toddler bed

[aka mommy]

i have a 20 mth old who is still in the crib and were wanting to get him a toddler bed, but im just worried about him playing in his room while he is supposed to be going to bed, he did have an entertainment center in there but i took it out and now well i dont have anywhere to put his tv or dvd player because he has to have some kind of noise to be able to go to sleep , do you have any advice? how did u know your toddler was ready for the toddler bed?

[Elaine]

I'm not the one to ask. Ben is still in a crib and I'd keep it that way until he's 5 if I could. :hehe: He's happy, contained and I don't have to worry about him. :twothumbs:

We are going to be moving him to a big boy bed in the next few weeks/months and I am not looking forward to it. We need the crib for the baby come April and I don't want him to get upset that they're using it so the sooner we move him the better.

We use a small fan in Ben's room for white noise and have since he was an infant. He'll sleep without out it (we found out a few times when we forgot to turn it on) but I like to have it going to block out any outside noise from the street. I think he'd be fine if we stopped using it because so far the only thing that's woken him up from a nap is the nail gun in the basement. Other than that he sleeps through almost anything.

[Leah]

My son is 21 months and I'm scared he is going to climb out of his crib soon, but I'm not ready to move him. I plan to leave him in his crib as long as possible since at least there I feel more confident he is safe.

The friends of mine who have switched there kids have had very good luck and have said much to their surprise their kids stayed in their beds and did not get out to play. I hope the transition goes smoothly for you. Just make sure you baby proof the room really well.

[AshleyMommyto2]

We are getting ready to put Eli in a regular bed too. B/c he can climb in his crib and out of it! :eyeroll: Plus we need the crib for the new baby... So I plan on putting a bed rail on his twin bed I got a 4ft long one. Plus putting a baby gate up in front of his door, and leave the monitor on in his room still when he is sleeping. So if he gets up in the middle of the night I will hear him and tell him to get back in his bed.

[bettercowpatty]

We moved in Sept. and, since I was preggo, used the opportunity to move Duncan into a toddler bed. Not sure how this has been for others, but I think a toddler bed was a waste (luckily we got a hand me down). He's pretty much already too big for it, and its only been a few months. We now need to go get him a twin - if he rolls in the toddler bed, he hits the sides almost immediately and wakes himself up! There is not much room for him to stretch out and sleep. Oh, and it make with side rails, which seems like a good idea, but he can and does still fall out. If I had it to do again, I would just buy the twin in the first place.

Good luck with the transition!

[aka mommy]

we have a twin bed but we dont have any rails, what im worried about is i am sadly a heavy sleeper and there are some mornings i do not hear him at all . im just worried that something cld go wrong or something but i guess all mothers do that right? we are supposed to be getting the bed christmas eve but @bettercowpatty how long is your son ?? because jayden is pretty tall and if im going to be wasting money and time theres no point in it we shld just get a rail to go on the twin bed. thanks ladies for the input :)

[bettercowpatty]

we have a twin bed but we dont have any rails, what im worried about is i am sadly a heavy sleeper and there are some mornings i do not hear him at all . im just worried that something cld go wrong or something but i guess all mothers do that right? we are supposed to be getting the bed christmas eve but @bettercowpatty how long is your son ?? because jayden is pretty tall and if im going to be wasting money and time theres no point in it we shld just get a rail to go on the twin bed. thanks ladies for the input :)

Duncan is almost 2.5, so we haven't been to the dr since July and I don't know how tall he is! But he's always been near the upper end of the charts - 75% to 90%. We will definitely need to get some good rails since Duncan is all over the place in his sleep. I have heard you can always set the mattress on the ground and then they don't have much to fall from, which seems like a good way to start out, especially if you are worried about him falling and getting hurt.

[Leah]

I agree that I wouldn't waiste money on a toddler bed because they are pretty small and the railing on most only cover the top half. I would go straight to the twin maybe against the wall on one side and a rail up on the other. Some mom's I know have put the twin mattress on the floor at first to make it closer to the ground and ease in the transition.

[Goosey]

You could put a shelf up that would hold a radio then he'd have noise.

Our boys all went into toddler beds at different ages. Our oldest at 16 mths, he was ready and he got used to it by rocking himself to sleep in his rocking chair and when he was ready to be fully asleep he put himself in bed(sometimes it backfired though and he fell asleep in the rocking chair). Took about a week for him to get used to it.

Our middle son was closer to 2 when we switched him out. He was always smaller so we werent ready to get him into one til we felt he was big and strong enough. We didnt have a toddler bed so we had him on a mattress on the floor and he loved it. No fear of falling out or anything(my oldest destroyed his toddler bed in the end LOL so it was useless to pass on).

Our youngest did what our middle boy did...mattress on the floor. He was around a year and loved it cuz he was like his big brothers(very important to him to be like them or do what they do,etc).

In my two youngest cases it didnt take long for them to adjust...not even a week.

[Jojo]

I remember the transition with Liam. He was 3? I think he was old enough to realize bedroom meant bedtime or quiet time. James was also 3. Liam gave us a problem with constantly coming out of his room. It got so bad his mom wanted to lock him there :hehe::hehe:

I have no advice but just wanted to add a meaningless story. You'll know when he's ready! (oh and htey used a fan for white noise)

[Elaine]

If you've got a twin bed I'd buy a bed rail instead of a toddler bed. It's significantly cheaper and the twin can be used for a few years (if not longer). We bought a twin bed a few years ago that was on sale, a bed rail this past summer (that was on sale too) and that's what we're going to use with Ben. We may switch him to a double bed eventually but for now the twin is what we're going to use.

[aka mommy]

yeah DH's mom gave us a twin bed and i think i might just do the mattress on the floor thing at first he can already climb on it and everything but if he fell out then i know it would hurt, so ill just leave it on the floor until he dosnt roll off anymore i think i might even go ahead and put it in there tonight just to see how he does if he sleeps on it then i will just take the crib down tommorow .... ughhh they grow up to fast lol

[lilbunnygirl]

The mattress on the floor is a great help, I put Cash on a full size futon mattress the weekend he turned 1 and the transition was seamless (he hated his crib anyhow and usually ended up in our bed halfway through the night). I super babyproofed his bedroom & put up a baby gate so he couldn't get up and wander around in the night and that's still the arrangement! It works great for our family.

[aka mommy]

ok so i layed the bed on the floor the crib is still in his room , but i wanted to introduce it at nap time and well he is roaming around and hes already been in there for an hour, he keeps trying to open the door so im not sure if this is going to work lol , any tips or is this normal?

[Goosey]

I found it to be normal.

It took a good week for my oldest to figure it out and until then I just kept reminding him where his bed was and then giving him his space. Same with my other two, Id lay them on their beds and let them be...took a few days but that was it.

[Farah]

Totally normal. I did nap time transition first, too. At first I laid with him. Then the next day I sat with him. Then the next day I sat at the end of his bed. Then the floor, then the door, then outside the door. :hehe: Yes it was a week long progress. He would climb off the bed and try to play, but I'd go in and put him back in his bed and say "Night night time." I repeated this until finally, he doesn't get out of it.

That being said, we haven't done bed time yet and I'm petrified. We actually don't even have a rail, I put a pillow on his twin bed next to him and somehow it stops him. At least for the last 3 months it has.

[aka mommy]

well i dont think he is ready yet , this is what has happened the past three times i have tried. the first time i layed him on the twin bed (mattress and boxsprings are on the floor) and i told him it was night night time, he did not go to sleep at all, i layed him down at like 1:30 and at 2 i had to go and get him because he was screaming like someone was hurting him... the second time he started the screaming , but this time it was as soon as i closed the door, and just now, his bedtime is at 8 and right now at 10 pm he is still not asleep, i dont know im just scared of him climbing out of the crib, because i dont want him to hurt himself but i guess i just need to quit trying to rush things, because on this he is fighting me really bad... what do you all think? ooo and the without the tv thing is not going to work, it seems everytime i finally get him to go to sleep is when i lay him in his normal bed and then drag the tv and dvd player out of the closet, (remember he did have an entertainment center in his room but i took it out so i cld (baby-safe) so the tv is a must obviously. now i wish i would have never done that and just stuck to the radio that he was used to as an infant. ) *sighs*

[Farah]

It may take a week or two for him to get used to it. It's new to him so he just may be unsure. You can see how it works or try again when you think he is ready! :support:

[Ashley]

It definitely sounds like he needs time to get used to it! I wasted money on the toddler bed because I wanted to, lol. He's now in a much bigger bed at age 4. But, we moved him at age 2 when he got out of his crib. I put the crib mattress on the floor for a couple of nights to see what would happen. Since Tyler doesn't care where he sleeps, it wasn't much of an issue! For me, I liked that his race car bed was close to the ground. If we had used the twin bed right away, we would have done rails- that's what we did when we visited family, and it worked great. He rolled out of it a bit here and there, and when we moved the last time, we had a full guest bed and no room for it, so he took over it. He has a lot of room now :hehe:


Good luck! :support: