When to move to duvet and pillow?

[Rhian82]

DS is 17 months and sleeps in a baby sleeping bag. He's going to outgrow his current ones soon though and there don't seem to be many around in bigger sizes, so is this the sort of age to move him to 'normal' bedding?

What age were your children when you moved to duvets and pillows? Are pillows safe yet?

He still moves around the cot a lot so I'm not sure how well he'd cope, but wondered what other people's experiences were.

(I know that you can get bigger ones, but they seem much rarer so I assume most people don't)

[Seona1973]

I used the 18-36 months size for ds and he was in his sleeping bag till he was 2 1/2. He moved to a duvet when he went into a big bed. He had a goi goi pillow from a few weeks old as they help prevent flattening of the head and I never took it away. In general pillows are ok from 1 year.

I got some from here and from here.

[skinsl]

DS 2 1/2 has had pillow for about a year, and as he now sleeps in the big spare bed, he has had a duvet for a couple of months.
had some renovations done so all been up in the air, but once its all finished, he is going in his own bed with pillow and duvet.

[fairybubbles]

DS 3 has just started to use a pillow (baby pillow). He falls asleep on it and I just take it away once he is settled. Yes he is a PFB.

He doesnt have a duvet yet, still happy for him to use blankets. He is snugg and has his lovely warm pjs and sleepsuits.

I think the guidance for duvets and pillows is not before one year old.

[Coldhands]

My DS (2.2) is in a 18-36 months sleeping bag as he will not keep blankets or a duvet on, quite annoying as I have lovely bedding to match his room.

I got them from Amazon. £14 for Slumbersac ones.

[DitaVonCheese]

I've also heard the guidelines are duvet from one year (or more accurately, not before one year). We're in a similar position - DD is 18 months and her feet are right at the end of her sleeping bag. Bought a toddler bed recently and vague plans to see if she'll go into that (we co-sleep at the moment with her in a bag on top of our duvet - she doesn't like being under our covers) so I'm hoping that choosing her own bedding will be fun/persuasive for her. Should probably get some bigger bags in case it doesn't work though

[cheerfulvicky]

DS is 19 months and nowhere near ready for either a proper bed or pillow & duvet. He rotates around the cot at a phenomenal rate, although I think he uses his (empty) monkey shaped padded hot water bottle cover as a pillow sometimes.
I have no idea when he will be ready for a proper bed, but realistically probably not until he is old enough that I can explain to him what a duvet is for and how groovy a big boy bed is!

I fantasize about huge cots for three year olds though, as I just don't see what we will do once he either outgrows it or learns to climb out. He jumped out the ground floor window recently and legged it up the road to his Nanas house without a peep. Nearly gave me a heart attack!

In answer to your question, the larger size grobags are certainly possible to find and we have a few, all 2nd hand bootsale buys. I even bought one for 3-6 years recently by mistake from the bootsale! It is VAST.

[petisa]

DD is 23 months and not ready for a bed and duvet/pillow yet. I bought 18-36 month grobags second hand from e-bay. She moves around a lot and I'm happy to know she's warm and snug at all tmes, and I'm certainly in no hurry to get her into a bed!

[WidowWadman]

We tried the duvet at 15 months (last week that is) and had to revert to sleeping bag as the daughter refused to go to sleep. She needs the tugged in-ness of the sleeping bag.

[pigleychez]

My DD is currently 20mths and we moved her into a bed with duvet and pillow just after xmas at 17mths.

Like you she was outgrowing her sleeping bag. I started by introducing a small square cushion to her cot and encouraging her to lay on it. It was abit hit and miss for a few days but she got the idea and we moved to a normal sized pillow when we moved to her bed.

We then moved onto a blanket for naptimes in her cot. When we moved to the Junior bed I bought a single sized duvet and tucked the end and side under the mattress. It made a sleeping bag kinda effect so meant she couldnt kick the covers off completely and where there if she wanted to tuck herself in again. I made sure she was wearing sleepsuits with feet instead of PJ's so she didnt get cold feet if she kicked the covers off. It worked really well and she loves her bed.
I bought Peppa pig bedding with her for her first bedding (which although I find garish and doesnt match her room at all) it was a huge hit and loves going into her "peppa bed" as she calls it.

[CokeFan]

DD is almost 19 months and, like cheerfulvicky's DS, I can't imagine she'd cope with a duvet or pillow yet because of all the moving around she does.

I couldn't find any sleeping bags in supermarkets (they seem to only go up to 18 months) but we got our latest ones on Amazon from one of the market place sellers. They have a fold out bit with poppers to extend the length and are supposed to go up to age 3.

[JennyWren]

Both our DC are summer born and we kept our DD in her sleeping bag in her cot until the summer she was 2. We swapped her to a duvet then, so that it mattered less if she kicked it off in the night as the weather was warmer. That winter we took the sides off the cot-bed and the following summer swapped her into a full-size single bed (in advance of DS's arrival). It worked very well - by the time the nights were getting colder she was used to her duvet and rarely kicked it off. We're planning the same for our DS, starting this summer. It helps that their beds are against the wall on one side, so we tuck the duvet in well against the wall and that helps to keep it in place.

[PiratePrincess]

DD (23 months) is in a 18-36 month grobag and has plenty of room. However, last night I put her in a fleece all in one sleepsuit as the grobags were in the wash.

When I went in this morning she had unzipped the all-in-one, taken it off, taken off her nappy and weed on the bed.

Back to the grobag tonight

[babyOcho]

We introduced a pillow at around 20 months and DD was still in a sleeping bag. She moved a lot less when the pillow was introduced.

Around 6 weeks ago we moved to a duvet as well. She's 2.

The thing with the duvet rather than the sleeping bag is that they can start to climb out (although I am sure there are some children that can even do it with a sleeping bag).

Maybe you can try with the pillow and a blanket at nap times and see what happens.

[milkmonsters]

I'm amazed how many people think sleeping bags aka Grobags are safe! Just because they're billed as the modern equivalent of old-fashioned swaddling.

Doesn't it occur to anyone that heat will raise the baby's core temperature and trap it, because it can't escape through the neck and armholes - I know babies sleep in the 'surrender' position with their arms eeach side of their head, but it still doesn't leave room for warm air to escape.

Can you imagine the law suits and media frenzy if someone actually compiled statistics on how many cot deaths involved sleeping bags ...

I used sleeping bags with my firstborn, even in the summer as advised, appropriate Tog ratings, appropriate clothing, but she still boiled inside, which I only realised as I picked her up one night (this was winter too) and she was sopping with sweat. perhaps she'd had a nightmare, hence the sweating, she was appropriately dressed and no heating was on in the bedroom..

Actually I think I'll start a thread on this.

I was careful about pillow and duvet use with firstborn, she only had cellular blankets and no pillow in her cot after the grobag incident. I tucked the blankets in tightly on one side of the mattress. To me, it seems more sensible they should be able to regulate their own comfortableness whilst sleeping, if she's too warm she'd kick the blankets off, she isn't going to freeze to death in an adequately heated bedroom if she kicks them off, whereas she might suffer if her covers are NOT removable.

She didn't use a pillow until around 18 months. She's never once slept with her face down into the pillow.

I've never used a duvet with her, she seems to generate too much body heat and duvets are notorious for trapping heat in.

Having said that, my 9 month old sleeps with me under the duvet and he never seems to be overly hot, perhaps each child's temperature control ability is different.

[DitaVonCheese]

Perhaps I'm being naive mm but I'm sure that if there was a link then it would have been flagged by now. I obsessively checked PFB DD's temperature for the first 12 months by sticking a couple of fingers down her sleepsuit to check how warm she was and she was always fine. Sleeping bags are so thin that I can't imagine they're that warm unless you put loads of layers underneath or lots of blankets on top. Perhaps your DD is just particularly warm-blooded? Plus sleeping bags are usually cotton, not plastic, so they will allow heat to escape. Will keep an eye out for your thread

[PiratePrincess]

MM, I'm sure you'll find there's more concerns about sleeping with a child...

[DitaVonCheese]

PP Do you have any links? I also co-sleep and am entirely confident that DD is safe.

[PiratePrincess]

DVS my point is that MM is being OTT re her quote: "I'm amazed how many people think sleeping bags aka Grobags are safe!"

this (item no 5) says the safest place for a baby to sleep is in a cot. But I am sure you will find lots to say the best place is in a bed with mum

[milkmonsters]

PiratePrincess Not in japan where 90% of parents co-sleep yet there's virtually Nil incidence of cot death.

Yet in the UK co-sleeping is (apparently) rare but cot death stats are skyhigh...

[BertieBotts]

Co-sleeping isn't dangerous but duvets for babies under 12 months are - I would be careful. Not saying I've never done it but if you are going against guidelines you need to know why the guidelines are in place!

I don't think there is anything wrong with grobags but I wouldn't use a growbag when co-sleeping as it's not very easy to adjust in the middle of the night.

[SqueezyB]

DD is 2 and has just moved into a bed. We got a lightweight summer duvet and kept her in her sleeping bag underneath! We figure it will help the transition to a big bed, plus it stops her getting out of bed in the night. She still fits easily into the 6-18 month grobag though.