Our Queen size too small>>>anyone co-sleep with mattress on floor?

[Queermama]

We have been co-sleeping since our son was born in our bedroom almost one year ago (june 25th is DS's 1st bday - yay!!).  However, our queen bed is getting too small.  We have used a co-sleeper (which I tend to have my shoulders and head in for most of the night) but our son is head to foot in it now and when he flops around, he bangs his head and wakes.  I'm thinking about putting our mattress on the floor and using another mattress to side car.  Anyone else do this?  My question is which mattress do you think works to side car? futon? twin? toddler? and..... as he is flip flopping in his sleep a bunch these days (a real fish outta water)... do you use rails? or what for a barrier.  

I would love to hear people's experiences - good and bad - with this set up!

thanks!! 

[lalemma]

We had our mattress on the floor for a long time! It was especially awesome for the time when the baby was mobile, but not able to safely get off the bed alone yet. I've always found that being on the floor makes a mattress somehow feel a lot more spacious (I'm guessing it's because you don't feel that you need the same "buffer" at the edges?) - so you may even find that a queen is still big enough, once it's on the floor. If not, personally, I'd probably go with a mattress that could be the little one's mattress once they decide to move to their own bed, so you don't have to purchase multiple versions.

When our mattress was on the floor, we didn't have rails or anything. We just had it in the corner of the bedroom, with my side against the wall. That way baby was safe whether he was between me and the wall or between me and his dad. He never took a tumble, and our mattress is pretty tall.

Basically, we loved having our mattress on the floor. The only reason we now have an actual bed is that we finally figured out that it's good to have at least a bit of clearance between the mattress and the floor for ventilation. So you might want to look at low-profile options for keeping your mattress up a little bit, like the slats you'd otherwise use on a platform bed.

[chel]

We had to get some temp housing and was only able to move with what we could pack in 2cars. We went to ikea to find some cheap bedding options and ended up with 3 twin ( for 2 adults, 10 yr old and 6m old).
It was a perfect setup. Plenty of room. Even though we moved into a house and got our furniture back, we have set up the mattresses in the basement at times.

Totally agree with pp, very easy to have moisture issues. Ikea does offer a small platform system to raise the bed a couple of inches. We keep the mattresses leaning against the wall when not in use.

[whozeyermamma]

First off - my DS was also born at home on June 25! (Living room floor, however - not bedroom!) Can't believe they are almost one!

We have our queen mattress on the floor and I love it. Often DH sleeps in DD's bed in her room - but I find that we have a lot of room. We have the crib with the rail off next to the bed (which is wedged in a corner) and sometimes the baby sleeps in the crib but more often it's just a place to climb and play.

Soon I'm going to get a twin mattress and put it on the floor next to the queen. What I love most about the bed on the floor thing is that when he wakes up in the morning sometimes he'll just crawl around and play for a while and I can sleep. When he wakes from naps, he'll often just crawl off and play for a while until he comes and bangs on the door to let me know he's awake!

[Tattooed Hand]

We have our queen on the floor with a twin mattress pressed right up against it. It's really just like a bed extension, except everyone has a little more room to move around and DH and I can have our own covers, which is important to not disturb DD's sleep. But I can roll over into DD's bed or she can come cuddle into me when ever we want. It works great. DD just moves around too much in her sleep for it to be comfortable to share a queen. When ever she wants her own room, the bed can go with her.

[Amanda M]

We have a 22 month old and another due at the end of September. We have two queens side by side on the floor, and it's working great for us. In order to have them the same height, we went to IKEA and bought two of the same style. We pretty much have no more space in our bedroom, but we don't spend much time in there anyway. :)

[etsdtm99]

we have done this several ways - we have a king mattress on the floor and right now, we have a sidecar'd crib converted to a toddler bed - this makes the crib/toddler mattress a few inches higher than our mattress..and keeps baby from crawling off the end of the crib mattress without us waking up ..  we've also done thsi with our mattress on the box springs making the crib mattress lower than ours and we've also put the crib mattress on the floor (so obviously lower)  .. most of the time my 9 mo old sleeps in the crib until she wakes for the firs time and then she sleeps in our bed..and we mostly use the side car set up for if the 3 yr old ocmes back to bed in the night.. when we just had 1 baby, just the king mattress on the floor was enough..

[Subhuti]

We have 2 full and 1 queen mattress all in a row along the floor.  We actually like the different heights because it prevents the kids from rolling into the adult bed at night ... and we get a better sleep that way.  Our daughters are now 4 and 6.  There is a little rolling between sibling beds ... but it rarely wakes them up.  

We have this setup in the kids' room in the attic.  We also have a Mom and Dad bedroom downstairs too when we want to slip out and be together .... or, one of us wants to just get a good night sleep w/o the kids.

[motherhendoula]

DH and I are on a Queen that is on a boxspring - very low to the ground  - and since LO outgrew his Arms Reach co-sleeper  he has been on his own twin sized futon next to us.  Its the wall, the futon, the bed....LO typically sleeps in our bed for naps and starts out the night there - but can be rolled back into his space when we get into bed and want more room.  Everything is the same height - works great!  Hopefully one day he can sleep on the futon in his own room.

[snailexpress]

We're solidly on the floor-bed train, here. :)

We started with all of us on a full when my son was first born.  The he rolled out of bed one day. (!!!)  We promptly moved to the floor-bed.  As our so got older, we added another full-sized mattress because that's what we had available and would fit in our room.  We've moved a few times and had a second child since then and used different mattress combinations depending on our room layout, space available, etc.  Now that we're settled into our OWN house, we sleep on a fat full mattress (my son and I), pushed next to a thinner (I think 6") queen mattress (where my husband and 12 month old daughter sleep).  The kids kind of shift back and forth between the beds as they desire.

The way it works here, the taller mattress is next to the wall so if either of the kids roll, it's onto the lower mattress.  They can do this without even waking themselves up.  And if they roll off of the 6" mattress - usually only when they're playing - it's not upsetting to anybody.