When did you move your baby from cot into bed and how?
My DD is nearly 16 months and I am 11 weeks pregnant. I am wanting to have her well and truely out of her cot before the new baby arrives so she doesn't feel like she has been kicked out and the new baby has stolen her bed.
I am thinking I would move the bed into her bedroom with her cot and then she has the option of sleeping in both. Perhaps when I know she is going to have trouble going to sleep, I can put her in her cot, otherwise I can try her in her big bed.
I would love to hear any suggestions and also how you went moving your babies and how old they were at the time.
DS was 2 years, 4 months. We bought another cot when DD came along as he wasnt ready. I started him just with day sleeps. At first i would lay down with him until he fell asleep.. after a couple of days then would sit on the floor.. then next to the door.. then outside the door. If he got up i would just lay him back down. It worked. I did the same when he started at night time.
DD was a week over 2 years. Her cot turned into a toddler bed so we just took the side off. First night i didnt let her have a day sleep, so she fell asleep on the lounge that night and we carried her in bed. The next night we put her to bed. She came out once and we put her straight back and shes stayed there since. I think she is a little older in the head and understands it a bit more than DS did when we started him. But in saying that also, DS always wanted to be rocked to sleep as a baby whereas DD prefered to self settle from day dot.
I guess its a little different if you want to get your DD out of the cot before bubs comes, but moving them when they are ready is usually the easiest way. But if thats not the case.. i found the process i used with DS to work well.
Last edited by ShootingStar; September 22nd, 2010 at 03:50 PM.
With dd1 at 18 months , she was climbing out of her cot. We took the side off her cot at first so she got used to it then she went into a toddler bed. We put blankets beside the bed incase she fell out. It took a few weeks once she was in it for her not to open her door and come out.
With DD2 it's been easy, we set up her bed at 14 months in case ds came early, she just started sleeping in it straight away instead of the cot which was in her room too.
She sometimes sleeps on the floor but it's her choice, she bundles the doona under herself.
DD1 was 15mths when DD2 was born but we kept her in the cot while DD2 was in the bassinette and until we moved house.
We put down her matress at the new house and spent some w/ends here with her sleeping in her bed (mattress on the floor).
She loved it, she only got up out of her bed maybe twice (incl day sleeps) and when we moved she was more than happy to sleep in her big girl bed with her pretty sheets, a couple of months later we put her in an actual bed, she has never needed side rails as she was already aware of the mattress boundaries.
Each child is different, some kids love the space and being able to move around without banging on wooden edges etc, others find the never ending amount of space a little daunting.
try the mattress on the floor first if you can, maybe even with her cot mattress, then the single bed mattress then the bed IYKWIM... GL with it all
DS was 1 month away from 2 and honestly, all we did was take the cot down, put the bed up and away he went!
We did make it fun with buying him a racing car bed that he picked out and some thomas linen, so he was more than happy to sleep in his car bed. I really think this helped in such a smooth transition.
We had the new bed and the old cot in her room for a while, she only slept in the cot for about 2-3 weeks then one day decided she wanted to sleep in the bed and since then she has been in the bed. She was around 15 mths old, DS was born 2 mths later and by then she had transitioned night sleep as well, about 2 weeks after the day sleeps. This worked for us but now that I am going to do the same thing for DS I am thinking that a straight swap is going to suit him better so in the next month or so we will get her a new bed and he will get her old one and the cot will go (*sob**) Good luck - it is tricky working it all out but you have loads of time on hand to get her settled! Maybe get her to choose some nice new covers or something as well.
my son was prob 19 months old when we did and we made sure it was all equppied with safety gear before we did it... we did it early cause he never slept in his cot at all always with us so it was the best option for all of us...
only down fall is now his 3 nearly 4 he is back in with us and doesnt see the difference between our bed and his own... pain in the back side but once we move his going back into his bed and his own room (i hope)
We co-slept for the first 13 months, and then had her on a floor bed (ie. mattress on the floor) from 13 months (co-sleeping sometimes).
We moved Jazz to a bed in April, so she was ... 20 months I think, almost 20 months. We bought a bunk bed that could be separated in to two single beds, and we use the top bunk as her bed because it has the inbuilt rails all around (Jazz is a bit of a sleep-crawler, even now!). It feels more and more like the right decision, because once we have this new bub, and the bub is old enough to go into a single, Jazz can have the other single (which looks exactly the same, but the bed head is a bit bigger, so more like a 'big girls bed' ) and new bub can have the 'safe' bed.
She helped us put it up, and we just ended up putting her in it. There was only a little bit of hesitation in the first week, and has slept in it bar the odd occasion where she is in with us. Probably helped that she never slept in the cot anyway so there wasn't a HUGE difference. Plus I did (do) still feed to sleep most nights now anyway so I just put her in there asleep, she sleeps all night now WOOHOO and wakes in the morning, which makes the whole thing incredibley easy.
we moved house the week ds turned 2, and set the cot up in one room, knowingfull well i was pregnant and set his brand new special bed in his room and that is where he slept.
it did help that due to how poor a sleeper he was i got a king single so mum or dad could fit.
lol he didn't realise he could get out of it for a couple of months!
When did you move your baby from cot into bed and how?
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) and new bub can have the 'safe' bed. 
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