The big move from cot to bed

[Freyfreysmum]

We have a lovely cotbed, and want to move our dd (21 months) over to a bed. She is a very big girl for her age and starting to want to climb out of the cot which a) is dangerous and b) tells us we should make the move over to popping her in a 'big' bed. Should we just convert it to a jnr bed and put up the side guards, or should we get one that has raised sides all the way around?

Also, we are moving house a week on monday, should we wait a month or so until she's settled (dd2 due end Sept!) or should we use the move to show her a grown up girls bed as a present?

Help much appreciated. She wriggles around lots in the night and Im paranoid that 1) she will never settle and 2)she will always fall out of bed.
x FFM

[LittleMissNorty]

We put our DD into a bed at about 22-3 months and just went from a cot to a 3ft single (with a bed guard one side and a wall the other) straight away. She's done fine but we do find her in some odd positions sometimes!

If it was me, I'd use the move as the excuse...

Good luck x

[lynneevans51]

I agree to use the move as the excuse - but also as a bit of praise for being such a big girl and a new big sister. I moved both of mine out of their cot part of the cot bed at around their 2nd birthday - we didn't use the sides and they were both fine.

[Freyfreysmum]

Thank you - do you think just a Jnr bed up against the wall with 1 guard will be fine - and then do we just pop a stair gate across her bedroom door?

[Seona1973]

we used a single bed against the wall with a bed guard on the other side. I never used a gate on the door but had a gate at the top of the stairs instead.

[LittleMissNorty]

That sounds fine. We have a gate up at the stairs, but at her door would also be fine as well I would have thought. We can't have a gate there and shut her door as well here though.

Good luck. Hope all goes well.

[notyummy]

Lots of praise about how only big girls have big beds. DD has a cot bed and we put it against the wall and then took the sides off. We put a folded up duvet at the side of the bed just in case she came out (which she did, but only ever has 2 or 3 times - and she stayed asleep during all but one of them!) We also used a full size single duvet but put it length ways and tucked it in very firmly down under both sides of the bed, which seemed to work well it keeping her in. By the summer when it was a bit hot to do that, we didn't need to do it anymore. A friend of mine who did the bed thing in the warm months did the same 'tucking in' technique, but just removed the duvet and just used the cover.