Help! Cot to Bed Transition Nightmare!

[QS90]

The other day my 21 month old suddenly, and without notice, threw himself over his cot side in a way that could have seriously hurt him had I not managed to slow his fall by partly catching him. He'd never shown any interest in trying to throw himself or climb over the side of the cot before, it was terrifying.

As such, we took the side off the cot to stop him trying it again and injuring himself. Now however, he is refusing to nap, as there's nothing to stop him from just getting up and playing with his toys. Later on he is beside himself crying and tantrumining as he is so tired. He's also waking at night to potter about. Partly I am concerned about his sleeping, but more than this I am terrified of him hurting himself when no-one's with him. We have baby-proofed the room of course, but can't help agonising over if he slipped or something and hit his head and no-one noticed until the morning :-(

The way I see it there are three options;

• Go back to co-sleeping (but we have another baby due in January so would cause a problem then).

• Put the cot side back on, and risk him getting badly hurt climbing out.

• Leave him to play in his room if he wakes or refuses to nap, and hope nothing bad happens.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?? What do other people do?

Thanks for reading.

Bump!

I’d leave him to it. The novelty will soon wear off and he’ll settle down. Just make sure the room is suitably child proofed and maybe put a child lock or stair gate on the door so he can’t wander around the house.

My kids used to pass out randomly on the floor or whatever in their rooms when they first moved to a bed. It didn’t last too long. Maybe a week or 2. We just made sure that all furniture was fixed to the wall and any drawers and cupboards we didn’t want opened had child locks on

Following as I'm currently going through this with my 2.5yr old. Currently on day 4 since transition to toddler bed and she's gone from sleeping through the night to waking multiple times and wandering the house, needing to be resettled. I ended up sleeping on her bedroom floor from half five this morning in a desperate attempt to keep her from ending up in our bed (which was a habit we took a long time to break!) I've read up a bit and apparently it's quite common for them to feel a bit unsettled, the bars of the cot can make them feel much more safe and secure, and sounds like it'll hopefully get better by itself over time. It's a shock though - we had none of this with DS who slept happily in his "big bed" from the first day we moved him.

We've been going through the same with our DS1. He's 27 months old and until last month, never showed any interest in getting out of bed until one night Houdini managed to get out and into our living room (his room is downstairs). Thankfully we have cameras that alerted us to his movement but we panicked.

Anyway, I quickly removed the cot side and bought a bumper to go under his mattress cover. This worked at night but getting him to nap was becoming a daily battle and he was becoming overtired and a little shit horrid. I realised he probably wasn't developmentally ready to be free in his room.

So now we've turned his crib around so the side down is against the wall and we've reintroduced a sleeping bag which so far has managed to prevent him from climbing out.

It might be worth trying a sleeping bag? And even lowering the mattress itself to the floor?

We're having the same here with naps. I'm currently sitting with DD in her room trying to get her to sleep and she keeps getting up and running around, even though I KNOW she's tired. Thinking back to when DS was the same age I think the move to a big bed was the point at which he stopped napping (at least at home - he carried on napping at nursery for at least another 6 months ). But I don't think DD is ready for that yet - she's exhausted after the last few days...

Hi all, thanks for the replies. It's comforting in a way to know it's a common thing, although of course wish none of us were going through it!

Resorted to pinning him down with my body like a giant straight jacket today, to get him to nap (after an hour and a half of him JUST NOT SLEEPING.) He was asleep within 4 minutes flat. Not ideal though, as he was previously a very "independent sleeper" and it feels like a step back :-/

@sborber Yes, my plan had been to keep him in a sleep sack to avoid it until he was older too - this would definitely be my preference! Unfortunately when he almost threw himself out the other day, it wasn't from climbing - he literally threw himself at the side of the cot and went over like a see-saw (he's quite tall). We are keeping him in his sleep sacks though anyway, as it seems to discourage him from moving about too much in the room - I guess it's more effort for him.

Yikes he threw himself at the side!? 😅 Determined little man. In that case perhaps try lowering the mattress to the floor completely. Our friends did this for their tall toddler and it helped delay the transition a bit longer.

Christ, you must have had a fright seeing the whole cot go sideways!

Handhold from afar, I know the frustration.

Just picking up on this. How is everyone getting on with the transition? We've ended up dropping DD (2y8m) lunchtime nap which has massively sped up bedtime, and she seems to be able to cope with the lack of sleep during the day. Bedtime last night took 5 mins from saying goodnight to her going to sleep. Massive improvement from the 1.5-2hrs it was taking before!

Well he's sleeping through the night again which is good - did 8pm to 7:30am last night without a peep! Or getting out of bed as far as I know.

Up in the air with our naps though. He used to get up 6am, then sleep 10am until 12pm. Some days he still goes down at 10am no problem. Today though he totally skipped the morning nap and seemed fine all day until about a half hour ago, so just tried putting him down now. Makes planning a day very difficult though!

Wanted to add too, for anyone struggling, we used a Joie travel cot when visiting my parents the other day, and he couldn't get out of it! Sides I think are taller, and as they are mesh, they can't easily be climbed. I'm sticking with cot side down at home as seems to be going better, but have that in my back pocket if it gets desperate.

@MunsteadWood So glad it's hoping well fir you. Do you think your DD was just ready to drop all her daytime naps then? Am wondering if our boy is headed that way too...

Good to hear things are better for you too @QS90. I don't think I would have dropped DDs nap had it not been for the bed transition, but she seems ok without it so I guess she probably is ready. The first few days were tricky and she was very tired by late afternoon but she seems to have adjusted now. Maybe worth a try?

Although that said she's almost a year older than your DS