family bed vs. crib

Original clipped to save space. :-)

"Cheryl M. \(ChatBrat\)" writes:
: Didn't you worry about the mobil 7-9 mos. plus baby getting up and roaming
: about in the night? We're having a problem with Jas never wanting to sleep
: apart (I mean never - not even for 10 minutes despite the mattress on a
: floor routine). If she awakens during the night, her sleepy, floppy self
: immediately rolls over and begins to crawl. I'm terrified she'll crawl
: right off the bed. How do you deal with that?

: Cheryl

Hmmm. The way you write, I think you could be concerned with one of two
diffrent things. (or maybe both!).

1. Falling off the bed.

It is amazing how quickly a baby can develop the "sixth sense" to know
where the edge of the bed is and not fall off. With both babies, we had
them sleep on our bed when we were there, but we also had them nap on our
bed. Neither ever fell off the bed when we were there. When we were not
there Clara fell off once, and Niel fell off twice. We had placed pillows
and comforters on the floor around the bed so that they were not hurt.
In each case, that was all it took for them to learn where the edge of the
bed was. Many times after that we would find them sleeping with an arm
hanging over the edge, but they never fell off again.

2. Escaping.

OK. I will admit that neither of ours were much of "walkers," but when
we were sleeping in the room with them, if either purposely got out of
bed to go somewhere, we would wake and "retreive" them. In the case where
we had put one of them down to nap, she or he would wake and come out to
where we were. This only happened once or twice, and only after they were
toddlers.

Again, these things were never a problem for us.

Larry