Transitioning from cotbed to toddler bed.

[24HoursFromTulseHill]

DS is 2 years, 10 months. He's not a keen climber so we've kept the side on his cotbed until now because he's never attempted to get climb out but I think it's time to transition to a toddler bed.

He's potty trained in the day time but not at night and currently sleeps in a sleeping bag, which he loves.

My thinking is to get him used to being in the toddler bed, with a duvet & pillow (even if he still wants to hug his sleeping bag for comfort) and then when he's used to that to try phasing out nappies at night.
Anyone try this approach or did you do it the other way round or do something else?

I've just ordered 2 x duvet & pillow sets and 2 x duvet & pillow cover sets. We already have a potty for his room and a night light. Is there anything else I need to get? I'll be checking all the furniture is securely attached to the wall incase he has a go at night time climbing.

We did similar - pillow and duvet in cot bed first for a while, and then side off cotbed. We also got DD1 a little bedside table from GLTC so its toddler bed height and she can keep her light, book, yoto etc on there. It makes her happy to get everything in order before settling into bed.

I'm sure you know this but nighttime dryness is driven by a hormone that often doesn't kick in until age 3-5yrs. So i wouldn't worry too much about ditching nighttime nappies too quickly. It might just take a little while to come.

@CrispAppleStrudels OK, so you did 'getting used to the new bedding' first before you took the side of the crib off?
I hadn't thought of that.
Yeah, I'd heard about the hormone thing with being dry at night. He's dry occasionally but still wets his nappy most nights so I'm not expecting that to change any time soon.

Yes exactly. We didn't want to do it all at once as I didn't want the duvet falling off, her trying to pull it back over herself and then falling out of bed doing so. We basically got her used to having a duvet (and keeping it on!) and then took the side off. She only fell out once on the second night and got herself straight back into bed and duvet on without shouting for us. So she did really well!

You might want to consider getting a standard single sized duvet and tucking it under the mattress then over the bed - we did this for our DD because she was waking up every night because the cot bed sized duvet had fallen off the bed and she was cold!
Potty wise you can't really train them to be dry at night, it's hormonal and just happens when it happens. I'd wait until he has dry nappies most mornings. It happened quite quickly for my 2 DDs as soon as they were dry during the day.

Our kids swapped from sleeping bag to duvet and pillow around 2.5. Actually I think they both had a pillow from around 18 months.

Eldest we didn't take the sides off until they were 3yrs 7 months! About a month after we took their dummies away. They never tried to climb out, they never asked us to take them down, they wore night nappies which were always super full so nowhere near to being dry at night anyway, and crucially they generally slept well - so we were in no rush to risk changing that! We put a bedguard on for the first few months but they never fell out or even came close so we removed it then.

Second child is 3yrs 3 months, has been dry at night for many months. We will probably remove the sides of the bed in a few months time (or obviously sooner if they were to try to climb out). I'm much more concerned about taking theirs off though as our eldest didn't really get out of bed or mess about but I'm positive this one will. We have a young baby too so not in a rush to start that palaver.