To buy bed guards or not?

[NotBehindTheRadiatorPlease]

Hi all. DD is almost 22 months and recently transitioned from a cot to a single bed due to reaching height limit for cot and attempting to climb out!

She's taken to it very well (first night she was up and down bug she slept through last night!) However, I am quite paranoid about her rolling out onto the floor in the night. I did think about purchasing bed guards/rails, but I've heard that they can be potentially unsafe as the child can get wedged between the guard and the mattress.

I don't want that to happen of course, but I also don't want DD to hurt herself rolling out of bed! We currently have her old cot mattress and some pillows on the floor to cushion her fall if she did roll off.

Is this sufficient do you think? What did you do when your toddler first went into a single bed?

Thank you

Sorry, bug should be BUT.

I just put some pillows on the floor by his bed so if he did fall out he had a soft landing. He's been in a bed for almost a year now and has only fallen out a handful of times

I don't have a toddler yet but friends have put those pool noodle things under the sheet to create a barrier if that makes sense. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Like pp I used to put pillows on the floor at first but they hardly ever fall out and when they do they are asleep so relaxed even though it is a shock. I like the pool noodle idea though.

My health visitor said not to use a bed gaurd so I rolled up a single duvet in case she fell out. Cot mattress will be equally good. Pool noodle is a very good idea

Someone told me to roll a towel up under the sheet at the edge of the bed this worked fine and neither of mine fell out of bed.

Put pillows on the floor and tuck the blanket all the way under the mattress so it's very hard to fall out.

I have a 12 mo who now sleeps in a bed. We just let him fall onto a play mat. It’s a low bed and he never gets hurt when he falls - even if he wakes up he falls back to sleep on the floor.

We never bothered. Dd1 learnt fairly quickly not to roll out. Dd2 didn't so I rolled a small towel up firmly and out it under the sheet to provide a small barrier. Then laid a few pillows on the floor for a soft landing. Worked fine. They were both out of their cots at 18 months due to climbing out!

Didn't do bedguard spare duvet on floor and the few times (less than five in 3 months and never since) he fell out not only did he sleep through it he then pulled his duvet down to him on the floor

Anyone else wondering briefly how a pot noodle would help stop a toddler falling out of bed

I’ve never bothered. My son went into bed at 2 and in the last 6 months had fallen out twice. Bath times he just got back in and back to sleep. They bounce well at this age

We never did a bed guard and ours both moved to a proper single bed (trundle, so quite high) just before 2. One fell out once onto the floor with no cushioning but stayed asleep regardless, and the other we put the cot mattress by the side of the bed (after our first experience) but they never actually fell out!

I bought a bed guard but didn't like it as it didn't seem very safe. Ikea do cheap folding crash mats - we just put those by the bed.

I used a hippychick dream tubes bed sheet and it was fantastic. It had tubes on both side which I loved as I was so worried she’d get stuck down the side of the bed against the wall. She loved it as it made the bed really small and cosy.

@choosername1234 pool noodle not pot noodle 😂😂

I bought a bed guard but it didn’t really fit properly, in my opinion. It never felt stable enough and I just took it off. DS only fell out of bed once. He climbed back into bed and didn’t remember a thing in the morning.

I just used to put a pillow or cushion under the actual mattress along the long side. It raises the edge of the mattress slightly and it's very hard to roll uphill! That was a long time ago mind you so probably against some guidance nowadays. Worked perfectly though 😊

She's just fallen out At least I think she did, heard a thump and then she started crying (not hysterical, just whinging). She's fine though and went back to sleep within five minutes, but I'm extra paranoid now

We used a bed guard for about two weeks after taking the sides off DS's cot. We didn't use it anywhere near as long as we thought we would as one night DS had a massive poo explosion and it covered everything in his bed, including the guard. It was taken off to clean and then never put back on. For the first couple days we put cushions etc on the floor but DS never fell out so we stopped. Since then (about 5 months or so) he's fallen out of bed a handful of times but he's never hurt himself - he often pulls the covers with him so lands on them.

Glad to hear shes fine. We have a memory foam bumper that sits on top of the mattress but under the sheet. It stops my little one rolling out but still easy enough for him to climb over and make his way to our bed in the middle of the night which he still frequently does!!! If you search on Amazon for toddler bed bumper you'll see what I mean. I was recommended it by a friend and it instantly put me at ease once we put it on the bed and hes not fallen out since.

We moved my DD when she was just under 3.5. Bought a bed guard which just didn't fit right, was wobbly and was huge. So we now use a pool noodle under the mattress protector and fitted sheet. It's worked a treat. It's over a metre long so pretty much covers the length of the bed, and less obtrusive. She's been in the single bed for 2-3 months now and hasn't fallen out to date.

We got a very low single bed intentionally (mattress slats resting only slightly above the floor) and put IKEA crash mats alongside.

I'm going against everyone else here to say we put our son in a single bed at 23 months with a bed guard on, if we hadn't he would be falling out of bed every night, he sleeps right up against it and we sometimes have to pick him out of being wedged between it and the bed 🤣🙈 some other good suggestions here as well. I suppose if the guard wasn't there and he fell out a few times he might have learnt not to and slept closer to the wall. Who knows, it's been very handy for us though!

Both mine fell out a handful of times after we transitioned them to a bed but they learned not to. Like others I tend to put something soft next to the bed, but even when I haven’t they don’t hurt themselves falling out. I did have a bed guard but didn’t like it - moved about too much and thought there was a risk of getting trapped.