When it comes to kids and sleeping, I mostly see “black or white” posts about either never allowing your child to sleep in your bed or how the family bed is the only way to go. Well, what if I told you there is a gray area where your toddler can have her own bed, but also sleep in yours. The situation I have going on right now at home is kind of the best of both worlds. Let me tell you all about Mac’s sleep habits, our unique sleeping situations (including how we part-time bed share), and the benefits of both.
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When Mac was too old for a co-sleeper bassinet (read about where she slept as a newborn here), she moved into a Montessori floor bed. I already explained what a floor bed is and why we chose it (read about that here), but today I wanted to talk about where we set up the floor bed to start with.
Once Mac grew out of the bassinet, I already knew I wanted to have her in the floor bed. The problem was our two bedroom townhouse had our bedroom and another “bedroom” masquerading as a storage unit. I also wasn’t ready to have Mac move so far away from me. So I started to search the internet, looking for inspiration to share a room with Mac and her Montessori floor bed. But I couldn’t find anyone who had a floor bed in their own bedroom. Well, we went on to successfully share a room with Mac’s bed for six months, so I thought I would talk about how we did it.
Update: If you’d like to see her floor bed after she moved into her own room, you can read about it here. Make sure you also check out why she bed shares with us part time.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy through my link, I may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. For more information, see my disclosure page here.
I used to think that when I had a baby, s/he would sleep in a crib, just like every other baby. But when I began working at a Montessori school, I learned about floor beds and never looked back. I have found so many benefits and it has been so easy to use, that I just had to talk about what a floor bed is.
So, here is a quick progression on how we got Mac into her floor bed. When Mac was a baby, she slept in a bedside bassinet. Once she was a bit older, she moved into a floor bed in our room. Eventually Mac and her floor bed moved into her own room. Now we bed share part time with her as a toddler.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy through my link, I may receive compensation. For more information, see my disclosure page here.
When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, there were so many decisions to make. Many things I always assumed I would do, I wasn’t so sure about anymore. One of those things was having my baby sleep in a crib. There isn’t anything wrong with a crib, but after working at a Montessori school I was intrigued by the idea of a floor bed.
But before we started my daughter in a floor bed, I needed to figure out where to have her sleep until she was old enough. I knew that I wanted her nearby, but I had some anxiety about bed sharing with her. So after some research, I decided to try a co-sleeper bassinet. (We bought an Arm’s Reach Euro Mini Co-Sleeper Bassinet. That exact style is no longer available, but the Arm’s Reach Mini Ezee 2-in-1 seems like almost the same thing!)
(If you are more intrigued by the floor bed, you can read about what a floor bed is, how we shared a room with a floor bed, and how Mac has her own floor bed room now. We do bed share part-time now that she is a toddler.)
At first, I was going to try to make a sidecar crib. There are plenty of DIY instructions on Pinterest and Google to describe the process, but I just wasn’t certain we were handy enough to make it work. So instead, I found the Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper Bedside Bassinet. We ended up using it for both of our children so far. (Make sure you check out this co-sleeper bassinet by the same company. It looks almost identical!) Here are a few reasons why we love it.