Well we have just lay-by'd a big girl bed for DD in preparation for the new bub taking her cot, and was wondering if you ladies had any advice for me on how to make the transition as smooth as possible?
We can actually take the sides of her cot and make it a toddler bed... do you think we should bother with this? Or just go straight to the bed?
Also, we are contemplating moving bedrooms? What are your thoughts on this?
we moved DD into a new room and big bed all in one! it wasnt the easiest but she is a creature of habit and wasnt as addaptable to change, cried for her cot etc..but she did get used to it! i had two bed rails down the exposed side to stop her getting out, which worked well for a few months!
she was just over 2yrs when we did it
Max had a cot where the sides came off and I did remove them prior to him being in his big boy bed here and I do think it helped a little. I had a rail on the side though.
As far as moving rooms goes, we moved countries and Max transitioned really well.
I guess he was used to having no cot rails so didn't have any trouble going from little toddler bed with guard rail thingo (Target one I think) to new room in new big boy bed, with guard rail thingo
He'd been moved around sleeping in hotel beds etc. so he's pretty adaptable at the best of times. So I guess my advice is do try and take the cot rails off first. You will soon know whether Tahlia enjoys the security of the cot.
A friend of mine who just had her second baby tried to transition her DD1 a while back and she hated a bed....so I leant her Max's cot I guess they are all different, so try anything I say!
I'm also interested to see what others recommend too. We are also in the process of transitioning our almost 18months son into a bed- for same reason, next baby due in February.
So far for us- we bought a themed bed (single)- which we found our son seemed keen to get on the display one in the shop and even lay his head on the pillow. We've had the bed for 2 weeks now, the 1st week he was sick, so only started using it last weekend. We've just been doing his day sleep in there- just to get him use to it and not scare when he wakes up. He has been ok most days, but there was a couple of days where he would wake earlier then he should've, and wouldn't go back to sleep in his bed, just kinda played. But once in his cot, (we have both cot and bed in the room, which is a little squishy but works) he was back to sleep rather quickly. So i figure from this we'll keep doing the day sleeps only for a few more weeks, until we are ready to go a night time trial (which we'll obviously do on a weekend where DH and I can share getting up, then probably catch up on sleep the next day).
Our back up plan if need be will be to use the portacot for new baby for a little while, as figure any problems we may have could be alot to do with Cam being still young, so he may need that little more time to adjust.
We also had to decide whether to move him into the other room, but decided not too, cause he knows that room as his and I didn't want to confuse him anymore then need be.
Good luck...hope you it all works out for us both. Will keep an eye on this thread to see how you go.
Last edited by Frangipani; November 15th, 2009 at 08:51 PM.
: forgot something
With both girls, we just set up the bed and put them in it. No fussing around about it, we just did it. Nina was 15 months, Emily was 17 months. With Nina, I was pg with Emily so I took the cot out of her room and put it in the baby's room so she knew why. With Emily, the cot is still in her room, but she sleeps fine in her bed.
Kellie, you have the luxury of time to get T used to the idea before you will need the cot for #2 LOL.
Julia, I like the idea of removing the cot sides. I hadn't thought about that. Did you find Max was able to get out of bed and then go wandering around the house? What do you do?
We have a Thomas the Tank quilt cover waiting to go on his bed when the time comes. Got to do it soon tho as Immi is getting big and will be wanting the cot for herself.
Kellie - I came on to start a thread about the same thing.....Rhys has both his cot and big boy bed in his room at the moment but come this weekend we are just going to take the cot out of his room and put him in his bed. He plays on it and takes his bottle in there and lays on it and drinks it so I think he is hinting that he is ready.
We'll be doing the move soon, so no help really, but I'd be interested to see how you go! We also have a cot that the side comes off, but I don't think it will fit a safety rail, so I'll think we'll just go to a big bed. A friend from mother's group has had some success with doing it gradually - so her DD started with day sleeps in there and then when she was sleeping well, the idea was to move her to the bed, but I don't think they've moved her yet. I think we'll just have to go cold turkey because a bed won't fit in with the cot still there! Not sure how we'll go! Maybe I'll do it over xmas when DH is off, so we can both be there to deal with it and not wory about havig to get up for work.
Saffi/Kellie When I first took the cot rails off I slept on the floor in Max's room to make sure he didn't get out. Easy though as I wasn't preggo then! He really is a pretty good kid so just explaining to him that he is not to get out of his bed in the middle of the night, but to call Mummy if he needs anything worked for us.
I guess it was kind of an easy transition for us because Max HATED his cot and would sleep better on the spare bed, that was the only reason I got him out of it.
I havent read all the replies so sorry if I dont offer anything new! Here's what we did -DD was 19mths old.
She was moving rooms and moving into a bed, so we took her shopping to buy new sheets/doona etc and made a big deal of it. Then set her new room up over a few weeks, and would talk about her "big girl bed in her big girl room" and go in there and read stories etc sometimes.
Then when it came time to sleep in there we put her cot in the room to help her transition - but she just wanted to sleep in the bed! So that was it - no dramas
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Transitioning from cot to bed
and Max transitioned really well.
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