Advice on Big Boy Bed

I recently switched our youngest to her big girl bed which is a twin and we put up a bed rail. When my husband puts her to bed he tells her she can come cuddle in bed with us in the morning, now sometimes morning is middle of the night. Some nights she doesn't want to go to her bed she wants to sleep with momie and dadie. When I put her to bed, if she gets up I just keep walking her back to her bed. When i put her to bed I lay down and cuddle for one min with a music timer on, then I leave. When we first put the bed together, she fell asleep with me and then i moved her to her big bed. She didn't want to go to sleep in it yet, and I did the same with my now 5yo. She woke up in her bed and evenutally realized the bed was okay. Best of luck!

I think everyone has given great advice. We transitioned our twins just shy of their second birthday becuase one was climbing out of the crib. We actually just took one of the sides off the crib, but you would have thought their whole world changed. We had cushions underneath the mattress for a while and then switched to a bed rail. The first couple nights were rough. They cried/screamed, but after a few nights they were okay. Two months later, they just need to kiss and hug us then they are pushing us away. They have never gotten into anything in their room and stay in their beds. They don't even try to open the door anymore. Hope you have such good success as we have had.

You might want to get a bed rail depending on how high up off the ground the bed is.

I'd go ahead and get it set up, and then give him a one night "warning"..."Guess what?! Tomorrow night, you're going to sleep in Your SPECIAL ROOM in a big boy bed!"

Our daughter did just fine with that. She's been a real champ. She wants to do the night-time routine in her own room and stuff.

Aleisha,

When setting up the bed, have your son "help" with his own tools, or even with yours. Give him a wrench and a screwdriver and do the job together. That's what I did when I set up my daughter's bed. She held the screws and handed them to me one at a time. She used the screwdriver and helped tighten them. I even brought a rubber mallet and had her 'hammer' some wood rails into place. When we were finished, we stood back and marveled at the work we had done.
Of course, it helped that it is a princessey canopy with roses on it, but she never looked back at her crib again.

Good luck to you,
J.

My daughter turned 2 before I had her younger brother. I switched her to a big girl bed before she even turned 2. You hear horror stories of them getting up before you, getting into things, etc. I never had this situation, and if any of my kids were going to do it, it would have been her. I'm not sure how high the bed is off the ground, but if it does sit a little higher you may want to lay a buffer on the ground near him until he gets used to it. My 4 yr old still seems to fall off his bed sometimes!

My daughter was only 19 months old when we switched her to a big girl bed (which was actually a toddler bed in our case). She had been climbing and falling out of her crib so we decided she was ready to move on. She watched my husband put together her new bed and she was totally excited to sleep in it so it was no problem at all and she slept really well in it. If you can, try to let him participate as much as possible when you set it up and maybe let him pick out his own blankets or stuffed animals to put on it. I think you're totally right to want to make sure you get him in his new bed before the baby comes. Good luck and congratulations on your little one on the way! My daughter was two when my son was born and I think its the perfect age distance between them.

We transitioned our son by setting it up and letting him lay on it during bedtime stories. We put his fav character sheets on it (thomas the train) and almost immidiately he was ready, he loved having his own pillow. The only other thing I would say to consider is getting a screw into the wall child gate(the suspension ones can fall either way with a toddler trying to climb on them, we found this out with our acrobat of a son)) so you can be sure he wont get out of his room in the middle of the night.
goodluck!