arm's reach ok for 8 mo old?

[kimkim]

my dd is 8 months old and a crawler. and a puller. she's usually fine at night but once scooted off the bed (it's a low ikea frame and we have rugs nearby) so i'm thinking maybe i'll borrow a friend's arm's reach? she's also nursing more oftne at night (teething?) we co-sleep with DH in a queen. sometimes it's tight, sometimes it's ok.

i bought the bedbugs foam bumpers but htey just make the bed area smaller and i thought about a guardrail but honestly dd would just climb over it anyways.

any ideas? i wnat to encourage her to sleep more than 2 hrs..maybe the proximity to me is an issue? or will it pass b/c of the teething? also I was thinking the arm's reach might be nice for naps, then she's a little safer? i try to sneak out for the second half of the nap but when i hear a sound i get worried b/c she goes from deep sleep to hands and knees crawling wide awake immediately...

[kavamamakava]

8 months was about the time when I stopped using the Arms Reach because my son was climbing out of it. If you have a low IKEA bed, how will you attach the Arms Reach to your bed? It will be too high, I think. Teach her to scoot off the bed and then let her sleep/nap on the bed without worries.  My son picked up on scooting off the bed quickly. Lay her on her tummy with her feet pointing toward the floor and then slide her down the side of the bed. If she's napping and wakes up and wants to get off the bed, she can safely scoot down that way if you don't know she's awake yet.  If you want a playpen sort of thing for naps, a pack n play is a lot cheaper than an Arms Reach and much more portable. 

[Shami]

Arms reach is not safe for crawler puller stage. Like previous poster said...that is when i disassembled mine and put my mattress on the floor. i put pillows around the edges to give her a boundary for when she rolled in her sleep. But i also focused A LOT on teaching her how to scoot off the bed/couch on her belly and backwards. I tried the bedrail around a year old with mine and she flipped head first over it. Thankfully my mattress was on the floor. The arms reach would be the same only higher up. Honestly a line of pillows worked great for us. She didn't have enough umph in her sleep to roll over the pillows, but the pillows were flat enough that she couldn't pull up and flip. Until she got the backing off safely all.the.time I tried not to leave her unsupervised on the bed.

[Shami]

Ah...i went back and saw that you are on a queen. You prob. don't have room for a line of pillows. During naps you could do the pillows all around. We went and bought a cheap 100 dollar twin mattress and put it up against our full and I love, love love the space. It's like having a king bed. It's looks funny having our bedroom be ALL bed on the floor, but so worth it. I also miss my pretty headboard, but some day I'll have it back again!

[kimkim]

Thanks for the tips. Well work on scooting. I'd love a king bed but new beds are so expensive! I've never seen an arms reach so I assumed I could make it whatever height...I do not want her doing flips.she already is fearless!

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[Shami]

You can make it higher but not lower. In regular set up it is about an average height for the average bed. You can purchase extenders that you snap onto the feet to raise it. But you cannot make it really low for a low bed or a mattress on the floor. The arm's reach doubles as a pack in play too. You just remove the mattress and it's a pack in play. I would love to buy a king bed, too, but we can't afford it. Putting two beds together on the floor was our way to get space and we could afford it. HOpe you figure something out. Being cramped while trying to sleep is no fun!