Putting the Crib to Sleep
Posted on June 25th, 2008 – 11:35 AMBy Kay Krhin
Oh, this guest post from colleague, Will Martin, couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. We are making the crib to bed transition with Ben soon too. Although he has yet to try to jump the crib, his legs dangle out through the rails and he’s just too big for it now. Read on how Will’s transition with daughter, Emma, is going and share your tips too.
At what point is it time to move your toddler from crib to bed, and how can you ease the transition of that sometimes-difficult move? It’s a question that all parents have to tackle at some point.
For my wife and I, it was midnight when the restlessness of our 2-year-old daughter turned into a full-blown tantrum. We turned to the trusty combo of milk, Mickey and blankie, but there were no takers. She responded with a ninja-style flip out of the crib, which she nearly landed (with no prior martial arts experience). A few hours later, including a 2 a.m. car ride in my boxer-briefs (T.M.I.), Emma fell asleep, and my wife and I concluded: jumping out of the crib equals no more crib.
We tracked down a twin bed and filled her room, which she’s been in for a week now, with fun and inexpensive IKEA accessories. The transition has been easy some nights and tougher others. Her latest bedtime strategy includes requests such as:
“Dada lay on floor.”
“Dada lay head down.”
“Dada sleep.”
She actually patted me on the head and said “good job” the other night after I had completed my tasks. This process usually takes about an hour before she finally drifts off. We want to lessen that.
We have dark shades to block out the late summer light, a nightlight and a fleet of stuffed animals standing at the ready, which seam to help a bit. We’re trying to regulate her sleep schedule more, but that can be tough when she’s in daycare.
We may also add some music to the mix, Coldplay perhaps?, but any additional suggestions would be great.
Here is an article from Parents magazine with tips on the transition, but please share any additional hints that worked for you.
21 Responses to "Putting the Crib to Sleep"
Wow, I guess we got off easy. We had no problems transitioning our daughter when she was two, and her transition included moving her out of her crib AND into a new room. We let her pick out her bed and bedding at IKEA, and then we surprised her with the outfitted room all set up on her second birthday. We made the new room a celebration, and she wanted to sleep in it right away. We put a gate up in her door at night so that we could keep her door open. She never wanted to go back to the crib or her old room, not even when her little brother took it over later.
We had a transition plan that we never needed. Maybe this would help for you, but I can’t say it’s been tried and tested in our house. We were going to allow the crib to be in her room next to her bed so that she could choose the crib if needed. If your daughter can hurdle out of the crib, that might not a safe option, though. Would it help to allow her to use the crib mattress on the floor instead of her new bed? Maybe that would ease the transition a bit.
I’ll be watching the comments closely on this post. We have a young one who I suspect will not transition to a bed as easily as his sister did.
Transition is hard on toddlers - just getting my 2 (almost 3 year old) to wear short sleeves for summer is a difficult task!
We didn’t want the switch to a bed to be a power struggle, so we also gave him the choice of his crib or the bed - leaving both up for over a month before we took the crib down. He only chose the crib 2 times. I still kept the baby monitor in his room, and ran in at the first peep to make sure he was okay.
I have a post on my blog about it:
http://missymarketingmama.blogspot.com/2007/10/big-boy-bed-and-pumpkin-patch-pictures.html
Missy - us too! Our nearly-2-year-old still insists on putting on his sweatsuit jacket (and sometimes his winter hat and gloves) before he goes outside.
Our son’s transition has been from our bed (not our crib) to his own bed. But I think it’s a similar challenge. Last December, anticipating the birth of our second child (and watching him nearly fall off our big bed a time or two), we decided to put his crib mattress on the floor of our bedroom and move him there. He fell asleep there as long as one of us was lying next to him, but sometimes he ended up back in our bed in the middle of the night. Then a deep freeze hit, and it was so cold in that corner of the room that we just brought him back with us more or less for good.
We tried again when I started chemo just over a month ago - I was advised that my body fluids (including possible night sweating) would be toxic enough to be harmful for a child sleeping next to me, so to be safe, we moved our son again. This time, it was to a twin-sized futon we set up in his nursery, next to his brother’s crib. Again, he’d only go to sleep with a parent (a.k.a. daddy) next to him, but this time, the transition seemed to stick. (Yahoo!) I think the key was having his dad next to him.
Now he has a toddler bed in there, and although he still needs mom or dad there to get to sleep, he does fine on it and wakes up there in the morning - not in our bed. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that. I loved sleeping with him.)
Music is a great idea! I made a cd of “lullaby” music-really it was a mix of multiple artists from Paul Simon to Faith Hill. I played that cd every night and every naptime since my daughter was born. It has been our best sleep aide. When she started waking in the middle of the night again around 14 mos. old, I would just go in, make sure she had her blankie and turn on the cd. She knew the cd meant sleep time and it’s worked every time. I would recommed choosing some calming music and including her in the process. Tell her the music is to help her fall asleep and have her start the cd before she crawls into bed. This might help her connect with the bedtime process. I also let my daughter turn off the light now and she loves being the person in charge of the routine. Hope this helps!
We use a white-noise machine for our 19-month old at naps and at bedtime. Its part of the routine now, and it helps keep him from waking up if we’re walking around. We made a big deal out of moving him from his nursery to his “new room”, and told him how cool the room is, etc. Anytime we have guests we tell the little guy to show off his new room, and he goes running. He’s very proud of it. We’ll be moving him to a big boy bed soon and plan to do the same - take the crib out completely and make a big deal about his “new bed”. It depends on the child though, our son is very adaptable when it comes to sleeping, so I don’t anticipate any problems.
We co-slept with our daughter and once we began to feel crowded we put a extra single bed next to our bed to make it bigger. Once she turned two we moved the single bed into her room and stayed with her until she fell asleep. It was a super easy transition for her. Our only problem now is that she dosn’t want to take her naps anymore. She seems fine most days with out the naps and goes to bed early and sleeps in so she seems to be getting enough sleep. But she seems a little young (2.5mo.) to be giving up the naps. Any ideas?
We tried the crib and big girl bed in our daughters room for a bit, giving her the choice of where to sleep, and then just took down the crib and really played up the big girl bed. The first night there were a few tears but then she was proud of herself for sleeping in the big girl bed. Our other key to bedtime with our 2 year old is complete routine. We do everything the same each night and if we miss something she is sure to tell us. Bedtime is not always perfect, sometimes there are tears or cries for us to return, but we can generally remind her that it is bedtime and we have read stories, her music is on, etc. and she will settle down. Good luck.
We did a sticker chart when my son was just over 2 and transitioning into his ‘big boy bed.’ For every night that he stayed in his bed, and didn’t need us in the room, he got a sticker in the morning. At first, he got a special toy after 5 stickers, then we moved it to 7, and then to 10. After the first few sets of 5, we only gave him a sticker when he remembered to ask for it. I would say it took about 4-5 weeks before we were done with the stickers/rewards, but the bedtime routine fell into place (6 out of 7 nights) after about 2 weeks.
For background noise, we leave the fan on the furnace running, and the bathroom fan near his room, until we go to sleep. That way, we can do those things if are somewhere else and don’t want to bring music/background noise machines along, etc. Good luck!
My son too was a “crib ninja” as you described. One day at 15 mo. he just decided to jump out. No matter how many times you put him back, out he came. So we trying pushing the twin bed up next to the crib, at least this way he didn’t fall all the way to the floor. Shortly this became a fun bouncy toy so we just packed up the crib and into the big bed he went. He didn’t have a problem with sleeping in the bed, just getting him to lay still long enough to fall a sleep. It would often take up to 90 min of laying in there with him for him to finally be asleep. After about a year of trying everything I could think of to get him to sleep on his own I was fed up and a friend gave me a book about training sleep habits. I read the book and although it felt mean we let him cry it out. The first night he cried himself to sleep in a puddle of tears next to the door (and I felt like the worlds worst mom) but by night 3 it worked and he went to sleep on his own.
You know, now that I think about it, I have a friend who told me that she sat next to her daughter’s bed until she fell asleep. The next night she sat there again, but two feet closer to the door. Each night she moved two feet closer to the door until eventually she was no longer in the room, and her daughter was able to fall asleep on her own.
Has anyone else tried that?
Now I’m worried….all these parents staying in the room with their kids until they fall asleep, did you have to do that when they were in the crib too? My son is able to go to sleep on his own (finally, just over the past 1+ month or so) but will that change when we move him to a big kid bed?? Help!
We have always just put my son to into his crib (now bed) and said night night. We do not stay in there. He has learned to go to sleep on his own.
We also switched him to a single bed with rails when he was 18 months due to a pending delivery, and I think because he was so young he did not seem to think it was a big deal. He just loved his elmo bedding.
Megan, this topic sparked a renewed conversation between me and the hubby, and that’s what I was thinking - do it now when they’re younger. It worked with taking away the pacifier (he wasn’t old enough to remember it or even ask for it) so hopefully it would be the same for the big kid bed.
Katrina & Megan, our daughter was able to put herself to sleep in her crib, which is part of what I think made her transition to the bed easier. We have never had to stay with her in her room.
LOL! I almost spit out my coffee reading “She responded with a ninja-style flip out of the crib, which she nearly landed (with no prior martial arts experience).”
I agree that routine really is the key. It’s just figuring out which one will work best in your home… Good luck!
What worries me is them climbing out of the bed at night, or early in the morning. Ugh.
We also are just in the process of this transition, and let our 2 1/2 year old son choose the crib or bed each nap and nighttime. If he chooses the bed but gets out and comes out of his room, then he has to sleep in the bed. We have until October to make this work, so we’re hoping we’ll have him staying in the big boy bed before then. Good luck!
When my son was 20 months old we had the twin bed in his room along with his crib. We played on the bed and read books on it. Then I started giving him naps in it and then he started sleeping in it at bedtime. After a week of him sleeping in the bed at night and bedtime we took the crib apart and put it away. My daughter is currently using the same crib and in a few months we’re putting twin bed in her room and doing the same thing we did with my son.
–Her latest bedtime strategy includes requests such as:
“Dada lay on floor.”
“Dada lay head down.”
“Dada sleep.”
Oh, good, I thought only my child made these commands. “Mommy, close eyes.” “mommy, sing ‘hush little baby’.” “mommy, sleep this way. not that way.” “mommy, stay on floor.”
we have the move-closer-to-the-door thing in our house. our son now falls asleep while his dad sits just outside his open door. doesn’t work for napping. for that, I still need to be in the room, or he gets up and down and up and down and up and down.
in the early morning, our son doesn’t go downstairs, but comes to our bed. that’s good for now, as I’m pregnant and can’t climb over the baby gates anymore. but it’s tough waking up at 6 every morning…
My daughter fell out of her crib at 20 months and broke her arm and that was the end of the crib days for us. She has had a toddler bed with lots of pillows surrounding it. (we were a little paranoid after the arm breaking incident). We do put up a gate at her door. She can bust it down but only when she is really trying. She does not try to climb over it… maybe she is still afraid of falling!! She has been a good sleeper since the begining. She has never slept with us and can not fall asleep when she tries to sleep with us now. She likes to have her door partly closed and her blankies!
