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Soon we will be introducing DD into a big bed (when i get a mattress on the weekend).
Wondering what you did to make the transition smooth?
At the moment she is in a portacot and we shut the door...
(at this exact moment her mattress is on the floor with the door shut)...
When she is in her bed should i have the door open? or will this just encourage her to wander and not sleep as she isnt restricted?
We left the doors open when our older two went into big beds for the first time. They panicked if it was shut tight. Also their rooms were quite a distance from ours and I wanted to be able to hear them if they cried. They didn't generally wander... they would sometimes come into our room to sleep but that was/is ok... we wanted them to feel safe and able to access us. Also I would worry that if their door was shut and there was an emergency then they'd be reliant on someone letting them out as our doors have very high old fashioned handles. I's a tricky one... if their room was closer to ours and they were prone to wander I guess we'd have to shut them.
We've always had the doors shut, and continued to do so as this is what Nina was used to. If we left them open, especially at night, she'd never sleep. She's never been distressed that the door is shut. When she wakes up, she has a little play, then knocks on the door and calls out to me.
mmm our rooms are quite close - perhaps i leave our door open to hear her once the monitor is in #2's room.
Jodi how old was nina when she went into a big bed..
Also atm DD sleeps in a sleeping bag.. i am worried about this with a big bed - ie getting in and out..
We shut DD as when she was in a cot it was always closed aswell, she doesnt mind at all and is the same as Jodi's DD she will wake have a play and then bang on the door when shes ready to exit! my DD is almost 21mnths and has been in a big bed since 16mths
goodluck i hope all goes well
I shut the door... Annika will not sleep with the door open
I tried shutting til she drifted off then opening when i went to bed.. only to wake up a few mornings with the house a bit trashed and someone asleep on the lounge :rolleyes:
thanks Blanche
and lol Nessa. i have a feeling this is exactly how i would find our house lol
Well she is on the floor atm asleep so will see what she does wheen she wakes up.
I wonder if i should take the portacot away for a while and have her on the mattress on the floor.
But then will she get confsued going up in height??
We pull the door to for DS but not in its frame if that makes any sense and this way he can get himself out if necessary. When we first (successfully) transitioned i taught him that when he got up in the morning the first thing he does is come and find me...i was/still am sleep deprived so wasn't always hearing him...we used a reward chart & treats and this was when he was around 26 months
Nina was 15 months when she went into a big bed.
I think it's best to go straight into the big bed from cot. We made a big deal out of her being a big girl now, and she needs a big bed. And that the baby was having the cot. She helped us rearrange the beds and also helped choose her bedding.
Try and make it fun for her.
I close the door but not all the way. I prop it open with a shoe, and it means that while it keeps his room dark, he can come out and find us if he's had a bad dream or is distressed.
The past 2 days i have put the mattress onthe floor - as DD will also be starting Daycare tomorrow and this is how they sleep - no cots.
Yesterday she was half asleep and didnt mind
Today - i have put her in there and closed the door . There was 10 minutes of wall bashing and crying and now is all quiet... want to peek to see if she climbed onto the mattress or not but dont want to wake her lol
I have never shut the kids doors but thats because they never liked it..
If you normally shut the door then I would continue to do so..
If you don't want her wandering at night or early morning I wuld suggest a gate or some sort of barricade across the door.. Thats what we did
I hope she is asleep for you..
lol aussie... i went to check on her and i couldnt open the door. all i could see what a foot. so i snuck the camera in the take a photo so i can see and she is alseep on the floor hugging pooh bear at the door... oooh i have moved her now onto her mattress.
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...php?photo=8795
heheh My neice did that once.. But it was all night :lol: SIL wasn't able to get into the room without her waking.. Was so funny and cute!!
HI,
My eldest niece transitioned to a bed quite well, but after a few months when she became more confident at getting out of bed she started roaming the house at night. she didn't trash the place or go to sleep in the loungeroom. My sister would just wake in the middle of the night, (a bit of mums intuition) and find her sitting in corners by herself in the dark. It all sounds a little evil really, but to stop my niece from wondering she kept the door open but put a saftey gate on the bedroom door so my niece if awake at least had to stay in her room, but the door was still open so my sis could hear her.
we have always shut the door to the boys room and they have been fine with it we have a nite light in there and they listen to a tape while they go to sleep but they know they only come out to go to the toilet
we propped the door open with the tigers paw.... :lol: yes DD#1 has an almost life sized toy tiger so his paw worked a treat. We've transitioned to a shoe as we've moved her bed around so there really isn't much space for the poor tiger anymore, hehe.
I kept the door open probably more so for me as we had just moved house so wanted her to feel she wasn't shut away in a strange place iykwim? (we shut her door at our old house) and so I could hear her but we taught her from the beginning that she was allowed to call out (our rooms aren't too far apart) although she didn't go into her big bed til 2&1/2 - the cot converted into a single bed with side rails.
Am having to remind her that I want her to stay in bed til I get her up as I am finding her sitting on the lounge with a book but its so dark she can't see anything!:D I mainly want her to stay in her room as its freezing in the lounge first thing in the morning! But she does know that she can come out to go to the toilet.
We never shut the door to the girls room.... not all the way. BUT Jovie goes to sleep with us in the room, and Matilda goes to sleep holding my hand.
DD went into her toddler bed on her 2nd birthday and she wears a sleeping bag with legs in case she needs to get up and walk. We leave her door ajar but we always have as we don't have a monitor. She has only got herself out of bed twice in 6 months - the rest of the time she will call out to me to come and get her, even in the mornings!
I think if you normally close the door then keep doing what you normally would as that is what she is used to.
thanks girls... i might have both set up in the room so she can get used to the bed slowly.. rather than popping her straight in there!
I have never liked closing DD's door except for day time sleeps, I like to be able to hear her in the night and I found the monitor became too distracting overnight, We put DD in her big bed just before she turned two and we used a safety gate in the door way just until she started sleeping through the night fully in the bed which was just after her 2nd birthday, now she pretty much stays in bed and has only on a couple of occasions come to find us in our room when she usually hops in with us.
Pink, I don't know if the informaiton below will help you but I posted this last year for another mum.
BTW - We don't close doors in our house but my SIL does and it works for her.
I went through this a few months ago and it took a good month for DD to settle properly into her new bed. Good to see you are doing this now before you get too big and can't move!! I decided to transition DD in my second trimester and I am so glad I did.
One big mistake I made was to try and get DD to sleep in her big bed during the day and then put her in the cot at night. I did this for 3weeks and every day time sleep was hell. I eventually got rid of the cot and she transitioned within a week.
Tips
Be consistant
Tell her before bed that she is going to her big bed to sleep
Prep room for sleep - draw curtains, take bubs shoes off, put music on etc ( do this every sleep time)
Tell DD to hop up on bed and put her head down on the pillow
Say to her "It is time for sleep"
Rub/pat her if need be (only till she is calm)
ok now the tricky bit.....your dd may not want to stay on bed....my dd got up constantly and this was the hard part!!!!! This is what I did :
Sit beside the bed on a pillow with my back to DD. Everytime she got up I put her back down and repeated calmly...it is time to sleep. I did not make eye contact and I did not say anything else. This may go on for an hour. DD did end up in tears a few times, but she went to sleep in the end.
After few days I moved myself to the door and waited for DD to settle. Then some days I did not have to sit and wait....now she knows not to get off the bed and she loves her big bed.
Don't forget to make a big deal of your dd after she wakes up from sleeping in the big bed.
Goodluck
I have never shut the bedroom doors. Too paranoid.
When DS was sleeping through the day in our room I'd pull it, but never shut it & only coz our brm is right next to the lounge room.
Both my girls went into a big bed at 13 - 15 months.
Neither of them wandered. If they did it was dark, so they came into our bed. DD2 still does sometimes & DD1 will usually just go on the lounge.
They've never done anything else though.
thanks Bek and bj
I will try your transition techniques.
I was thinking of getting her used to getting in and out for a week or 2 then trying to sleep - ie take away the portacot then?