Is a floor bed right for your family?
I won’t even try to stay impartial about this - I love floor beds!
They’re a great option for families who are currently bedsharing but want to transition their little one to their own sleep space, or for families whose baby is having a hard time sleeping in their crib.
Often, parents’ first reaction to is to feel terrified at the idea of putting their baby (or toddler) in a bed that doesn’t keep them contained. What if they roll off? Won’t they roam freely around the room… or even the house?
Potentially, they could! But if we mitigate risk and set their space up safely, and you might find the benefits of a floor bed outweigh the worries!
What is a floor bed?
A floor bed is a fancy name for what is essentially a mattress on the floor (something countless cultures use every day, without having a special term for it). In many Western cultures, it's a popular Montessori concept that helps foster a baby’s or toddler's ability to get in or out of their sleep space on their own. It's become a mainstream choice for baby and toddler sleep in the last few years, and there are many floor bed frames on the market now.
From the Montessori perspective, part of our role as caregivers is to arrange our child's environment in a way that supports — rather than hinders — their emerging autonomy. It's not hard to imagine how frustrating it might feel to have to rely on someone else to do basic things like get into bed or constantly maneuver furniture or tools that aren't made for our size. This is why we often see low-to-the-ground, child-sized furniture and smaller tools/utensils in Montessori homes. A floor bed is an extension of this approach.
While I love this perspective, the bigger reason I’m a fan of floor beds is because they can bring so much ease to the family unit.
They’re a convenient way to lie with or nurse our baby to sleep before easily rolling away, often without them noticing. It bypasses that often tricky crib transfer that can be so frustrating for a lot of families. It can also make our little ones’ transition to their own sleep spaces a lot easier, since we can sleep in their floor bed with them until they feel good about their new space alone. And, they make night wakings much less exhausting, since we can simply join our baby or toddler in their bed to help them fall back to sleep.
A mattress directly on the floor is also the safest way to bedshare with your little one. This way, if your baby rolls off the mattress, they will simply fall to the floor a couple of inches below and won't be seriously injured. When the mattress is pulled away from the wall and the floor is free of blankets and pillows, there is no risk of suffocation or entrapment if the baby were to roll off the bed without you noticing.
How to use a floor bed safely
All crib guidelines apply to floor beds. This means the mattress should be very firm and, for babies under a year, include nothing but a tightly fitted sheet. In addition, the mattress needs to be placed away from the walls so your baby can't become stuck or wedged if they roll off the side of the mattress.
Regardless of whether the floor bed is in your room or your child's, we need to treat the whole room like their sleep space. The floor surrounding the mattress needs to be free from any blankets, pillows, and clothes. Any small toys or objects that pose a choking risk need to be put away. There shouldn't be any dangling mobiles above their sleep space (or anywhere within reach). All cables and chargers need to be put out of reach or securely fastened to the wall so they can’t be pulled on. Furniture in the room should be anchored to the wall so that, if your little one were to start climbing, there’s no risk of the furniture tipping over on top of them. If you have stairs in the hallway, they should be blocked off with a baby gate. It's okay to keep the door to their room closed, but never locked.
Essentially, we are trying to prepare for the off-chance your child wakes up and starts exploring their room before you notice. If you know you've baby-proofed it, you can rest assured they can explore safely.
To prevent any mold or moisture from accumulating beneath the mattress, leaning it against the wall for a few hours once a week is usually enough. Otherwise, wooden slats (like the ones from IKEA) or a bedframe made specifically for a floor bed are available nearly everywhere now.
When can I start using a floor bed?
Roomsharing is recommended for the first six months of a baby's life, as a preventative measure against sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Many families opt to have their newborns sleep in a bassinet next to their bed — however, you can still use a floor bed for daytime naps right from birth. Some parents use it for nighttime sleep too, opting to have the floor bed set up in a corner of their room. After the first half year, it's up to you if you want to move the floor bed to your child's own room or not.
If your little one is over six months old and currently bedsharing or sleeping in a crib, you can transition them to a floor bed whenever you’d like!
But won’t my baby/toddler climb out and roam around in the middle of the night?
I’ve found that when floor beds are introduced from a very young age, the desire for proximity is stronger than the novelty of exploring. What I hear most from parents is their babies and young toddlers will stay on their floor bed and call out for someone to come to them, rather than roam around or try to find their parents themselves.
Older toddlers and preschoolers might explore, but most children outgrow their crib by their third birthday. So that containment we’re used to is going to disappear at some point! Initially, the novelty and freedom of having an open sleep space might make bedtime a bit of a challenge if they're keen to get out of bed and explore their room. Since the room is babyproofed, this might be okay for you (and this is actually in line with the Montessori perspective — the child is free to explore and play independently in their own space and, when they recognize they are getting tired, crawl into their bed themselves to fall asleep.) If it's not okay with you, you can set firm but calm boundaries that they stay in bed with you while falling asleep. This typically just takes a few nights to get used to.
I personally held the limit that my daughter stayed in the bed with me. It was her choice to sit up, look at books, or play with her stuffies, but she needed to stay in the bed and rest with me. It always led to her eventually lying down and falling asleep.
Some families opt to create a floor bed in their room in case their little one wakes up and craves parental proximity and reassurance in the night. This can be a great way to meet the parent's need for space while meeting the child's need for closeness. Remember, many of us prefer to sleep next to our partners. Our children's yearning to sleep near their loved ones/caregivers is really no different.
How to set yourself up for floor bed success
It can be useful to create positive experiences with the floor bed ahead of time. Hang out there together during awake time — read books, nurse, rough and tumble, role play putting their stuffies to sleep in the floor bed, etc.
Next, practice taking stretches of sleep there. Many families find starting with naps easier than starting at night. You can move through your entire nap routine like you usually do, ending with supporting them to sleep in the bed or transferring them into it once they're already asleep.
If they need you to, you can sleep with them there until they feel comfortable sleeping there on their own, and then ease yourself back into your own room.
Alternatively, the floor bed can be a great option for naps and the first part of the night before pulling your little one into bed with you for the second half of the night.
There’s no right or wrong way to approach sleep, and it’s ok (and common!) to have a hybrid of sleep arrangements.
At the end of the day, I love floor beds for the ease they bring in transferring our sleeping children to their bed and rolling away without them noticing. Much better than the crib-transfer wars many of us have experienced!
Photo via The Kavanaugh Report.