A few weeks ago, I shared our experience using a Montessori floor bed from ages 0 to 2.5. But, even as I was writing it, I worried that maybe I’d totally forgotten about months 6 through 12? Maybe it was more annoying than I let on? Maybe, just as you forget exactly how bleary eyed and confused you were during the fourth trimester once you’re past it, I’d glossed over the months we spent coaching Bean to go to sleeeeeeep. I have no idea. It seems so long ago.

SO! Here is an interview with a close friend who also decided to use a floor bed with her son, now 14 months old. Ages 6 months through 12 months are still very fresh in her mind, so I appreciate having a second opinion on exactly how it all went and how she felt about it.

What made you decide to use a floor bed instead of a crib/other sleeping arrangement? What did you hope to get out of it?

First I should say that I was really inspired by your experience, Maria, using a floor bed with your daughter. I started reading about the Montessori methods while I was pregnant, and I love the idea of our son learning mobility and independence through a floor bed. On a more practical note, a floor bed made a lot of sense from both the cost and space-saving perspective. My husband, son, and I live in a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco‘s Nob Hill. We love our location and don’t want to move, so we’ve made the most of our space by converting a walk-in closet into our son’s bedroom. Our son’s floor bed is a crib mattress on the floor with sheets, a warm blanket and child size pillow. It is simple and inexpensive and allows the small space to not be overcome by an enormous crib. Instead the room showcases a fun wall mural of the Golden Gate Bridge.

When did your baby first start sleeping in his floor bed? 

He started sleeping on the floor bed at the three-month mark. Before that, he was in a co-sleeper next to our bed, but he was a very noisy sleeper and we were ready to get a little more sleep. We thought the sooner the better to move him to the floor bed and since he was not yet mobile, he took to it relatively easily. That is not to say he didn’t still awake multiple times a night for feedings and comfort.

How did you feel about the floor bed when you first started using it?

It was a little hard for us at first because we were used to having him right next to us and so when he slept for longer stretches, I would wonder if he was still breathing! We didn’t use a baby monitor because his room does not have an electrical socket. But his room is right next to ours and we certainly heard him when he awoke crying. It took us about a week to get used to the idea that he was sleeping peacefully in his bed next door.

Like me, you had a learning curve once your baby was mobile. Around what age was your baby when he was first able to get out of his bed? Did you/he have trouble sleeping (falling asleep or staying asleep) once he could move?

When he started crawling around the six-month mark, things definitely became more challenging.I should mention that between 4-6 months he did sleep through the night on the floor bed and we were so proud of ourselves, but then suddenly the night wakings began around 6 months when he started crawling.

He did not want to stay in his bed and would crawl to the door and cry, sometimes banging on the door! This is when we started the bad habit of staying with him until he fell asleep. This was relatively easy to do compared to having a crib because we could sit next to him or even lay in his bed while he fell asleep. But this created his obsession with holding my hand to fall asleep and often putting him to bed would take upwards of 30 minutes.

At the six-month mark when he was crawling was also the same time that our son started waking a lot at night. We had to stay with him in his room until he fell back asleep and then sneak out. As you can imagine, my husband and I got very little sleep during these months. We were resistant to the idea of sleep training, although we tried cry it out half heartedly a few times. We were never consistent in our approach so as expected, it didn’t work.

Just to clarify, when he started crawling, you’d sit with him until he went to sleep? At bedtime and the overnight? Did you eventually stop doing this, or was this the routine up until you went to New Zealand?

Yes, we sat with him until he fell asleep both to put him to bed for naps and night sleep, and also for night wakings. It was insane, but I didn’t want to do cry-it-out. I didn’t like the idea of it when he was younger, and it just didn’t seem to be that big of a deal to sit with him until he fell asleep because it typically wouldn’t take that long for him to fall asleep, maybe 10-15 minutes.

Your baby went through sleep troubles after an overseas trip. How do you think the floor bed and his sleep woes intersected? Did the floor bed help? Hinder? Contribute to sleepless nights, or make the sleepless nights more tolerable?

When our son was about 11 months old, we went on an overseas trip and stayed with friends at their house. They had a playpen for him to sleep in because the room was not fully baby proofed. Of course, he did not like the playpen and would cry. The playpen was also challenging for us because I couldn’t sit or lay next to him. So I laid with him on our bed until he fell asleep and then transferred him to the playpen. I did this every day over the two-week trip. He also woke up multiple times per night during this trip. So at the first waking around midnight, we just brought him into our bed and he slept with us until the morning. Although this wasn’t an unpleasant experience, we knew we were in for big trouble when we returned to our queen size bed at home because we had all gotten used to this new habit.

You recently successfully did a cry-it-out-with-checks to help him through this sleep problem. How did it go? How did it logistically work with a floor bed (since he wasn’t confined to a crib while crying it out)?

After our son turned one year old, and we were beyond sleep deprived, we spoke to our pediatrician about what could be done to address the night wakings and his new habit of wanting to sleep in our bed. Our pediatrician suggested we do the cry it out method and that we do it in a very consistent manner for at least two weeks. I had also spoken to friend who had similar troubles with her kids. All of them who had children sleeping through the night had done sleep training. So my husband and I felt that this was something we needed to do.

We started on a Friday night, and it took about an hour and a half for him to go to sleep. We checked on him at intervals of 10 to 20 minutes. Several sleep training method suggest that you not pick up your child when checking on him. This was impossible with the floor bed, because he was out of the bed and at the door. So I had to pick him up and put them back in his bed and rub his back for a little bit to get him to calm down. The problem is he still did not fall asleep on his own. He would fell asleep exhausted during the last check at the 1.5 hour mark. He also woke that night and cried for two hours. Again he did not fall asleep on his own, I stayed with him at that point until he fell asleep. This entire process happened again the second night and the third. It just seemed that he wouldn’t never learn to fall asleep on his own, but we kept at it. During this process we also coaxed him into getting into his bed on his own and also laying down on the pillow on his own which he got progressively better at.

The fourth night of sleep training was a Monday. I was out of town for work, so my husband was responsible for picking my son up from daycare and putting him to bed. When I got home at 9 PM, my husband reported that our son went to sleep after only 10 minutes of crying and that he fell asleep on his own. He said that he started talking to our son about going to sleep using the [American Sign Language] sign for sleep. Once my son repeated the sign back to him two or three times, he seemed ready for sleep. I was thrilled but also pessimistic.

But miraculously, he slept through the night. He did not wake until 5am. We changed his diaper and gave him a bottle, and then surprisingly, he went back to sleep for another two hours. I was certain this was just a fluke. But he did it again the next night and this time I was the one who put him to bed. I did just as my husband did and talked to him about sleep. He repeated the sign back to me twice and so I immediately took him to his room and tucked him in the bed.

I am thrilled to report that he now sleeps through the night from 7:30pm to 7am. When we put him to bed at 7:30pm, he lays down on the pillow, we give him a kiss, and we leave the room with him still awake but clearly ready to doze off. He no longer gets out of his bed or cries at the door, and he is very happy when he wakes up in the morning.

Overall, how has a floor bed affected your baby? Do you think he likes it? Did you get out of it what you had hoped?

I think our son loves the floor bed. Of course, he doesn’t know anything different, but I can’t imagine why a child would like a crib over a floor bed! He has the freedom to play in his small room, and he can get in and out of his bed on his own. In retrospect, I certainly would’ve done sleep training much sooner if I had the confidence that it would work. I think the months of sleep troubles that we had were avoidable.

My husband and I love the floor bed because it’s more comfortable for us to manage in his small room and it allows us to give our son a small but unique room that reflects our personalities. Our friends and family think the room is adorable, and we love to show it off when we have guests over. People are often a little bit baffled by the floor bed, but when we explain it and how well it functions, people are pleasantly surprised by it!

Do you have any advice about floor beds for new parents thinking about trying it out? Any advice for parents who may be coming to this with an older, already-mobile baby?

Just be prepared for the period when the baby starts crawling. There is a challenging point then in terms of keeping the child in the bed. It just doesn’t happen. Therefore you do need to have a safe, carpeted room and you do need a strategy for how you might deal with sleep troubles particularly if you’re planning to do sleep training.

Thanks so much for these in-depth answers! I’m surprised by how similar our experiences were. It seems we both initially had zilcho problems, but then things turned when baby got mobile. But, then it was a matter of teaching baby to realize s/he was tired and learn that when they felt that way, to get in bed and lay down. I’m really hoping that my friend has the same experience when she moves her son to a big boy bed — that all their hard work to sleep train baby will result in a toddler that just knows how to slip into bed when he’s tired.

Thanks again, and I hope this helped some of you thinking about switching over to a floor bed! Please email or comment with questions if you have them!