[Frankie'sMom]

Little guy sleeps in his crib until he wakes up to eat, and then sleeps the rest of the night with us. When it's bedtime, I nurse him down in the bed and after a 1/2 hour or so we move him. I would like to just leave him in the bed and avoid the moving part, but I worry that he's going to roll or crawl off (he's 11 months). He's iffy with being moved and some nights wakes up and SCREAMS when we try to move him, at which point I usually take him into the bed again and nurse him until he falls asleep, which happens after about 5 minutes. Sometimes we just cave in and go to bed, but he's usually down about 7pm, too early!<br><br>
He sleeps great in our bed, and I doubt he would even wake up, but I just don't want to risk it. Short of putting our mattress on the floor (really don't want to do that) does anyone have any suggestions about how to keep him on the bed so we don't have to do the crib switch? How old will he be when I don't have to worry about him rolling off?

 

[SollysMom]

I was going to suggest putting your mattress on the floor, but I see you don't want to do that. DS1 always slept in our bed even without us and we removed the frame and boxspring when he started crawling. Since you don't want to do that, I would put pillows beside him as barriers and teach him how to safely get out of bed - DS1 learned that sometime between age 1 and 1.5 so you can start working on it. Then, I would use a baby monitor and just go back to check on him AS SOON as you hear him stir. One time when DS1 was newly crawling, we heard him on the monitor (stirring, not crying) but waited a minute to see if he settled back to sleep. The next thing we heard was a loud THUMP and a cry - because he had crawled right out of bed and fallen on the hardwood floor. We moved the mattress to the floor the very next day.

 

[Glover_Girls]

What worked for me when my baby slept with me (she is now 7 and still with me) is I put my bed next to the wall <b>and</b> used a bedrail so I didn't worry about her getting stuck between the mattress and wall. I slept on the outside so she couldn't fall off the bed. I nursed her until she was 3 so I wasn't getting up at all to do a crib switch.<br><br>
If I read your posting right, you want to be able to nurse him and then get up and leave him in bed. You could get rails for both sides of the bed that drop down when you don't need them and just put them up while he's in bed. When my DD moved around after I put her down, I'd just go in and check on her. She moved around A LOT (still does) so I was just on the alert when she stirred. I recall that I used my body pillow along the bottom of the bed because rails aren't as long as a bed.

 

[Peony]

I have the bed pushed against the wall for 12m old DS, when I hear him on the monitor stirring then I dash upstairs and nurse him back down again. He has only fallen off once a couple months ago and he seemed to have learned not to dive bomb off the bed. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/shy.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="innocent"> He crawls to the edge after naptime and waits for me to come and get him. We don't have a rail, it doesn't work with our mattress.

 

[leahmn12]

We used a toddler bed rail on my side of the bed up until 2 weeks ago when I finally removed it. DS is 2 1/2. He would like to flip sides periodically throughout the night (from the rail side to between me and my partner), but I've just told him he has to sleep on the inside now. Now if I get out of bed, I just put a couple of pillows next to him, just to serve as a reminder more or less. The rail worked great for us. I highly recommend it! You'll all sleep much better.

 

[Honey693]

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<div>Originally Posted by <strong>leahmn12</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/15404482"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">We used a toddler bed rail on my side of the bed up until 2 weeks ago when I finally removed it. DS is 2 1/2. He would like to flip sides periodically throughout the night (from the rail side to between me and my partner), but I've just told him he has to sleep on the inside now. Now if I get out of bed, I just put a couple of pillows next to him, just to serve as a reminder more or less. The rail worked great for us. I highly recommend it! You'll all sleep much better.</div>
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This is what we did. I don't think you're supposed to have a bed rail on a king bed, but we did for 18 months and it worked great. We'll be doing the same thing with the next kid too.

 

[lkmiscnet]

I was actually getting ready to post the same dilemma, so I'm interested in seeing the replies.<br><br>
My 11.5 mo old is at the crawling stage and just pulling up to stand. We don't use the crib at all and just co-sleep. Like you, I'm usually up for 3-4 hours after our LO goes to bed and am concerned about his safety.<br><br>
We can't push our bed up against a wall and I also was trying to avoid putting the mattress on the floor.<br><br>
I do have bed rails on both sides of the bed, which some others suggested.<br><br>
Here's the problem that I am now facing the past couple of weeks, which you will undoubtedly face too with bed rails. Our LO now likes to dangle over the bed rail with the upper half of his body as he peers over the edge and now that he's pushing up to stand, he is liable to go head over heels over the side of the bed, which would be quite a fall onto the wood floor. He scared me by almost doing that tonight.<br><br>
I have also tried to use big sofa pillows to make a fortress near the end of the bed, where the bed rails end. However, yesterday, by the time I got to him after he woke from his nap, he was already scaling Mt. Sofa Pillow.<br><br>
So, bed rails and pillows likely won't solve your issue.<br><br>
Putting the bed on the floor might be the only option...sigh.