The only thing I hate about a floor bed is that I didn’t start using it sooner!
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A floor bed is one of the greatest helps I’ve found as a mom. I didn’t even bother with a crib for my third, we just went straight to a floor bed.
7 months in with him and I haven’t stressed or obsessed for a second about his sleep. I support him to sleep then roll away.
Let me preface this to say that I am not a baby/toddler sleep expert or consultant. I’m only sharing what has helped our family and our kids’ sleep, in hopes that maybe it will help another mama.
Our floor bed story:
We first tried a floor bed when my daughter was about 10 months old. When she was born, I assumed that she would be a great sleeper just like my son. He was sleeping in his crib on his own from 6 months old, no sleep training or adjusting needed. He’s always loved his own sleep space. But I wasn’t aware yet just how opposite your own kids could be.
At first she WAS a great sleeper. After a month or two she started sleeping 6 hour stretches at night…every mother’s dream. She had me fooled.
Then the infamous, dreaded 4 month regression hit. And those long stretches were replaced with wake-ups every 2-3 hours. Turns out we had a highly sensitive little one on our hands.
Why we made the switch:
The only way I could get her to sleep for naps, bedtime, overnight wakes, was by nursing her to sleep. So every couple of hours when she’d wake overnight, I’d nurse her back to sleep in our rocking chair then attempt to transfer her back to her crib.
Nursing her to sleep wasn’t REALLY the big issue. It was the transfer.
It woke her up every single time, no matter how carefully or slowly I laid her down. So then I’d have to sit back down and nurse her back to sleep again, again, and again.
At every naptime I’d have to attempt to get my son occupied long enough to nurse her to sleep and get her in her crib….which never worked. We went round and round of nursing her to sleep only for her to wake up from the transfer or from her brother crying outside her bedroom door.
I QUICKLY went into survival mode. Sleep deprivation hit so hard. And then postpartum anxiety and rage…it sent me spiraling into a depression and I was really struggling, purely because of her sleep. I couldn’t enjoy my baby in her first year because I was too occupied trying to get her to sleep in her crib like she was “supposed to.” It just wasn’t working.
So I took to google searching for answers. For the longest time, the only answer I found was sleep training. We attempted it twice and I hated every single minute of it. It went against every maternal instinct I felt and my mom gut was screaming at me. After hours of screaming, I said *F* it, we’re not doing this. I was so desperate, but I wanted to be responsive to my daughter through the night.
Supporting her through the night was important to me. I have so many memories from my own childhood of feeling afraid and alone at night, something I still struggle with to this day. I don’t want her to have those same memories growing up. But I needed a way to give her that support without sacrificing my own health and sanity.
Finally I found something new to try. Something that would allow me to respond to my child at night but also allow me to get more rest. It was the magical floor bed.
So what is a floor bed?
A floor bed is simply that…a bed on the floor.
It’s a montessori approach to sleep, allowing freedom for children surrounding their sleep space and sleep habits. But I liked it for the ease and convenience of supporting my daughter to sleep.
How does a floor bed help?
Moving to a floor bed was such a huge help because it took away that awful, crib transfer that made a quick nurse-back-to-sleep last for hours on end every night.
Instead I was able to lay next to her and use the side-lying nursing position to nurse her back to sleep. Once she was good and asleep, I would release her latch and just roll away.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Not only that, but instead of having to sit up in a rocking chair multiple times through the night, which physically hurt some nights when I was crazy exhausted, I was able to at least lay comfortably next to her.
There was no transfer, no going back and forth a million times just trying to get her to stay asleep while laying her back down. It was the perfect solution for us.
And now that she’s a little older, we haven’t had to go through the transition to a toddler bed! Another big win! She does come get me a couple times a night, so sometimes I just sleep with her. But I don’t mind it cause I know it won’t last forever…and I actually sleep better with her sometimes when my husband is sawing away at logs, snoring 😉
How to set up a floor bed:
When I first gave the floor bed a try with my daughter, I simply took her crib mattress out and laid it in on the floor in the middle of the room. Once I realized how amazing it was and knew this was going to work for us, we ended up ordering a firm, 5-inch, full size mattress (like this one here https://amzn.to/3mTg2jF). We got the 5-inch just in case she rolled off, there was no danger of her getting injured.
We also put some little slats underneath the mattress to give some room for air circulation. This way moisture doesn’t build up and create mold.
There are some pretty elaborate floor bed setups on Etsy and Pinterest that are pretty cool. But we wanted to keep it low-cost and easy to set up so we stuck with just slats and a mattress on the floor.
Now that we have our 6 month old son, we moved our daughter to a king size bed on the floor (one we had on hand after turning one of our guest rooms into a game room). Now my 6 month old uses the full size one!
How we keep it safe:
There are a few precautions I take to keep things safe:
- While under a year old, we only use a fitted sheet on the mattress. No pillows, blankets, or stuffed animals. We treat it just as if they are still in a crib.
- Once mobile, we have to just assume that they will get off the mattress and roam the room, so I babyproof the whole room. Make sure the outlets are covered and keep things minimal in the room.
- While they’re really young, I keep the mattress in the middle of the room so there’s no danger of baby getting trapped between a wall and the mattress.
- We use a video monitor and set it up where we can see almost the whole room.
I wish I could remember where exactly I first read about a floor bed, but since then I’ve found some great accounts on Instagram for baby and toddler sleep tips if sleep training isn’t the solution for you and your little one. Some of my favorites are @kaitlinklimmer, @myconnectedmotherhood, and @mothernourishnurture.
If you’re struggling with sleep, find what works for you and your babies! It may not be what everyone else is doing, and that’s okay. You’ll know you’ve found your solution when you feel it in your mom gut. Not every night is easy and sometimes I miss sleeping all night in my own bed, but I’ve loved supporting my daughter’s, and now my son’s, sleep.
We are forever floor bed users!!
