Crawling and Co-Sleeping

[naturallia]

What do you guys do when your child starts to crawl? I worry that my son will crawl out of bed and fall.

[tienke]

hi
I have the same problem here. At night the rail (actually a board) is OK and I am with her. But on the day when she sleeps in our bed after being nursed to sleep, when she wakes up she starts crawling. Now I put her in the middle of the bed and make walls of cushions around her. I'm thinking of putting a matrass on the floor for the days.

[SueQ]

What do you guys do when your child starts to crawl?
A mattress on the floor is our family's solution for extra mobile babies and toddlers. Dh is a light sleeper so once they get to disturbing him, we move them to a mattress on the floor. I nurse them to sleep there move in bed with dh for couple time and then when they wake in the middle of the night I finish the night with them. We all are happy that way. (That solves the crawling problem, too. ;))

[tienke]

just want to say that the cushion wall was not a very good idea. my dd crawled over them and fell out of our bed today!
Bless God she was not injured.

[Dana Joy]

matress on the floor has worked great around here. it has been that way for over 2 years now. it also makes it easy to have a little crib matress next to it so jess gets his own space, but feels like i am near.

[2sunshines]

I always taught my kids to crawl out of the bed feet first. You'd honestly be amazed at how quickly they can learn that.

My sil was over with her baby who is five months older than my first. She had his already trained to crawl out of the bed feet first as soon as he could crawl. I was kind of :jawdrop that he coudl learn that so early. But teaching that to my kids actually worked too. :shrug

[naturallia]

How do you teach them to crawl out of bed feet first?

[Naked Camper]

How do you teach them to crawl out of bed feet first?
lots of practice. We taught DS to go out of bed feet first at aobut 8 months maybe? I think DH started teaching him as soon as he was moble. You show them the edge of the bed, move them around on their tummies till their feet are pointing off the bed and help them down that way. DS would often hit the floor and then topple back, and I think there were a few times that he did fall out of the bed, but no injurys. We also used a bed rail on one side (our bed is up against the wall on the other side). For naps I kept the moniter on and listen for DS and at the first peep I was there to help him out of bed.

[naturallia]

Thanks! this helps. i'll try that.

[NoahsMommy0912]

My bed is actually pushed tight up against one wall, kind of in a corner, and there are pillows against the wall to keep ds from bonking his head on the hard wall :giggle I sleep on the side that is open (not up against the wall) and that seems to work for us :) I am anxious to see if I can do the "feet out of bed first" thing... :shrug Hopefully I can teach ds that!!

[mommylove]

DH wouldn't let me put the mattress on the floor, so we compromised. We took down the crib in the nursery (since it wasn't being used anyway) and got an air mattress at Bed Bath & Beyond & put a memory foam topper on it. It's surprisingly comfy. Doing this solved 2 problems -- DS can get on & off his bed easily & safely, and it gives us a kid-free place for some alone time before I relocate to DS's bed for the night.