cosleeping with a toddler- when should I start changing how we sleep? « Back to Group Discussions

[is it puppies?]

I bedshare with my 20 month old daughter (and my husband once in a while lol) in a queen mattress on the floor. I am wondering what tips anybody has to add on the baby as safely and easily as possible. I am considering bringing in another mattress and moving DD into that and slowly moving her across the room(or trying to) but she seems to be a real cling on lately when she isn't sleeping across the whole bed so I'm not sure that would work. I am also half hoping to night ween but I don't know if it's worth the bother. If it seems like the only way that it will work I think worse case we will buy a king mattress but would rather not have to spend the money or use up what little space we have with that. So any thoughts, suggestions? I will also check the sleeping forum eventually!

[OrangeMoon]

Well, this isn't what you want to hear but getting a king size bed when it was the three of us changed.our.lives. SO much more comfortable. Then when I had the newbie, we all squeezed into the king on and off until a few weeks ago because it just isn't enough space. I think if we got a twin and pushed it up next to the bed that would work, just haven't done it yet. So my dh is with ds on the king bed, and I am in another room with DD bc the kids were waking each other up for a while.

[OkiMom]

We co-slept with my oldest two.. It was pretty uncomfortable for the most part and my husband reguarly fell off the bed (poor DH).. We have a king size bed now (bought when DS was 2 months old) and its a lot better. We can all 5 sleep in a bed.

What I did was put up a side rail and have my daughter sleep on the side, me, the baby, DH. It seemed to work best that way.

[MacKinnon]

I was just reflecting on this last night... With my oldest, we transitioned DD to sleeping with DH instead of me, so when DS arrived, I slept with DS in the master bedroom and DD with DH in a double in her room. We did the same thing again when we were expecting DD2, transitioned DS to sleeping with DH at night, and DD1 into her own bed (or she would crawl in with DH at some point in the night). For quite a while in there we had a family bedroom. We have a big converted attic room, BIG and we had a king and a queen in the one room. It was baby and I in the queen and DH/DD/DS in the king (plus we had a twin for DD1).

Anyway, DD1 and DS are now 8 and 5 and sleep in their own beds, most the time. DS still calls out to DH to come snuggle some nights in the early morning hours, or he'll come climb in with me. I sleep with DD2, now 17 months, in the master bed and DH is either with us or in the guest bed. I'm not sure what we are going to do. DD2 is going to be much younger when this baby arrives than my big kids were (they were 3 and 3y9m). But DD2 is really independent, much more so than my others. They nursed until I weaned them in pregnancy at 2 1/2 and 3. She quit at 13 months and there was no convincing her to keep going. I've been thinking about maybe transitioning her to a toddler bed in our room.