Transitioning to a big kid/toddler bed...When is the right time? (ideas, wakes up)
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Hello everyone!
I'm wanting to get some other peoples experiences or suggestions on when they moved their kid to a toddler or big kid bed. What problems did you face? What made you decide it was time? How old was your child? etc.
My son will be 2 years old in July and our baby girl is due in September. Right now my son still sleeps in his crib and loves it. He's never tried climbing out or anything like that yet. Since we have a two bed room house and not much room, we are going to let him continue sleeping in his crib while his sister sleeps in her bassinet for the first few months. We are going to move to a bigger house next year, so we were thinking about putting our daughter into our sons crib and either getting my son a race car toddler bed (hubby's idea, lol) or putting him in a twin bed with rails or putting the twinbed on the floor. I'm not sure how he'll react to another bed. Maybe it will be easy, maybe not. I have this vision of him getting up playing with his toys and not staying in bed or him getting out of his room trying to make a great escape, haha.
I know this is a ways off but just wanted to get some input from other parents out there. Thanks!
Why don't you wait until your son's 2nd birthday...and get him the coolest ever toddler bed, and make a big deal of it? I think both of my sons were two when I got them each a toddler bed, and yes the blue sports car was it for both.
Make sure you have cool sheets too and a huge bow with a long ribbon on the top. Turn it into like a reward and/or present, so that he can't wait to get into it.
IMO, I would do it on his 2nd birthday, since it's near.
I don't remember what age my daughter was...but I can still see the grin on her face...she was SO proud of how she had climbed out of her crib...climbed up the changing table, taken each and every diaper out of the diaper stacker and thrown it on the floor...she took each and every baby wipe out of the box and thrown it on the floor and then had taken the baby powder and sprayed it around the room...all this with a moniter in her room, she did it quietly enough where I didn't even know she was awake...
I was HORRIFIED not only at the mess but at how badly she could have hurt herself by climbing up the changing table like that...I went to Wal-mart and got her a toddler bed that day...
I knew there was a problem when I walked down her hall to see if she was awake and I could smell baby powder...
I'm sure its probably different with every child but it was nice when the baby bed would keep her from getting into trouble like I mention...once she had a toddler bed, she would get up in the middle of the night and tear her room apart...I of course had to keep her bedroom door closed or she would climb out the pet door and be in the backyard playing with the cats on the huge patio we had...what a trip she was...
She also used to take her diaper off at night, I found that with a tape gun and packing tape, if I started in the front of the diaper and made the tape meet in the back, she wasn't able to take the diaper off...if the tape met in the front, she could peel it off and leave little bits of **** all over her room...what memories...
We moved both of our boys to twin beds on the floor (with no box spring) before they were two years old. We wanted our first born in his big boy bed by the time our baby came home so the baby could use the crib. We moved our firstborn to the big bed two months before the baby was born...firstborn was 19 months old. Our second born moved to a twin bed at 13 months old. He wasn't climbing out of it. We were just wanting to cuddle him more often and since I couldn't climb into the crib for story time or cuddling, I moved him to a bed that I could cuddle him in.
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Make it a big deal !
My son was just over 2 y.o.
Santa brought him a BIG BOY BED (of course the race car). Santa also brought BIG BOY cups, took all the bottles and pacifiers too. We were worried that it would be too much at once, but it seemed to fall right into place. Santa thought he was A BIG BOY. That took the pressure off of us for taking away his binky and bottles. Santa also brought BIG BOY pants... but we kept the diapers for a short while. I never had a problem with my son getting out of bed with the exception of coming into our room.
Boost his self esteem and make a HUGE deal of it.
I wouldn't mention anything about the "new" baby getting his crib until he is comfy in his new bed. May end up being a jealosy thing to stay in his crib.
JMO
My son was still happy and content in the crib - but because we were moving I decided to move him around 2 and a half - but we had some time
I would suggest what we did - since the baby is in a bassinet for a bit
We bought him a toddler bed (also a race car!) and we just set it up in the room. We didn't tell him he had to use it. It was just there so he could get used to it being around
Sometimes we would Play on it - sometimes we would change a daiper on it - but it was low stress - then one day he just wanted to sleep in it
I said ok
He's still in it now - he's almost 6 ! Now I have to buy a REAL bed
I like all these ideas they are great
and if he doesn't want to use the bed at night
try just having him take his daytime naps in it daytime may be a little less "scary" for him
besides kids will nap anywhere
after a while he may just get used to the fact that when he wakes up he can easily get off the bed which is a greta motivator for little ones
Thank you everyone, those are wonderful ideas.
We're just going to play it by ear and see how it goes. Will definetly make it low stress like CityGirl said and also wait til we have a bigger place.
Some friends of ours have finally transitioned their kids (4 1/2 & 3 1/2) into big kid beds! And they were big kids too! Actually the 3 year went back to his crib. They said the kids always enjoyed being in cribs and that 2 years old was too young to put in big kid bed. I know each child is different and moves along at different stages but I thought that was a little much. Is it?
I think one of the things my daughter enjoyed the most is once she was in a toddler bed one of my cats slept with her nightly...at the foot of her bed...I called him her sleepin partner and she managed to get those words out after a fashion. I have several pictures of them sleeping together, talking with the angels as some would say.
My oldest son was almost 2 when he went into his bed. We made a big fuss out of it and let him sleep there for a few nights before we put the younger son into the crib at 5 months. There is only 17 months between the boys
Neither of the boys got out of bed during the night at all. Now people say that they are the best kids about going to bed. We always were very strict about their bedtime.
dorothy
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twin bed on floor
