Smooth Transition to a Toddler Bed

When we transitioned our older son to a toddler bed, we first set it up next to his crib and let him play on it and we would read bedtime stories on it before putting him to sleep in his crib. After a few days we let him decide if he wanted to take his nap in the crib or in his new bed. I thought it would take a while, but after only a few days he insisted on sleeping in his new bed at bedtime and he only fell out of bed twice (and never woke up when he fell, either).
Good luck!

talk to him about it. he's plenty old enough to understand. ask him if he's ready to be a BIG BOY, and play up how big he's getting. maybe go pick out some sheets together for his BIG BOY BED. make sure he understands that he will have to act like a big boy, and stay in his bed once it's bedtime. once you have it, let him play on/in it, get his favorite toys, maybe even get him a new stuffed animal, that "only" sleeps in big boy beds.

We recently transitioned our 3-year-old to her bed because she was climbing out of the crib all the time and was getting seriously too big for it anyway. We just talked up the big girl bed like mommy and daddy's bed and made it into a big deal. We wanted her to be excited. She saw the bed get delivered and then I set it all up with cute pillows and such before she saw it in her room. We put a bed railing up on one side so she wouldn't fall out.

There have been no problems with adjusting to the bed other than she keeps hoping out of it. But she was doing this with the crib anyway. We also put up childproof covers on her bedroom doorknob and that worked for awhile to keep her contained in her room. She's recently learned how to break them off. On to finding the next solution...

LOL we just put our daughter in a toddler bed for the first time last night. She is 2.5 too, she never tried to climb out and she LOVED her crib, but she was getting to tall for it. She did ok the first night, but she was exhausted because she had been up since 2:30 A.M the night before with food poisoning. :( We tried nap time and it scared her for some reason. I laid down in the floor and she stayed in the bed she finally did go to sleep. I will be watching your post to see if I can glean some good idea's too! I did notice that if she had the EXACT things in her bed that she did in the crib she was more comfortable with it.

you encourage him like anything else hes a big boy and he sleeps in a big boy bed. he will have the same mattress as his crib so i don't see the big deal! the toddler bed take the crib mattress and the only thing is he won't have the sides. he should be fine.