Haydiebug is growing up! Sometime in the next few months, we’re really thinking of getting him into a “big boy bed.”
I’m worried, though, about helping him understand that he would have to stay in the bed. In his crib, he’s quite contained. But he’s not always asleep. Today, for example, it took him more than an hour before he fell asleep for his nap (during which time I usually have to repeat a mantra about not being emotionally invested in whether or not he sleeps 😉 ). I’m not terribly fond of the idea of him spending that time (and more) out of his bed, playing with any- and everything in his room.
Is there any way to teach him to stay in a big boy bed? What worked for you with this transition? What didn’t?
14 replies on “The big transition: a big boy bed”
What really worked for us was getting naps working before tackling all-night sleeping. Plus, no joke, we used a baby gate on the door. That way they could tell we meant business.
We also don’t have toys in the bedroom (all 3 boys share, so there’s no room!) so there’s really nothing to do in there except look at books or sleep 🙂
I am thinking and preparing on how to do this myself, except we will go from co-sleeping to him being in his big-boy-bed. I hope you get some great tips I can “steal.”
We put one of those child locks on the inside of the door so that we could always get in and they couldn’t get out. Worked like a charm. After the first couple tries, they didn’t even bother trying to break out until they were older and we were comfortable letting them wander the house alone.
Since Herr Meow used to nurse to sleep until he was a little older, doing the big bed business was not just easy but practical (so we could fit!). Also, he hated his crib with a passion, so that kind of motivated us to move him to a real bed (twin). We now read to him before bed and stay until he’s almost asleep or very sleepy and then tell him we’ll be back. It’s worked very well so far.
He’s been sleeping in his own bed since he was about 18 mos. and really likes it.
Our boys had both already learned how to climb out of the crib well before we bought big boy beds. So we just kept doing what we had done before. Put them back in the bed and told them to go to sleep, until they did. 🙂
For us, W.W. started taking naps on the couch rather than in bed. He started sleeping in a twin about a month ago and the getting up and wondering part has gotten better. When we say good night I just make sure he has a book, his nightlight, and whichever buddies he wants to sleep with that night. Playing with those guys in bed for a little while usually distracts him and he falls asleep 15 to 30 minutes after bedtime.
However, I have to remember to go back and retrieve the book he’s now laying on and the stuffed animal on top of his head. 😉
[…] I remember wondering how things would go when we moved the kids to the big bed. Would they refuse to sleep in them? Would they wake up in the middle of the night and start wandering? Apparently these are normal concerns. Go offer your support and advice to a mother getting ready to go through that phase of parenting. […]
Consistency is the key. Just keep putting them back each time they get up and reiterate that they must stay there, let them know you mean it. Do not give in and let them up early. After they have stayed there for a certain amount of time then reward them by letting them get up. In my experience the transition has usually not taken too long if I remain consistent.
For some reason, we didn’t have trouble putting my 2-year-old in her big girl bed. It must be God’s way of balancing the universe, b/c we’ve had trouble with virtually everything else :)!
What we did is talk about it a lot — before we bought the bed — and tell her how cool it was she was getting the bed, then we let her help make the bed when we got it and lay on it to “try it out.”
Also, the kiddie guard rail must have looked like crib-like to her, because she didn’t try to get out of bed when it was up.
Deb
We took the drop-down side of our little girl’s crib off and put the mattress at the lowest possible setting before making the big switch. It was still quite stable and didn’t wiggle of rack back and forth at all. She was used to staying in her crib so it wasn’t much of a change. So the change to a twin bed was no big deal at all. Now, I can’t lie — she did occasionally get up till she was properly versed in the rules, A.K.A “Mommy gets REALLY cranky when you wake her in the dark-time”.
It’s like anything else: go in gentle stages if you can and be prepared to enforce the rules. It’s not the hardest thing we’ve done so far! 🙂
Wow – Is he that big already? Mine is getting there too… I’m pretending not to notice 🙂
With our first one we did the same thing as Summer mentioned… just taking her repeatedly back to bed until she stayed there. The first week was the roughest. You survive that, you’re home free! 🙂
We have just moved Little Pea into a Toddler bed. Her crib is convertible, so it wasn’t that much of a change. The first couple of days, she tested whether she could get up or not, but we just kept bringing her back and saying, “Don’t get up till after you sleep.” She got it pretty quickly.
With my first daughter’s naps, I made a CD for the desired length of time, and told her not to get up until the CD was over. That worked very well.
Hi Jordan.
I remember when we did this with my son. We simply had an ongoing conversation for a couple months before the time came. It looked something like this in conversation with other adults in front of my son.
Adult one “Can you believe that Isaiah is almost ready for a big boy bed?”
Adult two, “Yes, well he is getting bigger. Isn’t that so exciting, I knew it would be coming soon.”
adult 1, “We are proud of him. I explained that when he goes to to bed at night he will stay in the bed all night long and not get up. Big boys stay in the bed at night time, Isn’t that right Isaiah?” (Nodding your head – kids will nod too because they want to be good and agree)
Adult 2 “Well of course he will, I always knew he was a good listener” etc.
By telling him what is going to happen and what it is supposed to look like, it made the transition for us easy. When we got the bed all set up we made a really big deal about it and had him help us make it. After the bed was made I took video camera of him jumping on and rolling all around in the bed and now it is so fun to watch.
We also used an Elmo book about Elmo having a big boy bed which we read for a few months before the transition. We also put a netted screen on each side so it still kind of felt like a crib for a while so he would not fall out.
I hope this is helpful. Keep us posted on how it goes!
Warmest Regards,
-Kakie
wow, i’m just ogling at the person who commented that their 18 month old has been in a big boy bed! i wish! that seems so far off for us and ours is 22 months! we’re thinking we’ll try sometime when he’s two but i fear the playing with the toys and wandering around. we’ll see! good luck to you!