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LucyP
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| Posted: Sept 24 2007 at 3:22am | IP Logged
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In mid October, we will DV be bringing home our 6 mo daughter. Our plan was to have her cot, minus a side at my side of the bed as a sort of co-cleeper arrangement. Currently our 3.5yo son loves to sleep in our bed - he sleeps with me every night my dh is away from home, and when he is distressed at night he comes in to our bed - but dh can't sleep with a him in the bed. But when our son was in his cot three sided to our bed, we all slept well and I wasn't treking through to the nursery all the time!
When our daughter comes home, we expect that our son will become more needy and need/want to be in with us too, as his sister will be there!
So our plan is to get a massive cot (dh still slept in when he was 6) from dh's mother and use that minus one side as a co-sleeper that both children could fit in and both feel they were sharing the bed with us and be close enough for the endless comforting that adopted children need on placement.
Has anyone done anything like that before? Would it be safe to allow a preschooler and a baby to share a bed? Would we need a 4 sided cot set up for baby girl's naptimes too? Would our first idea of a air bed for our son and a smaller cot/co-sleeper arrangement for our daughter be best?
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: Sept 24 2007 at 5:36am | IP Logged
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I wouldn't do it Lucy. While I wouldn't worry about an adult rolling onto a baby and smothering, I'd definitely worry about a preschooler. We have the same scenarios in our house and I just wouldn't let my preschooler sleep with a baby that young. My toddlers and preschoolers have been all arms and legs in bed and tend to gravitate towards me or an older sibling to sleep. It's fine if we're bigger, but I think it could be dangerous if the sleeping companion were considerably littler. What we've done is buy a toddler bed (it takes a crib-sized mattress --I know we're talking different lingo here, bear with me) and put it at the foot of our bed. That's for the preschooler. When my latest guy outgrew that, we put an airmattress on the floor. The baby gets a crib with three sides or a cosleeper.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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SusanJ
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| Posted: Sept 24 2007 at 6:52am | IP Logged
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I definitely agree with Elizabeth. We had our 2yo ds still in bed with us when dd was born. We have a huge bed, so we arranged things so that there were two adults between the two kids and it worked okay. I would never have let my ds sleep next to his baby sister.
Now that they're older I don't think there's any chance of smothering. Maybe even at six months I wouldnt' have worried anymore, but I just don't think either child will sleep put in together like that. Perhaps when they are both older but my kids just wake each other up when they end up next to each other, now. Ds isn't quite old enough to understand how babies work and dd is all about poking eyes and whacking faces these days.
Perhaps you could put some kind of bed on the floor for ds?
Susan
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LucyP
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| Posted: Sept 24 2007 at 9:15am | IP Logged
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Thanks for the input, ladies. I couldn't imagine anything worse than our son overlaying the baby. Maybe, what might work is for me to have the baby's cot/crib on my side of our bed, minus 1 side, and then for the big cot from my mil to be set up minus a side at the bottom of the bed for our son: it couldn't fit on dh's side. The other option for our son was one of the "fold out" beds that look like little chairs when folded - but then he wouldn't feel that he was part of the family bed. I love my bedroom to look pretty and it is going to be a little struggle for me to go for practical and full of cots and babies - well, not the babies part - we are overjoyed at that! I just wish it had been possible for us to get the 6 foot wide bed up to our room but the bed company wouldn't "let" us.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Sept 24 2007 at 2:30pm | IP Logged
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at 6 months I wouldn't do it... but as the baby gets closer to a year it becomes doable.. just depends on the kids. I think the second cot at the bottom of the bed sounds like a neat idea.
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: Sept 25 2007 at 7:41am | IP Logged
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In the No-Cry Sleep Solution they don't recommend putting little ones in bed together until the youngest is at least 18-months old.
Is the reason that your husband can't sleep in the bed with your son just because you are all cramped?
I don't know what size your bed is, but here is what we did. Our older daughter was still in the bed with us (age 2 1/2)when the younger one was born. We had a queen mattress set already, and we bought a twin mattress set. The twin mattress is pushed against the wall with our queen set pushed up against it. We slept with the baby between me and the wall on the twin mattress and my older daughter between me and my husband on the queen. I was more on the twin set than the queen.
When the younger approached one and the older approached four we switched their places. Then after a few weeks we separated the beds. Then after another few weeks we moved older daughter into her own bed in the other room, and pushed the beds back together. I eventually plan to put them in the same bed together when I feel the younger one is ready and move the twin mattress to the playroom as a guest bed.
Of course, the kids love having the mattresses together because they think the big family bed is one big trampoline. When they are being too restless, I actually take them upstairs and tell them to jump on the bed.
 I'm sure this will have to change as they get bigger.
Good luck!!
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: co-sleeping, baby + preschooler
