Regalo Extra Long HideAway Bedrail

In general it's not important to the context of this particular blog, but we do Attachment Parenting.  That's not to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa - you didn't babywear and breastfeed at the same time?  Get the hell off my blog!"  That's just to say that the fact that we have bedshared with our daughter since she was little is relevant to parts of my review of this item, but I don't think it precludes the opinions I have from being pertinent to people who do/did not co-sleep.

As I mentioned, my daughter sleeps in bed with one or both of us, and has since she was very small (we do it very safely, there is such a thing, no debates needed on either side of the issue).  At the time, our bed was in the middle of the room - this wasn't an issue when she was the immobile little lump that newborns and small babies are.  Once she began crawling, however, we needed something in place to make sure she didn't do a flying eagle off of the other side of the bed onto the floor.  

We started with Magic Bumpers (LINK) when she first started rolling.  These fit under the sheets, and basically she'd just roll up against them and then roll back.  It was great.  When the aforementioned crawling began, however, we needed something that went higher.  We got the Regalo Extra Long HideAway Bedrail (LINK from Amazon).  I think it comes in white or white.  Didn't see anything else.  Here is it in their advertisement, looks like it goes about a foot above the bed, right?

We have a mattress that requires the deep pocket sheets, however (and I believe this kid above is sleeping on a piece of newspaper covering some plywood).  The installation was very easy, just thread the straps through a metal L-shaped bar.  The L-shaped bar goes over the edge of the far side of the mattress, with the straps going between your box spring and your mattress.  The problem with ours was that it only came about five inches or so above our mattress.  So, with a crawling infant who sees short walls that can be scaled as a challenge rather than a deterrent, it wasn't practical - it just meant that she had five inches further to potentially fall if she vaulted herself over the side.  So, at that time, we ended up going back to the Magic Bumpers and moved our mattress against the wall.

Now that A is older, however, not everything is Pike's Peak.  We really just needed to find something again that would prevent her from rolling off of the bed at 3 a.m. so that we could put the bed back in the middle of the room, as I was ridiculously tired of trying to make the bed with it pushed against the wall.

We brought back out the Regalo, and it's awesome.  Here's a picture of A tonight sitting in bed playing Preschool Monkey Lunchbox with approximately 7000 animals and blankets (any of which would be missed instantly if it were removed):

We have a queen in this room, and it really only has about 8 to 10 inches from the headboard and footboard respectively, so the length is great.  It's tall enough that she isn't going to roll over it, but short enough that she can still throw Curious George over it if she's pissed and doesn't want to go to sleep.  I've tried it on the full bed in her room (and we're inching slowly toward her staying in it), and it goes about 18 inches from the foot of the bed, giving her enough room to crawl down and out safely.  I'll have no qualms about moving it in there when she makes the transition to Big Girl Bed.

So, I guess my review would be that I wouldn't likely recommend this for smaller children if you're using it for the purposes of co-sleeping, but it should be great for a child old enough to have a rational fear of falling.  

Value - Ran about $30.  That seems equal to what's on the market, particularly for extra long rails, although it still feels a little exorbitant to me.
Child entertainment level - Not really relevant, she's not playing parcheesi against it or anything.
Practicality - 9/10