I'm looking for some ideas on how to continue co=sleeping with a baby who goes to bed before we do. It's not safe to put him in our bed alone. We've been putting him in a bedside bassinette and then transferring with the first waking but now we're worried he is waking for the transfer. He sleeps best when we go to bed together but that wont work with an early bedtime.

Thanks for any ideas,
Julie

Hi Julie,

Once our baby started crawling, we put a futon matress on the floor next to our bed. That's where Gilbert takes his naps and that's where I co-sleep with him. If you don't have the room for a matress on your floor you could look into those guard rails. I'm not sure how old your baby is or what the minimum age is for those things but they might work for you.

Good luck!
Margaret
Mommy to Gilbert, 8 months

Margaret, So you just moved your usual bed to the floor? I noticed that you said "where I co-sleep with him", is it just the 2 of you in the bed or does dad get to join you? We're struggling to come up with a way for all 3 of us to sleep in the same bed and for the baby to start his night sleep before us.

Right now he naps in my lap and his co-sleeper, sleeps in a co-sleeper at the beginning of the night, and then joins us for his first feeding. My husband is all squished over to the side after he comes to bed and I'm thinking the floor would help (we wouldn't need to leave the baby so far from the edge).

Julie, Our master bedroom is huge and we put an additional matress on the floor. Originally we were sleeping (DH, baby and I) in our king-sized bed but when Gilbert started to crawl we came up with the two-matress arrangement. Gilbert starts by himself on the futon and then I go there when he wakes up to nurse. If I don't pass back out I return to our bed. (I'm trying to change the suck-to-sleep association.) One day I hope all 3 of us will be able to sleep together again but right now our baby's numerous night wakings and my husband's snoring is making that idea impossible.