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Home / Sleep Training / Are Montessori Floor Beds Bad For Baby’s Sleep?

Are Montessori Floor Beds Bad For Baby’s Sleep?

by Emily DeJeu in Sleep Training —

il_570xN.455124444_cf8oThere’s no shortage of theories out there about how to best raise a child. In fact, there are over 60,000 book titles in Amazon’s ‘Parenting’ category! But while many of those titles (and their authors) will be forgotten over time, a few may stand the test of time. Here’s one such time-tested theory: the Montessori Method. Read on to learn about this and all about Montessori floor beds and sleep!

What Is The Montessori Method?

Developed in the early 20th century by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, the Montessori Method is a child-centered way of thinking about education and childcare. The Montessori Method stresses independence, freedom for the child (within limits), and respect for the child’s development.

Applying the Montessori Method At Home – The Montessori Nursery

The Montessori Method focuses largely on education. However, many Montessori principles can be applied to childcare in general, and to any setting in which a child spends time — including home. For example, the Montessori Method urges teachers and caregivers to encourage independence by putting everything that a child needs at the child’s level. Children should be able to get to their clothes, their toys, their snacks, etc. without help from an adult.

This principle applies to a child’s own bedroom as well. Since it’s their room, everything should be within the child’s reach, and on the child’s level. This includes all furniture, clothing, books, toys, and artwork.

Wondering what a Montessori-style nursery looks like? Here’s a picture of blogger Meg McElwee’s son’s room, to help you visualize…

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Photo Credit: sewliberated.typepad.com

Want even more Montessori-style nursery pictures? Check out Kylie’s tour of her sons’ Montessori bedrooms, over at howwemontessori.com.

The Montessori Floor Bed

The biggest difference between a traditional nursery and a Montessori nursery is the fact that a Montessori nursery does not contain a crib. In a Montessori-style nursery, the child sleeps on a floor bed. You can find a variety of (often expensive) floor bed frames. But, you can also do a cheap, D-I-Y version by simply laying a mattress directly on the floor. Both work!

The idea behind a Montessori floor bed is in line with the general principles of the Montessori Method. A child should have freedom of movement, and should be able to move independently around his (carefully childproofed!) room. For this reason, a floor bed is preferable to a crib, since a crib restricts movement and limits independence. Montessori parents typically keep their babies in a bassinet or Moses basket during the newborn stage. Starting as early as 2 months or so, they transition baby to a floor bed.

Do Montessori Floor Beds Really Work?

If you aren’t familiar with the Montessori Method, the idea of a floor bed might seem surprising. Most of us who live in the West have been conditioned to understand that babies need to sleep in cribs. Many of us believe that they are not ready for a bed until they are toddlers. So the notion of putting a baby on a mattress on the floor may be hard to understand at first.

It may also raise questions, like “Is a floor bed safe?” “Do babies and toddlers actually stay in bed, or do they constantly get up?”

We should point out here that, if you use a floor bed, it’s critical that you carefully childproof your baby or toddler’s room first. This means getting down on your child’s level (ie: hands and knees) and carefully checking for any hazards that may harm your child. Only when you’ve childproofed can you put your child in his or her floor bed.

As for whether or not floor beds are conducive to sleep…that’s a different question altogether.

Montessori Floor Beds Work Well For Some Children…

As with so many other things, the question of whether or not a floor bed will work for your child depends on…your child. 🙂 Some parents have huge success with using a Montessori-style floor bed; their children stay in bed without issue. But other parents find that their babies and toddlers end up playing jack-in-the-box all night long and during naps, popping up out of bed every few minutes.

Specifically, whether or not a floor bed will work for your child has a lot to do with your baby or toddler’s unique sleep history (does your child still wake frequently at night or struggle with naps?) as well as her unique temperament (is your child perceptive? Highly persistent? Very, very energetic?)

A child who is naturally a “good” sleeper, who settles into a nice sleep and feeding schedule fairly quickly, and who is relaxed and cooperative by nature may do quite well with a floor bed, from a very early age. Children like this will probably be less affected by the fact that there are no physical boundaries keeping them in bed (the way there are with a crib). These children may be more willing to get in bed (and stay in bed) when they feel sleepy.

…But Not For Others

However, a child who struggles with nighttime waking and poor naps, who is intense and persistent and easily distracted and full of energy, may not do as well with a floor bed. Remember, babies and young toddlers are concrete thinkers. They do not understand abstract concepts yet. So the abstract boundaries of the floor bed are tough to understand, unlike the physical boundaries of the crib. Again, some children are able to understand and obey the ‘stay in bed concept’ very early, but others are not. Much of this is based on temperament and development.

Here’s the advice we give to our clients who use Montessori floor beds: if the floor bed is working well for everyone in your home, great! No need to make changes. But if the floor bed is not working (i.e. if the baby or toddler is out of bed constantly, and is not sleeping), then consider these two options:

  1. Switch to a crib for awhile. We usually recommend transitioning to a bed somewhere between 2 and 3 years, so if your child is younger than 2, and if the floor bed is simply not working, consider moving to a crib.
  2. Stick with the floor bed, and be patient. Some families are committed to a Montessori-style nursery, and just don’t want to use a crib — and we understand that! Parenting philosophies are deeply personal and unique, and at The Baby Sleep Site®, we make a practice of respecting every family’s unique approach. In these cases, we advise parents to be patient. Sleep coaching may be tougher (and probably take longer) since the child can get in and out of bed. Sleep can improve; it may just take a longer to get there.

Nicole’s Note:
“Creativity can take you far with a ‘non-traditional’ (so far) concept. If you are open-minded, you may find a different solution that is ‘fine for now.’ Perhaps it means your baby starts in her room and then you co-sleep the rest of the night after you go to bed. Or, perhaps you set up the Montessori bed in your room, so you are each in your own sleep spaces but in the same room. Once sleep has improved, you can try moving the bed to your child’s room. There are a number of different arrangements when you don’t have a rigid picture about what ‘success’ looks like.”

Struggling to get your baby or toddler to sleep well at night and during naps? We have the resources you need to start making sleep changes today!

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Comments

  1. Emily DeJeu says

    @ Karen — congrats to you! Hope your pregnancy is progressing well. 🙂 You ask a good question here! Here’s what I can offer:

    -In the first few months, your baby won’t move much, so you can probably feel just fine about using a floor bed when you’re traveling, even if the room hasn’t been carefully childproofed. I’d say just childproof the area right around your baby’s sleeping mat, and you should be okay.

    -Once your baby starts rolling (around 4 months), you’ll want to take more precautions. While it’s true that babies don’t have tons of mobility when they first start rolling (usually, they just roll over once, get stuck, and then fuss), once they master the roll, you’ll find that your little one will be able to roll across an entire room! So at this point, if you can’t childproof the room your baby sleeps in, you’ll want to use a portable crib, like a Pack-n-Play.

    Is travel something that will happen only occasionally for you and your baby? If so, then I’d say go with the Montessori bed at home, and use a portable crib for travel. But if travel is part of your regular routine (and we do work with moms who travel with their babies very frequently, for work), then a Montessori bed may not be a great fit, simply because your child won’t have the kind of sustained time at home that he/she needs to get used to the floor bed. Does that make sense?

    Hope this helps, Karen! Thanks for commenting. 🙂

  2. Karen says

    Hello – very interesting posts!

    I’m pregnant and am thinking of following the Montessori floor bed route.

    My question is what floor bed users do when travelling? I’m guessing it may depend on how much the child moves around in the night… But if s/he moves a lot *and* you’re not able to secure a safe bedroom environment whilst travelling, does it work to use a cot or crib for just a few weeks, and then revert to the floor bed?

    Many thanks! Karen.

  3. Meagan says

    This is the company my son’s teacher recommended for floor bed frames: http://www.lordequip.com We didn’t end up getting one so I can’t vouch for it, but the other equipment they use in the classroom is very good quality.

    I’ve seen low beds from IKEA, but nothing on the floor. You could probably saw the legs off for a cheap hack though.

  4. Emily DeJeu says

    @Laura — just did a Google search, but I didn’t come up with any good results. I wonder why Ikea doesn’t sell floor bed frames? Seems like the kind of furniture they would have available… Hope some other moms chime in with ideas!

  5. Laura says

    Does anyone know where to buy a floor bed frame? There don’t seem to be many options in the USA.

  6. Emily DeJeu says

    @ Renee — thanks for this clarification! That’s what I suspected, too, in researching this article (although I don’t even have a Montessori-teaching cousin, so I’m less of an expert than you are!! 😉 ). And I agree with your point, about the Montessori label being applied to in-home techniques as being a ‘credit where credit is due’ thing. But yes, as you point out, if someone were turning ‘Montessori’ into a brand, that would be a different story!

    Thanks for helping to clarify, Renee! Much appreciated. 🙂

  7. Renee says

    @ Jo and Emily’s reply to Jo
    As far as I am aware (my cousins a montessori teacher so I know a bit but definately not as much as an expert as Jo!) Maria Montessori’s philosophy was purely within the education setting. So I believe the ‘Montessori in the home’ idea is just a natural progression of extending her educational beliefs into the home environment. This seems a very natural progression to me and gives credit to where the original idea came from rather than confusing it by giving it another name(or someone else taking credit). I therefore see no harm in labelling it a Montessori bed. I would think Maria would be quite proud of the adaption of her ideas 🙂 unless of course someone’s out there selling mattresses branded Montessori… that would be wrong…

  8. Emily DeJeu says

    @ Margaret — glad to hear that the Montessori bed has proven to be a good solution for you and your family!

    Thanks for commenting 🙂

    @ Jo — Well, since you have a strong background in Montessori, you can help with this: I believe a floor bed is one of the key components (perhaps the #1 key component, in fact) of the ‘Montessori in the home’ concept, correct? Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that Maria Montessori’s theories deal largely with the classroom — correct? Her method was created in and meant to be used in an educational setting. So, is the ‘Montessori in the home’ concept something that she herself propounded, or is it rather a natural extension of her educational theories and principles that has evolved on its own over the years?

    Also, I will point out — in referring to this as a ‘Montessori floor bed’, I’m not saying the bed itself is uniquely “Montessori” — rather, I’m making the point that parents who put their kids’ mattresses directly on the floor are often doing so because they’re following Montessori principles at home. This is written for those families — families who are using floor beds on principle, because it’s part of a larger overall Montessori parenting philosophy. Does that make sense? Hope this helps you feel better about the terminology 🙂

    Thanks for commenting, Jo — and do, if you have a moment, answer my question about where the concept of ‘Montessori in the home’ comes from. I’m curious to know. Thanks in advance! 🙂

    @ Kate — great question! My two boys have always shared a room out of necessity, so I can sympathize :). Here’s my thought — once you do have two, you definitely can’t put the baby on a floor mattress with his toddler brother in the room. As a general rule, it’s never safe to leave a toddler with a young infant. So you’d probably want to sleep the baby in your room (maybe on a small floor bed, or in a bassinet or something.) Then, when you do transition the baby to your older son’s room, make sure he’s old enough to understand the ‘ground rules’ — no putting blankets/stuffed animals/pillows on the baby’s bed, etc.

    Thanks for commenting, Kate! 🙂

    @ Kelly — “if the room has been made safe and if the parents are willing to try it” — two great points! Yes, the babyproofing is key with a sleeping arrangement like this. Basically, you’re treating the entire room as one giant ‘crib’ that the baby can move around in and explore. The door and the walls become the barriers, instead of the crib bars. And I do think that parents who want to do this need to be ready for unexpected setbacks. But yes — if babyproofing has happened, and if mom and dad are committed, then this can be a great sleeping arrangement!

    Good points, Kelly — thanks for making them! 🙂

    @ Joanna — glad this has worked so well for you! I agree that one of the benefits of a floor bed would be the fact that, once a child’s up, he/she can simply crawl out of bed and go play for awhile.

    Thanks for sharing this, Joanna! 🙂

    @ Meagan — your makeshift, DIY toddler bed sounds like it’s working well! And cool about building your own bunk beds – you must have a handy husband! My boys are bunked, too (out of necessity – they share a small-ish bedroom). It’s a nice space-saver, although I do miss cuddling with my oldest, who’s on the top bunk. Although he doesn’t seem to miss it much…sniff!

    Thanks for commenting and sharing your experience, Meagan! 🙂

  9. Emily DeJeu says

    @ Karmyn — they are cute, aren’t they? I had fun browsing pictures of different Montessori-style nurseries while I researched this article!

    Thanks for commenting, Karmyn 🙂

    @ Margaret — sounds like your daughter has done quite well with her Montessori floor bed! Glad to hear this is something that works so well for you. And good point, about this set-up being great for nursing!

    Thanks for commenting, Margaret!

    @ Sofia — awesome! And good idea about the body pillow 🙂

    Thanks for commenting, Sofia!

    @Rin — wow — so it sounds like, for you, the Montessori floor bed proved to be a good sleep solution, as opposed to something that made sleep more difficult. That’s great!

    And wow again — crawling at 6 months!! No wonder your little girl was over her crib — she no doubt wanted to start exploring her room! 😉

    Thanks for commenting, Rin!

  10. Meagan says

    @margaret #1 I am totally going to check out your blog… Very curious about sleep training with a floor bed.

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