Enlarging our nighttime space --- how to match mattress heights

[ecdyses]

We've been sharing our bed with our 11-month old DS since he was a few weeks old. We have a queen sized platform bed. Over the past few weeks, DS has become an actively sprawling sleeper, and he seems to need a lot more space. I'd like to enlarge our bed space to make more room for DS to toss and turn and to welcome poor-suffering DH (who has been camping on the couch to give the munchkin bed space) back. I plan to do this by taking our mattress off the frame and putiting it on the floor and adding another mattress.

I am trying to decide the best set-up for this. I could just use his crib mattress (spent good money on the thing!) but it is only 6" high. Our mattress is 16". We have a guest room mattress that we could substitute that is 10".

Can I somehow raise his crib mattress by adding a thinner cheapo crib mattress underneath? Do I suck it up and buy a twin mattress that is the same height as one of our queens? Do I just get a king size mattress for everybody? What has worked for others? I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money.

(we've already done the sidecar thing --- it doesn't work well because of our bed platform's design. We end up with railings to bump his head on and gaps that I'm not entirely comfortable with).

Thanks!

[Marisa Sanders]

We had a similar situation, and I ended up purchasing 2 memory foam mattress toppers to put on the shorter mattress to make it the same height as the other.  Got them from Target, spent 100 bucks, but worth it!  

Good luck to you :)