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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

How long did it take your tot to get used to a bed (rather than cot)

43 replies

handlemecarefully · 23/03/2004 09:24

20 month old dd has moved to a toddler bed now (Sat evening) to free up her cotbed for baby brother (due in April). Despite 'guard rails' she fell out once on Sunday night and twice last night. She doesn't sustain injury (have 'crash mats' down) but it disturbs her sleep and ours!

How long was it before your tot learnt how not to fall out of bed when he / she first made the cot to bed transition?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

laurakim · 01/04/2004 06:37

We moved ds to a bed when he was 8 months!! He would have the worst tantrums in his cot and I was scared he would hurt himself and he immediately slept better and we have had no probs...he is now 21 months

Evita · 01/04/2004 20:50

I've read all these responses with huge interest as my dd is 18 months, still in a cot, and always sleeps in a grobag. She's an incredibly mobile sleeper and every time I've tried blankets / duvet etc. it just ends up all over the place.

I just wondered a couple of things. Has anyone tried putting a mattress on the floor for them to sleep on rather than using a bed? Would that help the 'falling out of bed' problem? Or is there a sensible reason for not doing this that I'm too dumb to know about? Also how do the kids manage with daytime sleeps when they're in a bed? I guess some people are lucky enough to have little ones who just roll over and sleep when put to bed but mine stands at the cot bars screaming for a good 5-10 minutes before her nap and occasionally at bed time, so I imagine if she was in a bed I'd have a real problem getting her to stay put.

Evita · 02/04/2004 21:12

any answers to my thread-hijack questions?

21stcenturygirl · 02/04/2004 21:19

Evita before I even read your posting I was going to reply that my 3 yr old dd has never got used to a bed. She loves sleeping on the floor. I don't even put a mattress down. She just sleeps under a duvet. TBH when she does fall asleep in a bed (she alternates between 4 of them!) she doesn't sleep as well as she does on the floor. Now my elder dd want's to join her on the floor. I sometimes wonder why I spent a fortune on beds.

Evita · 03/04/2004 12:41

I think I might start a separate thread about this actually as it seems such a sensible idea for them to sleep on the floor, with / without mattress. That way they CAN'T fall out and we save a fortune!

musica · 05/04/2004 16:57

We got ds a toddler bed with integral rail at head end. First time we tried it (about 21 months) he HATED it. Screamed and screamed until we put him back in the cot, and was traumatised for days. We were starting to think about buying a cheap cot for dd, when ds at age 27 months climbed out of his cot and fell on the floor. This was enough to persuade him it was the cot's fault, and there was NO way he was going to sleep in it anymore. He's fallen out of bed a couple of times, but it's so low he doesn't even wake up - just stays asleep on the floor!

Freddiecat · 05/04/2004 17:24

Well DS (23 mths) has been in a bed for 2 nights now! We got a bed rail and put it right up by the head end and put teddies and things 3/4 way down the bed to help him not fall out.

He has slept better than he has for weeks - maybe due to having more space. First night he was in his Grobag but when he got up in the morning he crawled around and got the end of it trapped in a door and got stuck. Last night he was just under the duvet. He got himself up again and was fine (although forgot where we were and sat on the landing crying). He's been awake both nights when we've left him and has chattered to his teddies and not got up once.

It might help that we've been reading his bedtime stories sitting on the big bed for months.

Fio2 · 05/04/2004 17:47

well put my 2 yr old on a double futon (!) t'other night and he has slept through ALL nights, I cant beleive it!!!

susanmt · 05/04/2004 22:02

How do you make your child STAY in a bed? We never had any bother with dd1, but ds is a nightmare. Dd2 is in the cot, he's in the travel cot, and when we have tried (for nights at a time) to put himin a bed he just gets up again, and again, and again!, until we get fed up and put him in a cot to get some sleep!!!

Short of locking him in his room or tying him to the bed, does anyone have any suggestions?

elliott · 06/04/2004 09:15

susanmt, I have yet to experience this (but I strongly suspect my time will come soon!) but the solution I've read about in the sleep books is as follows: during the day, explain to your child that night time is for sleeping in bed. Then at night when they get up, you take them back to bed in silence - and again, and again, and again. Do not talk or engage in explanations. You may need to do this many many times the first few nights, but if you are absolutely consistent, it should be effective quite quickly. If your child is old enough you could combine this with a star chart. Its basically like controlled crying - you have to stick to your guns and be prepared for a few sleepless nights.

Demented · 06/04/2004 13:27

susanmt, my DS1 was just like that, the first night he slept perfectly in his bed then after that he would not stay in the bed. We tried as elliott suggested (and my HV), putting him back, no conversation, we were assured it would only take three nights (ha!) I counted the number of times it took to get him to sleep the first night, 120 odds, after three nights of this I'm afraid I lost the place, although it did get better but probably more weeks than days. However my DS1 is particularly stubborn.

As I mentioned already on this thread my DS2 is staying in a cot for as long as possible, only problem is he has taken to dangling a leg over the side so I don't know how long we are going to get away with it.

elliott · 06/04/2004 13:30

ah well demented, I guess that's the difference between real life and what you read in the books
But I'm worried now, I was clinging on to this solution in my mind for when it went haywire with us!

elliott · 06/04/2004 13:32

but I think your experience of the number of times needed to put them back is in line with the case story in my book (though of course that was followed by a miracle cure within three days!)

Demented · 06/04/2004 14:05

My DS1 was and still is stubborn. When seen by a paediatrician for suspected learning difficulties he was simply classed as "a child with his own agenda", nothing wrong with him just his personality. Interesting that the number of times he had to be put to bed wasn't abnormal (I thought at the time it was utterly ridiculous), he is five now and has been sleeping very happily in a bed for about three years, very rarely getting up, except in those first few weeks. So not all bad.

Evita · 06/04/2004 20:33

So, with kids that it's difficult to keep in a bed at night, what happens with their daytime sleeps?

Demented · 07/04/2004 08:00

Funnily enough my DS1 was happier to go to sleep in the bed during the day than at night, I don't know if it was just the case that he had absolutely exhausted himself by lunch. As time went on some days he started to refuse the afternoon nap and I just tended to go with that, although up until the age of four he would still occasionally take a day-time nap.

Fennel · 07/04/2004 08:19

My dd2 was another of these - we tried the "putting back firmly and consistently each time" approach. It did work, after about 3 months! Some toddlers are very determined.

Evita, we dropped the daytime sleeps so at least we only had one bedtime battle a day! she often has an afternoon nap still at 2.5 years but on the sofa and not by our insistence

rolymoly · 14/04/2004 21:09

susanmtwe had this problem with dd1 a month or so ago, when she was about 2 and 10 months, after a long period when she was fine in a bed, didn't appear to know that she could get out of it. (It's a highish 'captain bed' style one.) We didn't find the silent returning to bed strategy workedwe were still doing it after an hour and dd got pretty hystericalcrying and laughing and screaming all at onceand showed absolutely no sign of going to sleep. It was like a game to her, but a very high stakes one. What eventually worked in the sense of getting her to stay in bed that night was shutting the door and not going back, but it was absolutely awful, with dd1 shouting pitifully from her room 'I don't want to be locked in', for a further hour or so. She doesn't do it any more, though, and I think the reason is not so much that we shut her in her room on that occasion, but that we made a real effort to move bedtime a bit earlier and make the wind-down routine calmer, and we also talked to her a bit about getting out of bed the next day.

Good luck. It is really daunting isn't it? You suddenly realise you really can't control what they do anymore (as if we ever could!).

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