Have you started/thought about transitioning to a toddler bed?

Question

Hi Ladies!
I was really hoping to get some positive insight here. 
So, my husband and I bought our first house and moved in about a month ago. When we moved in, we transitioned our baby girl to her Frozen-themed toddler bed from her crib at 21mo. Things seemed to be going okay at first, but now I’m really worried we transitioned her too soon. She refuses to stay in her bed all night and tries repeatedly to get out of bed and come to our room. Each time we put her back in bed, telling her “bedtime” and tucking her back in. Over and over and over. Recently, she seems to be getting upset at the thought of being in her bed, and she’s of course not sleeping as much as she used to. Before we moved, she was in her crib, sleeping through the night on her own with little to no issues. We would rock her to bed, lay her down, and that would be it for the night - those nights seem to be long gone. We thought about re-introducing the crib, but worried again about it being too much change - new house, new bed, back to crib, etc. 
Does anyone have any experience with this? What are your thoughts? (Please, positive thoughts only - I’ve been beating myself up over this quite a bit)
Thank you for reading/voting!

Answer

We haven't switched her out into a new bed yet. We are in the process of moving into a new home and we figured we would let her adjust to the house first and then switch her to a new bed in a couple of months. I dont see anything wrong with the way you did it though or the way you're handling trying to get her back to sleep. Maybe try laying in there with her until she is more comfortable. Not necessarily in bed with her, but on the floor like a sleep over in her room. I truly wish you the best of luck with it. Its such a hard transition.

Answer

We made the switch around the same time you did and it was also in a new home. At first he was doing great, and now he just wants to cuddle and sleep with us in bed. I don’t think it’s the switch in bed though... more likely an age thing. 
We are still focusing on him sleeping on his own in the toddler bed. I found it helps to build a night time ‘routine’. We wave goodnight to the toys and say ‘we’ll see you tomorrow’, and then we give dad a kiss goodnight. I offer him water in a sippy cup right after I lay him in bed and then I kiss him goodnight and tell him it’s time to sleep. I tuck him in so he’s all cozy and leave the room. 
If I can hear him babbling I wait ten minutes to go in. If he’s extremely quite then I go in after five minutes and he’s usually asleep. If he cries, I usually go in immediately and offer him more water and say ‘it’s sleepy time, good night’ and tuck him in once more. Some nights I have to do it a few times, but I feel it’s getting much better. 
I hope this helps :)

Answer

We moved him to a twin bed about a month ago. At first he wasnt sure about it and didn’t sleep well. Now he’s used to it and does great. We also keep his door closed (mainly so his sister doesn’t wake him up) and he knows he can’t get out so he doesn’t really try anymore and just goes to sleep

Answer

So I’m a few days late. But we had success after a few months of different challenges. 
We switched March baby at 16m due to hitting crib height max, him starting to climb and baby brother bring due in sept 2020 so needing the crib. 
We did a twin bed with full length toddler rails at the foot and one side and put the bed against a corner. So there’s one area to go in or out which I think helps him feel more cozy. Especially since he loves to roll and sleep up against the edges. 
We also live in a super small house and nursery is small. Only room for a toddler bed, crib, night stand and seat. No toys to entice him out.  The nursery door swings into the room and he can easily open it. So we screwed a toddler gate into the door frame. That way he can open the door and call out to us but he can’t leave the room.  We’ve done a few nights of putting him back to bed repeatedly and he just eventually fell asleep on the floor. 
We also noticed he’s started to be scared of the dark so adding another night light has helped a lot especially with helping him go to bed peacefully.  Pediatrician said that’s totally normal for this age. 
Last thing that has really helped was a wake up light. We suffered a lot with early morning wake ups from the beginning with this little guy. We introduced a wake up light at the same time as the bed and really made a big deal out of pointing it out at bedtime. See it’s red it’s sleepy time. And praising him a ton for staying in bed until it turned green in the morning. If we had night time wake ups we’d point to it and remind him red means sleepy time. To start we set it to turn green at a time we were pretty sure he’d sleep till then moved it bit by bit. To adjust. 
He’s been in the bed a good 6m and we’ve definitely had a few weeks here and there after the initial transition where he just slept poorly. Sometimes we attributed it to teething, room temp or just a growth spurt. 
I hope you get a good routine going and that the transition started to go better.

Answer

We made the switch at 12 months. Full sized mattress on the floor. We cut our sons door in half so we can see and hear in, but he can’t get out. He has access to books, duplo legos, and a few other toys. 
Sometimes he gets up and plays but when he’s tired he goes back into bed. 
Each kid is different but we plan on moving all of our kids around 12 months if they’re walking. 
I’d say keep at it and see if there are any little  suggestions you can do (like cut the door) to make it work a little more seamlessly for you.

Answer

My pediatrician recommends at least a 6 week window between major changes for kids so that they have time to adjust. It may have just been overwhelming for her with the move and switching to a toddler bed. I would stay the course and just let her adapt in her own time.

Answer

We just switched to a toddler bed a few days ago. I wanted to keep her in the crib longer but she kept climbing and falling out and I didn’t want her to get hurt so we had no choice. 
So far it has not been the easiest transition. She gets up out of bed a couple times during the night and is upset when I lay her back down. 
I’m not it’s the bed though, because for the past week she has been waking up and not going back to sleep on her own. She was a perfect sleeper so I’m not sure if it’s a sleep regression or teething.

Answer

My little one is still in her crib and we've been in the same house since she was born. Even without change, she goes through phases where she sleeps great, and phases where it's a big challenge to get her down for the night and/or she wakes quite a bit during the night. It could be because she's got a cold, because she's teething, because of a growth spurt, because she's going through a mental leap, because of nightmares, because of any combination of those things... Who knows. 
Point is, don't beat yourself up. Just try to be persistent with getting her to sleep in her bed, and hopefully she'll get into a good rythm again soon. I would also consider baby proofing her doorknob to keep her in.  
Good luck!

Have you started/thought about transitioning to a toddler bed?

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