Why a Homemade Cosleeper is Better

 There are a ton of good things to say about building your own homemade cosleeper. However first you might need to get past the idea that it’s a ton of work or a huge challenge. Building the cosleeper we have designed is in fact very very easy. There are negatives: it takes time, you need tools/workspace. So what are the benefits?

1. You can customize a homemade cosleeper exactly to fit your bed. Over the 7 years we had our kids sleeping in this cosleeper we changed our mattresses three times (had some bad mattresses in there!) and shifted bed frames twice and in the end put out mattress and box spring on the floor. Between those 6 height changing activities in 7 years we always had a simple way to “fix” the co sleeper. Simply cut off the legs to shorten it, or replace the legs for $5 (or free scrap 2x4s) to increase the height
2. You will always know that you build that cosleeper. Everytime I look at pictures of our cosleeper I am amazed at how I actually built that. Yes I built it from scratch with no furniture making background, yet I was able to provide for all of our kids a safe, stable bed for them. Even their store bought crib hasn’t held up to the test of time.
3. You can customize it however you’d like to. We didn’t do much on customizing, we didn’t paint or even stain it as we preferred the raw look. However you can paint or stain it whatever color you’d like, and you can even choose specific wood types.
4. Inexpensive yet solid. I have all the wood it takes to make this bed sitting in the scrap pile right now. Screws left over from other projects, so I could concivebly build this cosleeper for free. however my initial build in 2006 cost me around $50 in parts and supplies. You couldn’t buy a cosleeper this stable for leas tsn $350, so by making your own by following our plans  you’ll be able to save from $200-$300, that’s incredible!
5. Storage: We all know sauder/ikea furniture should be pretty transportable because we can take it apart and put it back together again. However I’ve never been able to use the ikea/sauder furniture when it’s in storage. The cosleeper is a different story. I’ve use it to stand on, to store dry goods, and other methods of extending basement storage.