Our Huge New Family Bed

Today our new bed was delivered! It is a California king, and now we have two California Kings in one bedroom (luckily we have a large bedroom!). Since birth our first child has flat-out refused to sleep in his own bed (even within the same room), so we have always had a family bed. Now with two children in the bed and another on the way we were out of room. We decided to go all out and get another Cali king since we had the space. We asked the mattress delivery guy to tie the legs of the two frames together for us, and now we have the hugest bed ever! It is 7 feet long and a full 12 feet wide. Right now we will have 4 people sleeping in the bed, but when the new baby arrives in August it will be 5.

 We put the bed with one side against the wall. This is where I'll sleep, with the new baby between me and the wall, so he can't fall off the bed or get squished by one of his brothers.

We put separate bottom sheets on each mattress. There is a crack between them, but they're pushed pretty tightly together, so it's not going to be an issue. I even laid down right on the crack and it was soft and not bothersome at all (yay for pillow-tops). Anyway, can you see me sewing and washing 12 foot wide sheets? I don't think so. Nobody will have to sleep on the crack, but if they roll over there they'll still be comfortable. We have an assortment of blankets and/or top sheets so that everyone can have their own. In the morning we'll just fold all these up and place them at the foot of the bed.

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One nice thing is I am able to get three long underbed storage bins under the end of the bed (you can just see one under the right side in the pic above), and one on the side, so that's where I'm putting stuff like wrapping paper, baby things, and the craft supplies I don't want to share with the kids. Yay for storage, especially since the bed takes up so much space. And yes, we actually still have room for other things in the room besides the bed (told you we have a big room). We also have two dressers, a big tv, two desks, a changing table, a treadmill, and a bookcase in there.

So that's our super family bed! It will be great to sleep comfortably and to see the kids so blissfully sleeping snuggled close to us. I love that I can easily keep an eye on them on nights when when they are sick. And when I wake up in the middle of the night I can easily check and make sure they haven't kicked off their blankets and are cold. And as far as the kids are concerned, it's a great place to play. So far they're enjoying bouncing, having pillow fights, and turning somersaults on it. So what do you think? Would you ever try a bed like this?