My husband and I have put off moving our nearly 2 1/2 year old son into a toddler bed. When we originally asked our pediatrician when to switch him, he said when he starts to jump out of the bed and not a moment sooner.
Well, my son has jumped out of his crib a few times - and we've convinced him to stay in there with some scare tactics that he'll get a really bad booboo. But now, we've moved ourselves into a new house, he's got his own room - which has both his crib and a twin bed in it. We also have a 3 month old son - so we originally planned on transitioning the 2 year old to a toddler bed when our infant was sleeping through the night.
Unfortunately / Fortunately - we can't put it off any longer. I walked into his room this evening after a hysterical bout of crying only to find him on the ground - having jumped out of his crib. I immediately put him into his bed to go to sleep. The only problem with this is he likes someone to stay with him in the room. While my husband and I would love to stay in the room with him - we've very big on keeping bedtime routines, having him learn to be self-sufficient and independent. We don't have an issue with him crying it out at night, but with the infant still waking up for late night feedings - it also makes it hard for us to stay up any later than we need to right now.
Any recommendations on how to keep our little guy in his new bed and room, if he decides to go out? How to transition him into the toddler bed - so we don't have to stay in the room with him, so he can learn to do it on his own? Thanks in advance mamas.
I had this problem wit hmy daughter when she was 3 what I did was I found these bed things that you put on the sides of the bed that makes it really I mean really haard to fall out he would have to acutally get out normaly and you almost never fall out. You might also want to put the bed a little lower so it is less of a fall if he does fall.
When we put our daughter in her toddler bed, she would not stay in it at all at first, and that was ok, really. She would be put down for nap time as usual and I'd leave her in her room knowing full well she was not sleeping in her bed.
The novelty of the new freedom is too much for the kids and they have to get up (wouldn't you! :) She missed a couple nap times due this and when I went in the room the clothes from the dresser were all over the room and the bed was completely unmade. One time, she even took the mattress and angled it off the bed so it was a "slide" (yikes! and she was so proud of herself!).
So I guess I'm saying, don't stress about keeping them in the bed - just resign yourself to an overtired toddler for a couple days - so starting this may not be a time when you want him on his best behavior. He will get over the novelty and go back to his routine. My daughter started sleeping again, but I found her sleeping in all different places, mostly under the bed. I'd just put her in bed while she was sleeping and after awhile she just stayed in bed.
A couple more thoughts though.
~~ Remove anything from the room that can harm or poison him (diaper changing creams etc, breakables, small choking hazards)
~~ Anchor the tall furniture to the wall incase he decides to use it as a ladder and it falls on him
~~ Have you considered how you will keep him in his room at night incase he wakes up before you, so he's not wondering the house unsupervised (we closed the door and used the baby monitor to wake us up when she woke)
I have a son who turned 2 in Oct, and just started trying to fling his leg up (thanks to the tutorial of his big sister), so I've been thinking about this lately too. Good luck!
We just transitioned our daughter (who will be three the end of March) to her big girl bed. There are no magic steps to keeping your child in bed, but here is what we have done. We put a side rail up to keep her from accidentally falling out of bed. We also use a baby gate to keep her from wandering through the house. (She is used to the gate from previous use in her play room.) The other thing that seems to have worked well for us as far as keeping her in bed and not playing with toys in her room after bed time is how dark it is. We do not use a nightliight and keep all lights that would shine directly into her room off. It seems to have worked really well for us so far. One other thing we use (and have used since our daughter was a few months old) is white noise. We use either a fan or humidifier depending on the season though I know you can buy a "white noise" machine. The white noise seems to help her sleep longer and not be bothered by household noises while she is sleeping. Now if she would just stay in bed for nap time. ;) Good luck with the transition. Hopefully you find the combination that works well for your little guy.
Make sure the room is safe, put up a gate (or consider blocking the door in some way he can't escape, but you can still see in), and put the crib mattress on the floor. It worked for my daughter!
