New Mom Needs Help

[Mona's Mommy]

Hello Everyone. I'm new to this list and to mommyhood. I'm hoping you more experienced folks can give a new mom some advise...

My husband and I have been sharing our bed with our 6 month old since she came home from the hospital. She's a great sleeper and I attribute it to co sleeping. I love it and wouldn't have it any other way, and plan to continue to do so until she "tells" us differently. We've been using a baby hammock for naps and at night, when she goes down before us, I make a pillow pod for her, with pillows all around her. It has worked great for us until now. She's starting to get mobile and is moving around more in bed. I want to advoid her falling out of bed (when we're not there) but I'm not sure what the solution is. She takes naps during the day in the hammock - 1.5 to 2 hours, but WILL NOT sleep in the hammock at night in those before we come to bed hours. I don't see myself staying in the room with her for hours while she sleeps in the bed, and I don't trust the monitor to "tell" me she is close to going over a pillow. Is my only choice to put the mattress on the floor? And even then? I've looked into that Mommy & Me bolster and pad. Has anyone used this? But still, it's only one sided and expensive. We don't have a crib and I really don't want to buy one and I think we have out grown the co-sleeper bed thingie already. I've been thinking about purchasing a play yard to put next to our bed, but I don't know (sigh). ANY suggestions would be of great help. Thanks!

[canadiyank]

Have you thought of a bedrail? We've been doing the pillow thing, too, and she's fallen out a couple times :(

[sincitymama]

We just did the mattress on the floor. Wasn't long before we had the boxspring back under it(soon as he could climb down feetfirst instead of onto his head), we still don't bother with a frame. Is the bed very high? If it isn't too tall you could try bedrails and loads of pillows all around the bed for a soft landing just in case. What about investing in a video moniter? You could see how close baby is to the edge withut being stuck right there every sleeping moment.

[The4OfUs]

I was a mom who was "trapped" in the bedroom for several months once DS was mobile and only wanted to sleep in our bed. I would just do the bills, clean thebedroom, or sneak out and clean the bathroom real quick while he slept, or read or do something else in the room or one of the rooms nearby.

Having said that, I just bought a snug tuck pillow for DS's toddler bed (he sleeps in it part of the night and with us the rest of the night, but has rolled out of it twice so I needed to find a solution, but traditional bed rails were too long and he wasn't able to climb down out to come to our room if he wanted...) It's a firm foam bolster pillow, fabric covered, and has a huge piece of elastic attached to it so it basically wraps around the mattress, and stops him from rolling off in his sleep. I got the smallest diameter (6 inches), but they come in bigger diameters, and can be made for any bed size according to the web site. It is working out really well for us, maybe it would work for you too if you could get one side of your bed put up against a wall and only have to ue one on one side.

here's the web site - the owner is a really nice woman who worked with me to get the right length for DS's bed, since I wanted ours a little bit shorter than normal toddler bed size, so he could climb down.

Snug Tuck (http://www.snugtuckpillow.com/)

or, if you're handy with a needle and thread, you could probably just make your own pretty easily...clearly I'm not, since I had someone do it for me! :LOL

[mom2owen1]

we ended up putting our mattress on the floor since ds was too young to teach how to get down. it is a king size mattress in the corner. i also have a bedrail at the bottom. i do rely on the monitor to tell me when he is awake. i can hear the sheets rustling before i actually hear him.

i started teaching ds to get down at about six months. he just last week started doing it (one week shy of 11 months). i suppose i could put the mattress back on the box springs, but i probably won't.

kris
owen, 11 months

[mrmansmama]

We just have DS sleep the first few hours on the floor or chair in the livingroom, which is where we usually are in the evening anyway. Then when we are ready to go up we just bring him into bed. Most of the time he never even wakes up. We also just got a platform bed with a futon mattress and no box spring. It is much lower to the floor than a traditional bed so you don't need to worry as much.