Toddler Bed - Manassas,VA

My son didn't crawl out of his crib ever, I guess I was lucky, but around the age of 2 1/2 we switched his crib to a toddler bed anyway. He liked it much better, and would actually call for us and ask if it was okay for him to get out. Good Luck.

I say put him in a toddler bed. It's safer and he will just have to learn to stay in his room and/or bed. I transitioned my 2 older DD into a toddler bed around 20-22 months. My son is 22 months and we'll be taking him from the crib pretty soon. He's growing up and becoming more independent and isn't a baby anymore.

You may want to try a crib tent. I hear they work wonders. My 2.5 year old girl has yet to attempt to climb out...in fact, I think she loves to be in there that she doesn't even need to try and get out. We're planning on transitioning to a twin sometime next year or so. No rush to take her out yet. We also have a lifetime crib but I think we'll go straight to the twin and skip the toddler set up.

I would say that's its time. He's becoming a Big Boy. My 1 1/2 yr old is on the verge but he doesn't have the courage to shift his weight over the side just yet.

Short and sweet: Switch him to the toddler bed.

Hi J. - Our son is 2 1/2 and we just put him in a toddler bed (we got a cute one at IKEA). We put one side against the wall and the other side has a removable side piece to keep him from falling out. He can get in and out by himself so bedtime is different now (we have to chase him back to bed a few times in the beginnning) but he loves the big boy bed!

You pretty much answered your own question. If he can climb out of the crib, what good is it? And yes, he could injure himself in the process. So it is time to change to the toddler bed.

L.

If he is climbing out then it is time to switch! My first son moved to a toddler bed right around age 2 because we needed the crib for our second child. Our second son moved at about 18 months. I think that was because he shared a room with his brother and wanted to be like him and was always trying to climb out. With both of our children we got them new toddler bedding to help ease the transition. They both did fine. We did have some later bedtimes at first because they both relished the freedom once they realized they could get up. In my case, I just let them stay up until they went to sleep and it only took a couple of days before they stayed in bed. With my older one I did try to keep him in bed at first(kept taking him back to bed, stayed in the room, etc) and it made things worse. Just be careful when you go in the room to check on him as my older one fell asleep in front of the door a couple of times. If needed you could put one of those child door knob protector things on if he keeps trying to leave the room. I would recommend that you don't make the transition until you have a couple of days ahead where you don't have too much scheduled. In case he does take awhile to go to sleep then you won't be rushed to get him to take pictures or something the next day.

Your son is ready for a toddler bed. AF

It all depends on your child. Most move to a toddler bed anywhere from 18mo.- 3yrs. I generally base it on when your child either starts jumping out of the crib or asks to stop using a crib or is too big for the crib. Basically you don't have to use a toddler bed at all so the longer you wait the better off you are because if you wait until about 3yrs old you can go directly to a twin bed and that's cheaper. But some children jump out the crib and you wouldn't want that to happen to often. So moving to a toddler bed is a solution. But if you have a child who stands in the crib and yells you will prob. have a child who also stands at the door and yells. What you do need to plan for is a child who is going to get up over and over in one night and having to stay calm and put them back into bed. They have never had the option of getting up and you have to be calm about saying "It's bed time, Stay in bed until i come back" Not yelling. You might have to do this 5 times in one evening and it could happen every night for a week. You just need to keep at it. Don't stay in and sing to sleep or pat to sleep or anything. Don't stay in the room if you start you will have trouble stopping. No need to start something you don't want to do until they are 10yrs old..lol Good luck

I think that as soon as a kid can climb out of a crib, they're ready. Think about it this way: Consider the distance from the top of a raised crib rail to the floor. That's not far for an adult, but for a small child who's falling, it's quite a distance. And not to be too scary but just to be realistic: I have a friend whose toddler was climbing out of her crib, fell to the floor and broke her arm. She was OK, after the inevitable cast etc., but it could have been her head she landed on instead of her arm. Yes, he'll get out of the new bed for a long while just because he can; you'll have to start new routines to get him back to bed. But that beats a trip to the emergency room.

My daughter started crawling out of her crib at 18 months old and so I IMMEDIATELY (like the next day) made her crib into her "big girl bed" complete with Dora sheets, blanket, etc. (We also have one of those cribs that turns from a crib, to a toddler bed to a double bed headboard). But, YES, her pediatrician told me that it was a good idea. Because once they start crawling out...it means they are ready for a toddler bed and you don't want them to seriously hurt themselves. The crib tents are nice IF they fit on your crib....we bought one to actually keep out cat out of the crib and the way the crib was made (it was a solid "headboard" in the back of the crib with no slats) and so the tent wouldn't work with the crib the way it was designed. But yes, your little one is growing up and out of the crib now. :-)

Yes! Do it now before he gets hurt. We did it at 2 1/2 and our son did just fine. Make sure there's a gate on his bedroom door, if you don't want him to get out (fall down stairs in the middle of the night if he gets up, etc.)
Good luck!

Hi J.,

He's 2 1/2. I think that he's old enough. If they are anything like my girlfriends kids bed, it should have a safety side to prevent them from falling out, but the beds are so close to the floor they wouldn't hurt themselves. Her son has been sleeping in the big boy bed (that's what we call it)since he was 2 and has done a great job at it. So I don't think It would be a problem transitioning him from the crib to the kids bed.

We switched my son when he was just over 2 years old. We made sure the room was very child proofed, and we left the crib up so that he could always choose to go back to it if he wanted (and we put him in it if we needed to keep him secure.) He took to the toddler bed right away, and I think we only used the crib from time to time for another month or so--we made the rule that if he got out of bed more than twice, he had to spend the rest of the night (or nap) in the crib. He really wanted to stay in the bed, so it didn't take too long for him to get the idea.

Hi,
our daughter started climbing out at 17 months! so we just removed one side of the crib and she now has a modified day bed...just so she can get used to being in an "open" bed. if you are worried about your child falling out you can get a little guard for the open side!
she has only fallen twice and got up and put herself back to sleep!
good luck!

J.,
It sounds like it is time to switch him. Our pediatrician said to switch our daughter when she either climbed out of the crib, was potty trained, or turned 3, whichever came first.

Best of luck!

If he's climbing out of the crib - he's ready for the conversion from crib to toddler bed. If memory serves me well, toddler bed's are not as high as regular beds, so no worries if he should roll out. Perhaps you can install bed rails until he's acclimated to the boundaries of the bed. Good luck!!

Hi J.!

We had one of the lifetime beds for our son, but had to buy him a toddler bed so we could use that crib for our new baby girl. We bought him a Cars toddler bed. I really like it, it's very low to the ground and uses a crib mattress. The way it's made, the mattress sinks down into the bed, so it is very unlikely that he will fall out, but he does bang his knees, elbows and head into the sides of it from time to time because of the way it is made. All in all, it was a great investment and we did it at 2 1/2 years also. I included a link to the bed so you can check it out. Good luck! http://www.target.com/Toddler-Disneys-Delta-Childrens-Pro...

My kids were about 2 when I put them in toddler beds. If your little one is climbing out, I'd say switch....rather have to "teach" him to stay in his "big boy bed" than have him fall climbing out.

J.,
I have a daughter who will be 2 in May and she has been climbing out of her since about January, instead of turning her crib into a toddler bed, i dont like how it turns into a toddler bad, kinda shaky, we lowered the matteress as low as it would go and we leave the side of her crib down so it is more like a bed rail. We are going to be moving the end of this month and we are seriously looking into ocnverting her crib into the full size. I have to get the pieces and amttress to do so but we are going to skip the toddler bed all together just put bedrails on the full size. Hope this helps.

We have the same type of crib and we just converted to the toddler bed for my 18mo son. It's really just a matter of the individual child. My older son also went into a toddler bed at about 18mo. I just made sure that the dresser is anchored to the wall, the outlets are covered, there's nothing he can hurt himself with if he's playing unsupervised in his room in the middle of the night and we installed a hardware mounted gate in his door frame so he can't pull it down on himself if he tries to climb it. It's also too tall for him to make it over on his own.

He fell out of bed once, but didn't get hurt since the convertible cribs' toddler bed height setting is so low, no need for a bed rail. He hasn't fallen out again, but sometimes I check on him and see that he's sleeping with his feet on the floor and his torso on the bed. Kinda cute, but I'm sure he'll outgrow it.

Just do what feels right for you, but my own opinion is that your son is fully old enough for a toddler bed.

I would say he is ready if he is climbing out of his crib. I switched my son when he turned two with no problems. Good luck!

My son is 23 months and has started doing the same thing. What we did is take the mattress support out of the bottom and dropped his mattress to the floor (this only works if your crib is low enough to the ground that there isn't a gap between the mattress and the bottom of the crib) if your little one is a crazy climber like mine is, he'll figure that out too... in which case, crib tents are awesome!! We have the original crib tent (the crib tent 2 sucks because it has mesh all around and it's so hard to get the mattress out to change the sheets). My husband and I were really uncomfortable with him in a bed because he just isn't ready, so we tried the tent and my son LOVES it! He even asks to go to sleep so he can sleep in his "tent". We reinforced the velcro the velcro on it so he can't pull the velcro off (he figured out how to do that in like 2 seconds) and once we did it's been smooth sailing! Good luck!

I think it's time to switch. I second the baby gate on the door idea so they aren't wandering.

We kept our boys (twins) in their cribs until they were 3 1/2. They started climbing out of their cribs when they were about 2 1/2. We asked for advise from other moms and soooo many recommended crib tents. We looked into it and after convincing the boys it was like camping, we put them on and gained another year of safety in the cribs. I thoroughly recommend them. The boys cried a couple times at first since they couldn't get out but after 2 weeks we didn't even zip them all the time, and we had no more climbing out.
Our decision was made since we didn't think they were quite ready to be in 'big boy beds'. It's hard enough to switch them to beds when it does happen since they now think they can just get up and wander, etc when they should be napping. So we were trying to buy some time until they were just a bit older and therefore just a bit more ready to deal with learning to stay in their bed.

Just a note, they figured out how to unzip the tents from the inside, so we had to safety pin the zip part on the outside. They couldn't touch the pin so all was safe.
Good luck!

I would definitely say he is ready. If he can climb out he is ready. He could also get hurt. We have the same kind of bed for our son. We have switched him over and he is doing great. We did have to do one thing though because our son likes to lay up against the sides of the bed and the front is now open (it's like a day bed). We bought a bed rail at Babies R Us. It keeps him from rolling out at night, and he can get out of it safely now because it is lower and the rail allows for a small opening for him to get in and out of the bed. I hope that this helps you.

It definitely depends on the child, but we switched my son to a twin bed when he was 17 mos, so that we could use his crib for his baby sister. We started with the mattress on the floor, more for Mommy's comfort than anything else. That's about the height of a toddler bed, so when he fell out it was really a non-issue. I didn't even put pillows next to the bed. We moved him to the actual twin bed (with rails) about a week later, and it was a really, really smooth transition. One thing I recommend is putting a baby gate up at the door to your child's room, so you don't have to lock him in (that always gives me eebie jeebies) but you also don't have to worry about him wandering around the house unattended. If he wants you, he'll likely just holler for you at the baby gate, LOL!

It won't hurt to try the toddler bed. If it doesn't work, put the side rail back on and get a crib tent. But there's only one way to find out if he's ready! ;) Good luck!

I have 2 boys, now 5 and 8. Once they are able to crawl out of their crib (assuming you already have the crib mattress in the lowest position), you should definitely switch them to a toddler bed in order to prevent a fall injury. Your toddler bed may already have a "rail" to keep them from rolling out of bed in the middle of the night or you can purchase one. That is if the child needs it for an extra sense of "security". They will still be able to get in and out without hurting themselves and you don't need a rail at toddler bed height if you don't want one. However, switching them to a toddler bed means that they can "escape" their bedroom. You will have to thoroughly "childproof" their bedroom, make sure furniture is secured (if they decide to scale their dresser, for example), no choking hazards left out, etc. You can also put up a baby gate in their doorway so they can see out of their room, but not get out. You'll have to have one tall enough they can't climb out. Make a BIG deal about switching to a "big boy" bed and maybe let him pick out some cool "big boy" bedding! Hope this helps.

S.

When my daughter was 2 she was in a toddler bed. I used to be afraid of her falling out of it, but it was low enough to where she couldn't hurt herself with the fall. But I used to always surround the floor with pillows just in case. She never did fall out of it, but being paranoid, I did it to make me feel better. She is 6 now, so we are ok. My son is 2 1/2 and he has been in his toddler bed for several months now. He has not yet fallen off of it. He gets out of the bed pretty often, but he seems to like it. Every child is different. If he is bold enough to try to climb out of the crib, you are pretty much ready to make the switch. Toddler beds are pretty low to the ground, so don't worry.