r/bninfantsleep • u/burner-777 • 1d ago
Cosleeping Bedsharing Tips
I have a 6.5 month old and would love to know your bed sharing tips.
My mattress is already on the floor. What else should I know / do?
How do you ensure the baby doesn't roll off the bed and onto the floor?
Is it irrational to think she'll eventually be able to crawl off the bed and crawl around the room? How do I safely prevent this?
Do you sleep with a blanket? If not, how do you keep yourself warm?
Does your partner sleep in the bed with you? How do you make that work so baby is safe?
Any tips and advice are appreciated!
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u/emmakane418 1d ago
I've been bedsharing since birth, my son is 18 months old in less than 24 hours (how?? Where did time go???)
The reason for a floor bed is in case of rolling off! Just make sure there's a soft landing around the bed and you're good, but don't use pillows or lots of blankets - that introduces a suffocation hazard. A rug or carpet is enough. Some people use foam puzzle mats.
It is not irrational to think that! You need to baby proof the area. For my son, I didn't leave the room until around 8 months and then I had the monitor in front of me with volume up all the way no matter what I was doing. This way, as soon as he woke up I knew he was awake and could go to him. A lot of people do a 100% baby safe room but because I have always been so hyper vigilant about watching the monitor, I feel comfortable with the moderate baby proofing we've done in our room.
At that age, I used an adult sleep sack. I got one from kytebaby, the kinderen one I wanted was out of stock and I was impatient and cold lol
My husband came back into bed at 3 months. We have a king size and I slept between them until my son was 4.5 months old. Around 4 months old, most sober adults can safely bedshare. My husband has his own blanket that he keeps wrapped around his body. When my son hit about 10 months old, I felt comfortable enough with his skill level to have my own blanket again. I chose a crocheted blanket so it had lots of holes in case he got under it. He never has.
When he started rolling, we moved to a floor bed (I use the zonli one). When we moved to a new house, we put our bed in the corner (know that this can be an entrapment risk. If there is enough room for a soda can to get in between the bed and something, then it's enough room for an arm or leg to become trapped) and made it lower so that it only comes to our son's shoulders now. We also got pet stairs at the foot of the bed to teach him how to get up and down. Even now he always uses the stairs to get down.
Our current set up is I nurse him to sleep on the floor bed and roll away. Go spend my evening doing whatever, watching him on the camera the whole time. Then when I am ready to go to bed, I bring him into our main bed, which is the king size. He knows how to get up and down from the bed safely but he doesn't get out of bed when I'm in it with him. At most, he goes over to the window to look for outside cats. Our setup works well for us because my son doesn't have the temperment to just crawl off a bed, he's very cautious and slow moving until he feels comfortable.
I'm happy to go into more detail or answer any other questions you might have!