big boy bed

[WitchyWooWoo]

my ds is 18 months old, and due to his very adventurous nature me and dh are worried hes going to climb out of his cot. of course there are pillows to break a fall but its still a long way down. When is the right time to put a child in a bed? we were discussing it earlier and we'd have the safety bar on, less height to drop and he doesn't roll around any more.

any advice would be more than appreciated

I am guessing the approved method is not ours - the sides came off DS's cot (thus converting it to toddler bed) after he wandered in to our room in the middle of the night with a perfect carpet print on his forehead. DD on the other hand demonstrated, in my presence, a perfect gate-vault over the side of the cot because she didn't want to go to bed.

Both were (from memory) about 20months at the time.

DS was about 18 months when he apparently climbed out of his cot came and woke me up with a mahoosive smile plastered on his face lol, we were going to leave it a little while, but next day DH stepped into DS cot to reach the net curtain pole and broke the slats underneath!

so he moved into a big boy bed, with these blow up inserts into the bed sheets, work a treat, has never fallen out, and never had the problem of him banging his head on a metal bed guard.

We put dd2 into a normal single bed at 14 months. She really hated her cot and was waking herself up by banging on the sides as she moved around so much. She could also fling her leg over the top so I was concerned she would fall out.
I was surprised but she didn't even try to get out of the bed for ages - she's now 2 1/2 and has only recently started wandering around in the night!

If he looks likely to manage to climb out, then its much safer to have him in a bed. DS was 15 months when we moved him to one, as we could tell he was about to get out of the cot. He settled fine in a bed and didn't wander much.

mine is 20 months, and gonna get the side taken off his cot and put safety rail on now as he has started climbing out last few days, he hasn't hurt himself though he comes down quite carefully over the side, but still once they can climb out its safer to just take it off. if he actually cant climb out you could leave it a bit and see, or just buy the safety rail thing and keep it ready to swap once he does get ready to climb out? or just do it now..
i tried to leave it late as possible cos was worried that without the sides its very little effort to get out of bed, so may just start wandering around at night. whereas now he only gets out in the morning, but hopefully it will be okay and he will stay put during the night.
i feel more worried about that really, incase they go wandering around quietly without us noticing :S