Moms with toddlers - question for you

RBXChas

Hey there,

My son will be turning 2 in late January, so when I have this new baby, he will be 2 years and 4 months old. Right now he still sleeps in a crib and has never shown an interest in trying to get out (lucky me!). Obviously by the time this baby comes we will have to move him to a big boy bed (we're going to get him a twin bed instead of getting a toddler bed), but I am worried about when is appropriate to make this transition. I know it will be a lot different once we make that change, so I'm prepared for that, but since we kind of have a deadline, I don't want to rush things but don't want to start too early, either.

Any suggestions?

Oddly enough, my sister's two kids have the same age split as mine will, and she moved her older one into a big boy bed 2-3 months before her second was born, so shortly after he turned two. The funny thing is, her younger one is still in a crib at 2 years and 4 months... I guess when you don't have a deadline, it's easy to put it off!

RBXChas

I guess I should have addressed this to anyone who's been pregnant with an older child still in a crib...

nursenikki829

I had my two oldest in cribs at the same time (they were only 12 months apart), but when my third was born, my middle daughter was 2. She turned 2 in November, and my son was born in January. I put my daughter in a twin bed in October before my son was born so she would acclimate and be comfortable with her new bed well before the baby arrived. I am currently planning the same thing with my son. He will be 2 on January 12th, and I plan on switching him to a twin bed in February.

ehg87

My daughter was 17 months old when my son was born, so obviously she was still in a crib. We actually had 2 cribs for about a year (YIKES) She never tried to get out of her crib ever, but right at 2 we moved her into a toddler bed. We did it as part of her birthday, made a big deal about her being such a big girl that she didn't need to sleep in a crib anymore. And she loved it! Just like her crib, she never tried to get out for the first several months, slept all night. Eventually she did learn she could get out of it in the middle of the night, and made a few trips thru the house to our room. Let me warn you, so weird to hear little feet padding along the floor at night. Or worse yet waking up because you think someone's looking at you, and opening your eyes to see a toddler in your face My son was 2 when we moved him out of his crib, because he literally started climbing out of his crib in the middle of the night and in the mornings. Plus he's way too big size wise for his crib. We've transitioned him to his sister's toddler's bed (she's now in a regular twin) and he usually gets up 2-3 times a night. Drives me CRAZY!!!!! I'm starting to think that he's also too big for the toddler bed, and we really should have just skipped that step with him and put him in a twin. He's 2 years 4 months right now, and weighs in at 33 pounds and close to 3.5 feet tall. Anyways all kids are different, and they give you clues sometimes, sometimes not. Maybe try it out as part of his birthday moving him into his big boy bed, and see how it goes. If he hates it you could always move him back into his crib until he's more ready.

aprilkida

I think it would probably be best to make the switch at least a month before the baby is due. For my son, it was a hard transition out of the crib with several weeks of him not sleeping well. I would imagine it would be that much harder if you are introducing a baby into the picture while you're still acclimating your son to the new bed. I will again have to transition my son from the toddler bed to a regular bed before this little one is due since we want to reuse the crib mattress. I'll do that sometime in the next few months since this one isn't do until early August. I'm hoping it'll be easier than the crib-to-toddler bed transition!

mellynat

Hey there,

My son will be turning 2 in late January, so when I have this new baby, he will be 2 years and 4 months old. Right now he still sleeps in a crib and has never shown an interest in trying to get out (lucky me!). Obviously by the time this baby comes we will have to move him to a big boy bed (we're going to get him a twin bed instead of getting a toddler bed), but I am worried about when is appropriate to make this transition. I know it will be a lot different once we make that change, so I'm prepared for that, but since we kind of have a deadline, I don't want to rush things but don't want to start too early, either.

Any suggestions?

That's the same exact age gap between my son and daughter .. Our big boy bed happened a little differently. When my DH went out of town for 2 weeks I had my DS sleep in my bed. After daddy came home my son refused to go back in the crib. He freaked out. So we would put him in a big bed w one of us next to him and then sneak away when he fell asleep.. He was about 20months. Similar happened w my DD she was sleeping in a crib since 6 weeks and around her 1st bday she got really sick so she was sleeping in our bed. After she got better tried putting her back in the crib but she also freaked out. So she joined her brother in the big bed. and what do u know I found out a month later I was expecting #3 so it was perfect timing.
You can try now getting him in a big boy bed. and see what his reaction would be. You dont' want to be too close to ur due date and have him freak out and not be ready.. have him start taking naps in a big bed.. and slowly transition it to bedtime.. if he doesn't do good with the bed at all. you will still have some time after the baby is born (if she/he will be sleeping in the bassinet)
But if it were me i'd start the transition now.. just so you can work on any hiccups that may come up.

RBXChas

Thanks for all the replies so far! They are very helpful :flowerforyou:

I wouldn't care about having two kids in cribs at the same time, except for the fact that it would require buying a second crib, which seems silly for the relatively short amount of time my son would be in it.

We don't have a lot of storage space, so we've been using our extra bedroom for storage. (Our attic is way too hot for most of the year to store anything, we don't have any extra space in our garage, and we live in coastal SC where basements simply don't exist.) Thus our mission is to clean out that bedroom for our son's new room. We have a full-size mattress set and frame (we had it from when we were staging our old house, so it's literally never been slept on), and we considered setting that up for him and buying a headboard/footboard and matching furniture. However it is hard to find appropriate furniture and bedding for a full-size bed for a child, plus it's a fair amount more expensive than a twin bed. We thought that we might be better off selling the full-size mattress with frame on Craigslist (since, like I said, it has only ever been used for display purposes and hasn't been so much as sat on, let alone slept on), then starting over from scratch and getting a twin bed and matching furniture.

Point being, we have a hefty amount of work to do (and money to spend) before we can make the switch to a big boy bed, and I'm trying to calculate it all out, time-wise.

At this point I think we need to start on the "cleaning out the room" phase of this project, then move toward selling the full-size set/frame, then work on getting furniture. At that point we will be around our son's 2nd birthday and can make it about that for him, like a little graduation.

I will probably do what my sister does, which is put a baby gate in his doorway, which allows him to open his bedroom door (which opens inwards) but prevents him from walking down the hall to our bedroom (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Anyway, I just wanted to test the waters and see how soon was too soon to put him in a big boy bed and how late (or close to the new baby) was too late (or too close).

Again, thank you so much for your input, everyone!!!

RBXChas

I also want to add that our son has slept between us before (ie, not in a crib) and did fine. We went camping about a month ago and were on an air mattress with him. Once he got over the wanting to crawl all over us and play, he fell right asleep, only woke up briefly during the night (and went right back to sleep), and didn't sleep in a thousand different directions like he does in his crib (he pretty much faced one way or the other but stayed parallel to us).

He's also on the bigger side, about 28 pounds but nearing 3.5' tall at 22 months, so a lot of times he is either balled up while he's sleeping or stretched out with at least one hand/foot/arm/leg through the crib rails! So it will soon be time to make the change anyway.

Do you ladies have any tips on making the transition? How did you handle the lack of containment? I let my son fall asleep on his own (sometimes he is cool with me leaving his room, other times he cries for a minute or two and then is fine), and he is often awake in the morning when I get up, but I don't actually go get him until I'm showered and dressed for work (he plays with his stuffed animals and doesn't fuss). I am not looking forward to the prospect of having to stay in his bed until he falls asleep, which can take a while, especially if he doesn't want to be in bed yet. Does anyone out there have any reassuring words?

Thanks again!

annamerrick

Do you ladies have any tips on making the transition? How did you handle the lack of containment? I let my son fall asleep on his own (sometimes he is cool with me leaving his room, other times he cries for a minute or two and then is fine), and he is often awake in the morning when I get up, but I don't actually go get him until I'm showered and dressed for work (he plays with his stuffed animals and doesn't fuss). I am not looking forward to the prospect of having to stay in his bed until he falls asleep, which can take a while, especially if he doesn't want to be in bed yet. Does anyone out there have any reassuring words?

Thanks again!

I had a similar situation--my son was 19 months old when my 2nd son was born. We also moved him into another room,. Our pediatrician recommended making no changes for 4 weeks before baby is due and for 4 weeks after. We got his new room ready about 6 weeks before #2 was due and tried to get him to sleep in there, but he was not into it. He stayed in the crib for a couple months after #2 came and #2 slept in a bassinet in our room. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure it was the changing rooms that was the biggest deal for him, not so much moving from a crib to toddler bed. We let him play in his new room and made a big deal about it being his big boy room, but didn't pressure him to sleep there for a while, and then once he got used to it, he was fine with sleeping there. So, my advice is get the room ready ASAP and let him just get used to having a new room in the house.

When we did get #1 sleeping in his new room I 'camped out' for a couple naps/night-times until he fell asleep. We established a routine of reading 2-3 books and then time to sleep. After 2-3 days I told him I had to leave for a while but I would come back and check on him and he fell right asleep, and not too many problems since. I also used a baby gate in his doorway so he could see out but couldn't get out.

Good luck to you! I am now trying to figure out how to transition #2 (19 months now) out of the crib and in big brother's room (they will share) in time for baby #3, due late March. I always over-worry about these kinds of things and find that when we actually do make the transition its never as bad as I thought!