26month old won't sleep in her toddler bed

[Corky]

I am expecting my 2nd baby in 8weeks and thought it the right time to make the transition for my dd from cot to bed. Her room has been re-decorated and her new bed has been in our bedroom for about a month so she has had time to get used to it being around. She has been very excited about her new bed, telling everybody and pretending to get into it, so we thought it would be plain sailing!

However, this does not seem the case as we tried to put her in the new bed 2 nights ago and she kept climbing out and not settling, so my dh read a story then we said night night, turned the light out, left the room and then she screamed and got out of bed to find us, this resulted in her sleeping in the cot. Last night we got her to go to sleep in her bed by reading a story and leaving the light on (something I don't want to get into a habit of, as she's ok in the cot with the light out normally) and she seemed to stay asleep until we went to bed about 11pm. When we went to bed, I crept in and turned her light off but an hour later she woke up crying hysterically and got out bed all disorientated and was so shaken that we had to put her back in the cot (without the light on) and she went to sleep again.

Should we pursue the bed or leave it for a few nights? The cot is in the same room as the bed and we try and ask her where she wants to sleep, but I think she is frightened of being in the bed in the dark. She has always been really good at going to bed in the cot since now!

how old is she? my dd, who'd always been used to going to sleep in the dark, suddenly started kicking off at bedtime some time after her 2nd bday. eventually we worked out (she didn't then have the language to tell us this) that she had become anxious about the dark. (i read that this is quite normal developmentally as a child's imagination starts to take off around two). got nightlight, problem sorted.

if you suspect the dark might be the problem, rather than the bed, why not let her have a light on?

starcharts might also be useful.

She's 26months. Do you leave the nightlight on all night?

Yes we've put the cot in the same room now and I think we'll just ask her and see what she wants to do. I suppose its not a major problem for when the baby arrives, but when my dd was a baby she went into her cot quite early on as I didn't breastfeed. I guess we could always borrow Grannies cot!

yes, we leave nightlight on all night. if you turn it off, they clock the darkness when they go into shallow sleep and wake up fully, panicked. or so i've read.

I'd just leave the light on .. it can't do any harm

ds1 like us to leave either the landing or bathroom light on and has his bedroom door wide open. He's 5 and used to sleep in the dark as a baby, but suddenly started to want the light on a couple of years ago

Hi me again - well last night was even worse. She fell asleep about 7:45pm to a story so we left the small lamp on and all seemed well until 11:15 when she coughed and woke herself up then promptly got out of bed and came into our bedroom all upset and scared.

DH then tried for an hour to get her to go into her bed and kept offering her the cot or the bed, after refusing the bed we put her in the cot, but she got hysterical and threw herself out of the cot for the first time! and did this twice - so we had no choice but to try the bed.

Eventually at 1am after DD still not going to sleep DH decided he had to sleep on her bedroom floor and keep the light on and this seemed to do the trick and she went to sleep until 6:30am.

Surely we're not going to have to do this every night!

oh dear, corky. sounds a nightmare. don't think i can be useful really, but wanted to bump this up for you.

is the cough bad? is it worth giving up on this until she's 100 per cent (and in any case, the baby won't be in the cot from the off, there's probably at least 3 months in a moses basket?)? have you got a bedguard, is she tightly tucked in and would this help her to feel secure in the new bed? would she 'get' a start chart, with a sticker for every night when she doesn't get up?

must admit, we only put dd into her bed around her 3rd bday so it was a bit different for us. the communication was much easier by then. we could really go overboard on how grownup she was, to have her own bed, and she is very goal-oriented. i'm not sure whether she would have really grasped this at 26 months.

Hi there, no the cough is nothing, just a frog in the throat. The bed is from J Lewis and had 2 small guards at the head of the bed, so we've been out today to buy another bed guard so that perhaps she feels a bit like she's in a cot with the bars. I shall try tucking her in tight, but she was never one for her cot duvet anyway. I think the next thing is for the star chart then!

The funny thing is that during the day she puts her teddies in the bed and shows us how to lie down asleep in it so she's obviously interested!