Our bed STINKS!

[macandcheese]

Gross, right?

Okay, co-sleepers. I need your help. How do you manage (do you manage?) to go more than a couple of days without changing the sheets?

After one or two nights, the side of the bed that DS and I sleep on ends up smelling like a baby locker room. I think the issue may be the pad we have under the sheet in case of a pee accident--it's one of those waterproof pads that they use in hospitals, and I think the backing is some kind of hospital-grade PUL. It's certainly not very breathable, which I think is the main issue. DS is a little firebox, and every night we end up in a literal puddle of sweat, drool, and breast milk drips.

What can we do differently? Is there some kind of more natural waterproof pad we can use (wool?), or anything else I'm overlooking?

[Partaria]

I'm not sure I have the answer, but we sure have the same problem!

I've had a bit of luck wrapping an old towel around DS. It's kind of similar to swaddling, but his arms are free, and the towel comes up under his arms. I switch it out every time I change his diaper in the night. Seems to buy us a couple more days with the sheets.

But yeah, I hear ya. Baby locker room is totally the right phrase!

[Asiago]

It's the backing, yes, we had the same issue. I stopped using it. My son was soaking in perspriration.

I just have two layers of the cotton quilted padding down now, no water proof backing.

[neonalee]

I got a great waterproof mattress protector that wasn't as bad (I think it was a Luna from amazon or something) and used receiving blankets under DS & I for awhile.  I also wear a nursing tank to sleep in and put a nursing pad in on whichever side isn't currently being nursed from.  It's a pain to move it from side to side, but worth it to me.  Using those waterproof pads gave us the same problem.  We also sleep with a fan on.  DP uses a blanket lol

[quantumleap]

We have a wool "puddle pad", but any old wool blanket would do the trick. I did lightly lanolize it, but we haven't had any issue with leaks. Wool is definitely the way to go though: leak protection plus breathability. My ds is a sweat machine too. ugh. The breastmilk issue will resolve with time, at the least it will get a lot better anyway. 

[SilverFish]

i use a regular quilted cotton pad. it's not waterproof, but will stop all but the largest spills from staining the mattress. unless you regularly have major diaper leaks (or need backup for ECing), i think it should work fine. otherwise, yes, we do change the sheets more frequently than before. baby drool, dirty baby feet (now that she's walking) etc all add up! 

[macandcheese]

---

Thanks for the advice, all!

I'm glad to know that I don't have the only reeking baby. It sounds like the pad is our main issue. I'm going to try using an old wool blanket under my side of the bed to see how that works. It will also give us a little bit of water protection. Pee accidents are scarce now that we have a good nighttime diaper setup, but I know there will be some kind of major flood if we tempt fate.

[Thing1Thing2]

We use a plastic waterproof mattress protector with a regular cotton mattress pad over it. We got them from Target - pretty inexpensive... We have 2 mattress pads which we alternate.

The times we have slept with just the plastic cover - our bed stank too! I think it's the sweat from sleeping on a non breathable surface.

[kimkim]

I cut a piece of wool to fit in a pillowcase and baby slept on that...then you can change the pillowcase often but have the absorbacy of wool. It helped with the milk leaks too.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[jaimeemiaj]

We use a Clean Rest mattress cover that zips over the entire mattress.  It was kind of expensive from BBB even with the 20% q-pon, but it has saved our mattress from diaper leaks, pp accidents, bm leakage, etc.  (sorry for tmi!).  We just use regular cotton sheets on top, and don't have any sweating issues. 

[blackannis]

Originally Posted by kimkim 

I cut a piece of wool to fit in a pillowcase and baby slept on that...then you can change the pillowcase often but have the absorbacy of wool. It helped with the milk leaks too.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

Ooooh, I like this one--I think I'll try it with our next one. I just used prefold diapers under my son when he was smaller, though--we had plenty on hand, and they absorb like nothing else!