 pm!) so I can have the strength to meet all of his night time needs.  DH works many nights so he can't really help too much.

Anyway, his last molar is arriving and I think he may be able to sleep sans me again soon.  I'm wondering if it's worth it to attempt to scoop him into the crib anymore.  We put a futon beside our mattress, (which is on the floor) at Xmas, because he was starting to seem to want his own space....but that's when he started in with these molars and has been glued to me all night long.  

My question is-

do any of you nurse your toddler to bed and then leave your bedroom?  do you have any other furniture in there?  my boy is a climber and an explorer, and the idea of leaving him alone outside of the "safety" of the crib creeps me out.  But then I think about the fact that at some point he will be in his own room (gasp!) and wonder if I am being neurotic.

Please tell me how you handle this!

Thanks.

[SarahDC]

Here's what we do, I don't know if it'll help or not :)  DD is 16 months old too.  We started when she was born with a crib sidecar on our queen-sized bed, and when she became mobile, we put our mattress on the floor and a crib mattress next to it, with blankets under it so that it's the same height (I'd rather have a king sized bed :).  We also have the crib in our bedroom still (had a 2nd crib mattress from family).

I nurse/rock DD to sleep at 7 pm, and then put her in her crib when she's asleep.  These days she sleeps well until about 10:30 when I pick her up and lie down in our bed with her and nurse her back to sleep.  Then we nurse a few times during the night.

We spent several months during which she woke up a LOT between 7-10, and we just rocked her back down each time.  That was frustrating, I'm so glad she outgrew that.

But anyway, our room is babyproofed so sometimes when she wakes at 10:30, I lie down with her in our bed and nurse her till she's asleep, then I leave and stay up for awhile.  She usually just sits up and cries if she wakes and I'm not there, but occasionally she gets out of bed and bangs on the door :)  I know she's safe in there though and I hear everything on the monitor.

I am right with you with the molars.... DD was up until 1 am last night :(

[colsxjack]

Here is what we do. Our DD is 19 months old.

We co-sleep in a queen size bed with a crib side carred. We put the mattresses on the floor for several months after she became mobile, but we have the frames back now that hse can get up and down the bed safely.

She is nursed until she is almost asleep and then patted/rocked/whatever asleep. She is then either left in the middle of the bed or scooted over into her crib side. We have a monitor. If she wakes up she usually cries or calls out for mama. Very occasionally we have heard her waking around in the room. If we hear that we just go back up and put her back in bed.

She doesn't really get into anything. But the door is closed, because we do not want her leaving the room before we can get up there.

For naps she is nursed and/or rocked to sleep in the living room and then laid down on the bed when she is asleep. We hear her wake up on the monitor and we go up and get her. She is rarely out of the bed.

[Flower of Bliss]

DD2 is 17 months.  Both for naps and night time, I nurse her down in a rocker in my room (doing so right now).  When she's out, I put her in the middle of my king sized bed.  It's a very low Ikea bed that she can easily climb into and out of, and not a far fall if she rolls out.  I do not have a monitor set up - never have.  No crib either. 

At night when she wakes up without me (which generally means DH and I are in the guest room ), she just sits in bed and cries.  We respond pretty quickly.  In the afternoon when she wakes up, her nap is over.  On good days she climbs out of bed, walks to the gate at the top of the stairs, and calls down to us.  DD1 generally beats me to the stairs, and there's giggling and squeals as my girls are reunited .  On a bad day, she cries in the bed, or climbs down and cries as she goes to the door.  I'm pretty quick to head up then.  In the morning when she climbs out of bed, she walks straight into DD1's room to find sister . 

My room is pretty safe, but not perfectly childproofed.  She can open dresser drawers or pull things off of table tops, or books off of shelves, and get into mischief.  I don't worry about it much.  The girls often play together upstairs while I'm down, or while I'm in the shower, and they have free access to my room.  They also play alone in their room when I exercise in mine - I leave my door closed.  I don't have eyes on either DD 24/7, but I do have good "mommy ears."

[dalia]

I finally got our ds to start the night out in his crib but sometimes he is in the bed and I have to leave the room. For this we got a video monitor. It has been a lifesaver!!! I highly recommend it.

[rubidoux]

We have our mattress on the floor and the only stuff in the room other than the mattress is a small hamper and a bunch of kid books.  Otherwise it's completely bare and completely safe.  I am thinking, though, as long as he can't fall, I doubt you have to worry too much about baby proofing (except you obviously wouldn't want anything in there that could cause serious injury).  I think most toddlers would cry or come find you when they wake up.  Otoh, it's nice to have a whole baby proofed room.  We don't have a crib or anything like that and I like it that if I needed to leave him for a couple of minutes (like I'm puking or something, lol) I can put him somewhere safe.  We have a baby gate in our bedroom doorway so he can be gated in there but we can hear him and I think he wouldn't feel as scared/alone if the door is open.

[beebalmmama]

With my first ds we pretty much had the setup you described with the futon mattress. My ds was a snuggler and an all night nurser and I needed more space to help my sore back/shoulders. I would nurse him down on the futon mattress and then throughout the night go down on the futon to nurse again. I never knew which bed I was waking up in, his or mine (LOL). We only had beds in the bedroom (they were tiny) and not much else fit. I kept the door open so he could come find me if he got up (single story house and pretty much baby proofed everywhere). Now with ds 2 (14months) We have a queen and twin pushed together, on boxsprings but no frames. Ds sleeps on the twin closest to the wall. We have dressers in our room and a nightstand. Although we've recently moved the lamp and radio from the nightstand....after a couple of accidents with those. I would just make sure dressers are anchored to the wall and probably avoid having any shelving in the room. I usually keep the door shut with ds2 because the room is upstairs in a two story house, or make sure I keep the gate closed at the top of the stairs.