Babies and Caravans

[PaulHull]

I've got an eight month old daughter. We took her caravanning from being two months old and she was fine one the top bunk of our Swift Rapide with the safety bar in place.

Now that she's older and more mobile we still want to sleep her on the top bunk so that the bottom bed is available for adults to sleep on but don't want her to fall off.

I'm thinking of building some kind of detachable cot side type thing - what I want to know is has anybody tried this and succeeded/failed? Or has anybody had a similar problem and solved it using a different method?

Palming her off on my mother isnt an option by the way......

 

[RogerP]

Hi Paul

had a similar but slightly different problem with a Motorhome. We were intending putting little one in the overcab section but the safety mesh provided was a little to low.

Someone suggested trying a boat chandlers / sail makers. I looked into this and found a sailmaker in Walsall in the West Mids and he was more than willing to make up a bespoke mesh guard to what ever spec I wanted.

I cant remember how much he quoted as we sold the MH before we got that far

Worth a try.

PS you would need to consider how you would attach something like this , to that end might be worth going to a motorhome dealer and looking at some overcabs first

 

[David_from_Ashby]

Hi Paul

We did something similar on the lower bunk to retain our daughter when she was 18 months old. I purchased some fabric mesh (about 1 inch square soft string mesh) from Ebay and with the aid of some velcro straps secured this to the metalwork around the lower bunk. It was a bit awkward to put her in the bunk, pursuade her to sleep and then reposition the straps, but it worked.

I guess it would take a bit more work to secure it on the top bunk, but if you could hook a curtain pole (or similar) to support it and still be easy to hook up (for you, but not your daughter) when she is in place.

Do take the time to "baby proof" it though, you don't want to hear a bump in the night, because if she can find a way to fall out, then you know she will. My son (4 1/2 years old) managed to fall out of the top bunk through the ladder gap in the middle of the night on our last trip away. Fortunately he couldn't remeber doing so the following morning, and only hurt his hand slightly in the fall. I need to make a fill in panel before our next rtrip away to prevent this from happening again.

cheers

David

 

[Hamer_5041128]

Paul,

Many years ago when my daughter was the same age as yours we used a collapsable camping cot in the centre of the caravan. It took a couple of minutes to erect each evening. We could go to sleep knowing she had nothing to fall out of. In warm weather we left it erected during the day in the awning.If she needed a sleep during the day she slept on a side bunk.Just a thought.

Hamer

 

[Rubix.]

Between my Wife and I, we made our own cot side.

Firstly we made up the side dinette as if it was a normal bed (bottom bunk only) then we cover the cushions with a flat sheet. My wife made the cot side out of a mesh netting material. This has a "tube" of fabric sewn to the top so an adjustable (by screwing in/out to make it shorter/longer) shower curtain pole can be passed through it. The fabric then hangs from this and is tucked under the cushions. Because our son is 2, he could un-tuck this if he leaned on it so we (ok the wife did !) made a couple more "tubes" by sewing a couple of long lines in the fabric so we could pass 2 lengths of net-curtain wire, one at the front of the cushions (but just underneath to hide it) and one at the back by the caravan wall. To stop him falling down the front of the cushions there were 4 more "tubes" of fabric sewn downwards on the front of the fabric. These have open ends on the top so a 2 feet length of plastic overflow pipe can be inserted into it. This then has strength in both planes.

Ahh but how does the curtain pole stay up, I hear you say, well I made a couple of polo shaped (other mints are available !) rings of clear Perspex that are then screwed into the walls. This then gives the curtain pole something to rest on as he could quite easily push the pole out otherwise.

If anyone is interested I can take some pictures and send them by email.