sidecaring cot

firstly yes 'sidecaring' is a word =p
so currently DD (3 mths) sleeps in the cradle in our room. has all her life except when she is really restless and grizzly in the middle of the night and i bring her into bed with us. this unfortuantly has been happening more and more that the last week she has basically been spending the whole night with us. i love sleeping with her but it means i get a terrible sleep... im only (mentally) comfortable with having her on the outside (i cant put her inbetween us because of a friends poor little one....it terrifies me =( ). so once i get her in a safe spot i then curl myself around her which is comfy to start with but after a few hrs like that really kills my hip and shoulder...
basically there isnt enough room in our bed for the 3 of us...
so ive been thinking of side caring... do you think this would help? when trying to resettle at night i can lay down with her and there would be more room. will the gap be a problem?
but here is whats got me confused... what about day sleeps? (not that she has them often) but do people then carry their sleeping child across the bed to get to th cot? or do they sleep somewhere else during the day?
to actually do it DH and I will have to swap sides so it will fit in our room...so cant really just try it for a night.. its something that will be pretty permenant.

dont really know why i needed a whole post about it...just brain storming out loud. but would love to hear others experiences

Our bed was too high to sidecar with the cot.. But I had both my kids in our room till DS was 1 (DD is 22 mths older).. DS's cot was beside my bed, but I could walk between them..

I would've loved to be able to do it though. I am not comfortable with co-sleeping (too heavy a sleeper and overweight), but having the kids that close but within their own space would have been perfect.. If she is used to sleeping on your side, not in the middle, then I think she would adjust quite well.. The bed mattress and cot mattress would have to be the same height for me to be comfortable with it though.

what about those things you put on your toddler bed to keep them in their bed, a side rail?? Put that on one side, you sleep in the middle next to your DH, I have friends that have done this and it worked really well.

we did it and still have the cot there. sometimes DD sleeps in it. beats getting out of bed and trudging down to the other end of the house 10 times a night!

DH was able to fix the cot so it was level with the bed, and we got a purpose-cut piece of very firm foam to wedge between the mattresses, as they were not flush. now the foam is onthe other side and DD can roll from one to the other.

we've done it and it's been great. pretty much for the same trains you outlined - dd was in a bassinet by our bed unless grizzly and as she reached around 2 months was in with us. I found it difficult to get a good sleep cos I was jammed in the middle and I always lay on,the same side which was really uncomfy after a while. it's been good so far. I just put dd in there about 20 minutes ago. I tend to feed sitting on the bed or lying next to her because it is too hard to move across the bed on knees without disturbing her. ours is pretty much level.

oops, i always thought it was sidecart.

DD moved from hammock to bed to sidecar cot. The way it was set up, i could put her in from one side for day sleeps. (the cot was not up against a wall). This worked well.

This time, our bed is facing a different way and so the cot is between a wall and the bed. DS hasn't slept in it yet, but i too am trying to work out the logistics of putting him in it when he is asleep, if i am not in the bed. I would have to climb over the bed and this would probaby wake him up.

DS is currently in a hammock during the day and the start of the night, but we will have to move him out soon.

At different times with DD, she slept on a mattress on the floor for day sleeps (i would feed her and then sneak out), slept on our bed, slept in the cot, and just didn't sleep :lol:

have you tried the cot to see how it goes?

Also, the cot mattress is similar height to our bed. Just have to put something on opposite side beside the mattress to remove the gap between bed and cot mattress.

it could be sidecart i could be wrong.
we are going to do it on the weekend cause we will have to take it apart to get it out of the room its in and rearrange our stuff etc.
im a bit sad to not be using her cradle anymore, but it is still an option for daysleeps altho atm her only day sleep is in the carrier or in the car...
even if she doesnt sleep in the cot and is still in the bed ill be able to put her at the edge and it will still give us more room.

well furniture has been rearranged. will soon see if it works!

how is it going?

yea its working well. except her cot mattress is so hard compared to our nice soft one i feel sorry for her =p its good that even if she does end up in bed with us i can put her on the edge as then there is only the cot to roll onto not the floor. so more room =)

can you put a lambswool under the sheet?

DS has played in ours a few times but no sleeping yet.

yeah, it's nice having that extra space in bed!

I put a thin fleece blanket between the mattress and the sheet - just tio make it that tiny bit softer and warmer too