apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have the baby bunk (borrowed it from a friend) and have a platform style bed frame. The regular setup for the baby bunk does not work for lower beds, but you can order it with the lip-clips that adapt the bunk to fit. There are specific measurements you'll need to take to ensure your bed works with it, and my best advice is to call the woman who runs the company---she's very helpful and you can place your order over the phone as well.

We used the bunk for two months and then my son got too big for it and was hitting the sides during his sleep, but we really liked it. It's a durable product. The one I borrowed has been passed along to many new moms.

The other thing you could consider would be raising the bed temporarily. We have a malm that we raised on bed lifts in order to fit some storage boxes under it. We used these:

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=1&SKU=13232644

and the wood matches the elm finish of the bed so well that it almost looks like the bed was made that way. We don't need to keep the storage bins under the bed anymore, but we still have it raised right now because it's been easier on my pregnant self to get in and out of bed at its current height.

Those lifts might make it the right height to use another co-sleeper, if you have a preferred design.

It looks quite small, as if a baby would grow out if it almost immediately. If you can borrow one, go for it, but to buy one seems expensive. (Unless you plan to have lots of kids and can amortize the cost!)

Next to our low bed we used an old carry cot from a true European pram. It was long enough to last 6 months and worked very well. Because we swaddled, I was able to grab the baby with one hand (kind of like a mama cat does with her kittens, but grabbing blanket, not scruff of neck) and hoist her into bed to nurse. Not as convenient as co-sleeping, but pretty close.

The Malm beds are low enough to the ground that a simple Moses basket or similar would be fine. No need to spend extra money on something just to make your little one the same 5 or so inches off the floor that you are.

Ironically, someone was just giving one away on Chicago's Craigslist this weekend. It was a custom-made co-sleeper just for the Malm bed. I wonder how good they are for the baby with all the solid panels since we're supposed to be making sure there's plenty of air circulation. I love the idea of raising the bed on those BB&B stands.

Just fyi, there are usually several Arm's Reach mini co-sleepers on Craigslist for around $50. If you mixed these 2 options, I bet it would get you there.

Just keep baby right in the middle of the bed with you. We had a crib, but we always prefered to just keep her in bed, and she slept soundly, nursing without even waking up, and we never rolled over on her. We're the only parents we know who ever got to sleep through the night. She never used her crib, so we finally put it away after two years of hogging up space.

Isn't the top of Malm only like six inches off of the floor? Could you use a crib mattress up on something? We took one side off our crib and used a dense foam thingee on the side farthest from the bed to close the gap between the crib mattress and ours, but our bed mattress was way higher than malm. Our kiddo never slept in it though, it was way more convenient to just have him in bed with us and so eventually we took it down and just put a bed rail up on my side of the bed . . .

i thought ohdeedoh posted a hack of an ikea malm co-sleeper last year.
sorry, i realize none of these comments answer your original question!

We slept in a queen size Malm bed. We had a full size mattress we were no longer using, and rotated it and stuck it halfway under our bed. It fit snugly there (both were IKEA mattresses) and created a safe place for the baby to sleep. We could make it bigger or smaller depending on how much we pulled it out from under the bed, and our son transitioned easily from the mattress next to our bed to a toddler bed in another room, starting at about 13 months.

And when he did end up sleeping in our bed, we didn't have to worry about him falling off, as the mattress was there to fall on to....

No experience with the Baby Bunk, sorry.

what about getting a regular co-sleeper and cutting down the legs?

thank you, all, for your helpful comments. not too much input on the baby bunk but i appreciate the thoughts on co-sleeping for a malm. i think i'll eaither go with raising the bed, or putting a mattress on the floor and placing baby on that (maybe in the snugglerest at first). thanks again for all the helpful comments.