From crib to toddler bed, and is not what you might be thinking!

Is your child trying to climb out of the crib? Do you feel worried that it’s an accident waiting to happen?

In this post, I will show you how we transitioned our 19 months from cot bed to bed and how we managed to do it successfully and fast and, is not what you are thinking!

Firstly let me just say that we didn’t read any books, posts or asked for any advice from anybody. Sometimes you just need to do what feels right for you and your family without getting influenced.

When my little one was 19 month, I found it difficult to pick him up and put him in the bed as the bars are quite high and he was only growing.

When he was a newborn we had a co-sleeper attached to the bed and, at 3 months, we transition him to the cot bed. We received a lot of unsolicited advice about how this transition is too early to such a big cot bed and that we should get something smaller and do it progressively.

I don’t see the point in spending so much money for something that they’ll be only a couple more months in. A cot bed can be used easily until 3-4 years and after, a single bed would allow him to grow until he leaves home.

At 3 months of age he didn’t even realise the difference and just carried on with whatever he was doing previously, no routine disrupted, no fuss about it.

I don’t believe that you should wait until your child will give you “the signs” that he is ready to move to a big bed, by that time, it is already too late and will be more difficult.

Let me explain. If I would let Oliver in the cot bed until he would start to climb out of it, he would already have this idea settled in his head, that he needs to escape from there, so his bedroom is not anymore this peaceful place where he goes to sleep, it becomes this place where he prefers not to stay and tries to get away from. You see there are a lot of books, posts about solving this problem but why solve it if you can prevent it?

Because we choose to transition him when he was well established in his night routine, I would usually lay him in his cot bed and he would go to sleep by himself, bringing down the bars didn’t make any difference. Like AT ALL!

Play it cool

We didn’t make a big thing out of it, like wow see your new bed, or buy new blankets and bedsheets, everything stayed the same. We did buy a foam wedge to put under his fitted bedsheets so he doesn’t roll out in the night, but other than that we just got the bars removed and kept it casual. After his bath and book just laid him in his bed, like usual and he went to sleep …just like usual and since that day he never got out of the bed to try the door or to try to wonder about in his room.

Establishing a good night-time routine

I believe that any time from the moment you child can walk and has a good night routine he is ready. Trying to escape from the crib is not a sign that he is ready to move to a bed, is a sign that the matter is already out of control and now you need to be creative and rectify it asap for his own safety.

A very important and detrimental thing that you can do to make this fail is expecting it to fail.

Anxiety, and the way you approach this process will be the way your child will feel about this change.

There is no need reading in advance how many ways this can go wrong or believe that this is a massive change which needs emotional support, lots of thought and preparation but you can do it!

Do it before your child it “ready”

Your child is more clever than you think and most of the time, we don’t have the confidence in them. We can easily complicate our life by leaving it until it’s too late and allowing a problem to be created, but what if the problem never even started? What if we can cut it short by changing the way we do things.