Transition to toddler bed

[CTW23]

Hi, I think my toddler is ready for a bed. He has started to put his leg over the edge of his cot but hasn't got out yet. He wakes up about 6 and calls from his cot 'mummy, I want to be awake now!'

My husband thinks if we put him in a bed, he'll just run around being silly and wake up very early. He only has books and stuffed toys in his room, not any other toys.

If you moved your toddler into a bed, did they wake up earlier? Or mess around during the night?

He is 2 years 4 months if that's relevant. Bedtimes normally fairly civilised (Beth, stories song, bed) and he usually sleeps 7.30-6am
Thanks!

That's about the age we moved DD to a toddler bed and I was worried about the same thing. We put a baby gate on her room door so we knew she'd at least be a little contained but I don't think we needed this actually as she never messed about in her room.

I've always sat with DD until she goes to sleep so we kept that same routine and encouraged her to shout for us if she needed us in the night, it's only within the last 6 months (she's 4 now) that we told her not to shout and to come get us if she needs us instead. It didn't change her sleep routine long term (but she may have woke more during the initial transition I can't remember), she did fall out of bed a few times in the early days but this was very quickly grown out of.

I imagine the main trickiness may be if you're used to putting him in the cot and leaving while he gets to sleep as you may have a few nights of him getting out of bed while he adjusts. I'd just be consistent in saying it's nighttime and putting him back in that scenario.

We recently did this on the later side of age 2. It totally stopping him napping (he was dropping his nap anyway), but overnight sleep hasn't really been affected. We have a gate of his bedroom so he can't roam the house - I don't want him wandering around at night half asleep and falling down the stairs.

If he's not tired at bedtime, and particularly in the first week or two, he played in his room after lights out. Quite loudly. But we just left him to it and after a while he puts himself to bed and falls asleep there. Mornings are pretty much the same - he wakes up and can start playing for a bit before we get dressed.

Increasing independence is all part of growing up, so I say go for it!!

That's very helpful. Thank you!
I didn't really think about naps. He usually naps quite well in his cot but is definitely more reluctant to go for a nap than he is to go to bed.

Now the fun begins of looking for toddler beds!

My dd didn't show any signs of being ready - never tried to climb out, etc.
However, around 2 years two months, she had a really hard time going to sleep (took an hour and half every night) and kept waking up in the middle of the night.
We took the side of the cod bed - she goes to her bed now by herself, max. 30 min, and she's sleeping. She also sleeps through - I guess she felt trapped with the sides on.

I was very surprised - expected her to get up in the middle of the night and come to our room or mess around before bedtime. But it turned out to be a lovely surprise how much she loves her own bed and space now.

Get a floor bed so if he does climb out it's at least not a drop to the floor. My 20mo has been in a bed since 10mo with a very high guard so at least he can't climb out yet😂

Mine had the side off at 1 year as he was climbing out and at 2 he now has a single bed with a trundle bed underneath that acts like a step up. He doesn’t roam about during the night. He often plays in his bedroom when he wakes up in the morning before calling out but there is a baby gate over his door and the door is shut. I can see him playing quietly in his teepee or reading books via the camera. In the beginning he would get out when first put to bed and sleep around the room but the novelty quickly wore off and he learnt to stay warm and cosy in bed

If he isn't climbing out, I'd leave it. They all go through phases but so long as it's not unsafe I'd stick with the cot. Once he's out you won't be able to put him back in. Everything I've read says if you do the transition post 3 it generally goes better. I know a lot of people who have introduced the bed early unnecessarily and regretted it...

Normal single beds are fine once they are 2. Then you can get in with them if you need to.

My DS never once got out of his toddler bed at night from the day we put him in it.

Our DD went into a toddler bed at 21 months and has never mucked about. Her door doesn’t shut so we also have a stair gate on the door so she never went to the stairs but she just stands at her gate and calls for me when she’s up. When we stay elsewhere she just comes to get us wherever we are. She sometimes plays before calling me these days but has never done anything worrying or stayed up or gotten out of bed in the night. I actually feel that now she’s turning 3 she’s more defiant and if I’d transitioned her now she would be more likely to have mucked about during the changeover. However friends have transitioned at all different ages without problems. You know your child and so long as their room is safe then it shouldn’t be a big issue.

Ours went into a proper bed at 12months after she started climbing out of the cot (she is still feral now). She never got out of bed, she would call if she needed us.

We put ours at same age into a full sized single bed with a bed guard. They never got out of bed just called for us in the morning as they did same in the cot. We found they slept better as mattress in single bed is more luxurious and soft etc.

The bed guard on a single bed helped as made them feel secure.

DS is 2yrs 2mo and we have just taken the side off his cot this week to make it a toddler bed (and added a bed guard). Up to this point he’s been pretty great at self settling for naps and bedtime and had recently started to sleep through a fair bit.

The change has been quite disruptive though. We put a stair gate on his door (because we don’t have one at the top of the stairs) and this was a huge distraction as he likes opening and closing it.

Now for naps and bedtime it can be hard to settle him as he is aware he can get out of the bed, and open the door so he will often then shout at the gate. He has also been waking in the night more again. Mornings are also annoying because previously he might lie in his cot and chat for a bit when waking and now he is straight up and shouting at the gate 🤣

I think it was weds that we made the change and things are getting better 4 nights in, you can probably expect some disruption, but if you had good sleep habits before it things should settle down quickly.

Good luck!!

We moved our eldest at 2y1month as we needed his cot for baby number 2. He goes to bed easily every night and he won’t get out of his bed without one of us being there even in a morning, he just sits on his bed and shouts us until one of us go in. We did have a baby gate on his bedroom door initially as we live in a bungalow and I worried about him leaving the bedroom and going to the kitchen/touching the oven and us not hearing him but even at 3.5 he still
doesn’t get out of bed without one of us being there so it’s actually never been a problem.

We keep telling him he can get out of bed now without us as he’s now potty trained during the day and will sometimes wake for the toilet overnight so we have a potty in his bedroom with a night light but he still shouts us so he can get up to wee 🙈

My son is 2yrs 1 month and we’ve just moved him to a toddler bed. He’s been able to get his leg over the side of the cot since about 19 months but never actually climbed out and only did it a few times, so we never introduced a bed then as he was going through a bit of a sleep regression and we didn’t want to to rock the boat. About 2yr old he started refusing to go to bed in his cot and kept trying to get in our bed/the spare bed and pushed us out the room saying “my bed mine”. So we took the hint! It’s honestly gone absolutely fine. We got a toddler bed so it’s lower to the floor and put a baby gate on his room and child proofed everything in there (it mainly was anyway). I got him the Tommee Tippee Penguin night light (highly recommend!) with the egg that detaches, so if he wakes in the night he can pick up the egg and he has light if he needs it or is frightened.

He came back from staying at my mums for half term and we’d put the bed up while he was away, so we just put him in it half asleep (he came home quite late in the evening). We left a night light on the first night in case he woke up confused. He woke up the next morning and was excited to show us his new bed! He’s continued to sleep well and it hasn’t disrupted his routine. There’s actually been a couple of times he’s woken up, come and stood at the baby gate, never cried or shouted just rattled it a bit and muttered to himself, and then he took himself back off to bed. That never happened in the cot, if he woke up we all knew about it. He often gets up on a morning now and plays a bit/reads his book before shouting for us now, so that helps us get a lie in! The baby gate has replaced the cot bars really, he either stands there and waits for us or he just lies in bed and waits for us.

If he's trying to climb out get him in a bed before he falls and potentially hurts himself.
He might get out of bed he might not mine did in the end i just left them to play they played and tired themselves out I'd go up and they'd be asleep on the floor I just popped them back in to bed no harm done if the do get out and play really. pick your battles.
We had a safety gate on but the he figured out if he piled some toys up he could climb over it.
Where there's a will there's a way.

It sounds like your toddler might be ready for a bed! Climbing is a sign they may outgrow the crib. While some kids might explore in bed initially, most adjust quickly. A bed with a safety rail can ease the transition. You can also talk to him about staying in bed until you come to get him in the morning.

I can't tell you how different most of these accounts are to basically everyone in know IRL - reassuring in some ways it might not be a total disaster! Good luck with whatever you do OP.

Well yes they will do that and for the full 10 years after that day too.

We're nearly 2 weeks into the transition with our DD who has just turned 2.

Similar to this earlier post, she was going through a long phase of needing to be cuddled to sleep every night and during wakes, so we needed to change something. The first week was hard and bedtime took a LONG time (one day was nearly 2 hours) and naps are still hard (she's in nursery 4 days so hasn't had as many days to adjust, I've resorted to car naps again!), but I'm hoping naps will get easier. She's slept through the last 3 nights though, which has only happened once before, so the nap disruption is worth it for us.

She's not waking any earlier, but does come into our room shortly after waking (almost no toys in her room and it's pitch black so that may be why). We've got a stair gate on the landing between our rooms and the stairs, we could in theory move it to just her room so she's more contained, but we like her joining us for cuddles in bed around 6:30/7, rather than us wake up properly to go get her... We're yet to have her wander into our room after a super early wake though!

She talks about her big girl bed and is happy to go to bed now, whereas before she didn't enjoy bedtime. Talking about it a lot has helped. As another poster has said, you know your child best, including how they adapt to change.

My eldest was that age when his little brother was born, so I must have moved him at about 2 years old or just before, to free up the cot for the new baby. He was very good and no trouble at all for a few nights, then we had one evening where he kept getting up at bedtime and coming to the bay gate at the top of the stairs. I did the super nanny ‘back to bed’ thing where you just take them back with no interaction after saying “it’s bedtime now” on the first go. I think he lasted about 10 or 15 tries then stayed in bed and went to sleep. The next night he was fine and didn’t get up at all. We had no problem in the mornings as we used a grow clock so he knew to stay in bed til 7am, but actually usually slept til 7:30ish anyway. We put him in a toddler bed with the guards down the top bit instead of a proper single bed. He used to occasionally get up for a wee in the night but just went and then got back into bed by himself (had been potty trained for a good 6 months before). Then later on his little brother needed out of the cot sooner because he also potty trained at 16/17 months old but unlike his big brother would wake at night for a wee regularly. So we moved the big boy into a single bed (would have been 3.5 years old) and the little one into the toddler bed with a potty beside it. We had no trouble from The younger one about getting up because they shared a room and the 3 year old was like the sleep police! Now they are 10 and 12 and cause more problems about going to bed, but that’s a good way off for you 😂