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View Full Version : Help- No Sleep Space Feels Safe!


RealLifeMama
01-23-2012, 09:51 PM
H is my fifth baby. We have coslept with all the kids with no issue.
We have a crib next to our bed, sidecar style.
H is a "Heat seeking Missle" so even if she starts there, she won't stay there. She scooches up right under me sometimes. Two nights ago, I woke up to her squirming and crying. might be sensitive She had scooched up under my pillow. I sleep in the typical "cosleeping, nursing mom position", on my side with my elbow up, and my elbow was over where her head was under the pillow. Terrifying!!! I could not even fall asleep last night until 3AM because I could not get the image out of my head. I had put her in her crib, but she kept moving over.

Even if she did stay in her sidecar, I don't feel all that safe with it for two reasons. One is that if she stands up, the rails at the foot are not that tall (the mattress is even with our bed, so it is a little higher than crib height.)
Also, there is a slight gap between the mattress and the rail of the crib on one side.

At 10 months, I doubt that she will sleep in the crib with the side on, and I have never been able to, from a standing position, transfer her to her crib once she is asleep anyway.

The fact that she sleeps on her tummy is not comforting either.

Like I said, she is my fifth, and we have never used a crib in the traditional way, but she has been throwing us for a loop with the sleep a lot. All the other kids napped on my bed. She fell off the bed once at 5 months. (crawled right off the edge. My other babies were old enough to be taught to go off backwards by the time they were crawling.)
One thing that is that it seems like she is the first baby we have had where I am constantly reading about safe sleep and how cosleeping is good but bed sharing is bad. My natural bent is to always think that I am seeing those articles for a reason- that they are supposed to be a warning to me, because I never saw them at all with my first four children. Now they are everywhere! (The rational side of my personality tells me I am really seeing them because they were not there before- cosleeping is more mainstream now, and before there was no need for those articles. Is that a correct assumption?)

I just don't know where to put her to go to sleep.
The floor does not seem like a good option, either.

Llee
01-23-2012, 10:03 PM
Up until both girls were 1ish, they occasionally slept on my bopy nursing pillow. Kept them upright--gave them that soft and cozy snuggly feeling.

Can you put a heating pad in the crib before she gets put in it, so that it's nice and warm?

RealLifeMama
01-24-2012, 07:21 PM
:bump

I am not sleeping well, due to concern, which in turn is making me more concerned because I know I am overtired. It is an endless cycle!

KSL
01-26-2012, 10:10 PM
If she is mobile enough to stand up and crawl over to snuggle with you, I would not thInk you need to worry about her get suffocated or trapped under you or a pillow. My understanding is that those fears are for when a baby is really much littler and less mobile, and could get in a situation where they couldn't move. I can't imagine a ten month old baby wouldn't be able to make it abundantly and quickly clear to you if she was uncomfy or couldn't breathe right if your elbow or part of your pillow was over her. I am really, really neurotic and worried about cosleeping when DS was really little, but once he could crawl I relaxed a lot.

Castle On A Cloud
01-26-2012, 11:56 PM
what she said:yes unless she was seriously getting wedged under something heavy ALL.THE.TIME... I would not worry about the suffocating thing - as scary as it probably was:hug2 Was your elbow on top of a pillow? If so, not doing that might eliminate that as a possible problem;)

solatido
01-28-2012, 02:10 PM
Also, could you move your pillow over so your head is more on the corner of the pillow and the rest of it is to your back? Don't know if that would make it less comfy, but it might make you feel better. I agree though that a 10 month old getting herself under the pillow is less concerning than a 10 week old. She woke you up with her crying- that's a good thing, and how it's supposed to work. If she was so deep asleep she wouldn't wake up from that, she'd be too deep asleep to get herself into that position, KWIM?