DD's first night in 'big bed' ..any tips?

Elle00

Hiya, my DS is tall so went into a toddler bed at 15m as his cot was no longer safe. Best advice I can give you is only leave a gap wide enough for your DD to get out of at the foot of the bed. I've got a Mothercare number with bedrails round the top plus I use a bedguard down the side. It's then against a wall leaving a space at the end of that side big enough for him to purposely get out of but not fall out of iykwim.

Good idea to already have the stairgate in! I only thought of that when at 17m he worked out how to operate the door handle to his bedroom door and got woken at 5am one morning!

If you think your DD might be getting up some mornings at 6am but you don't want to be disturbed, put a small box of toys in her room. I've made DS's nursery a safe place with the gate across the door and put in a small box of toys plus a load of soft animals to mess around with. He's just had to learn the hard way that he can't get up and play with them until he's been to sleep but the benefit is that if he gets up before I do he has something to do and so doesn't disturb me! If they're in a safe environment I fail to see where the harm is in not going running at silly o'clock in the morning.

With regards to getting up in the night, I'm with Supernanny on this one. Just keep putting them back. I used to always firmly say "bed" the first few times but now when the cheeky sod gets put back he squeaks "bed!" at me when I put him back in; tut, what a monkey. So I say nothing, put him back in and leave. You have to do it often early on and it's frustrating when you just want to eat your dinner and watch Eastenders but needs must and they do learn eventually that there's no point getting up just to be put back in bed.

It took me longer to get my DS to stay put because he was very young when he went into his own bed but now at 21m he tends to be fine. I occasionally have nights of putting him back for the first 20m but mostly he just goes to sleep when he's told and doesn't get up until around the time I do.

Oh one last top tip, don't store anything in reach of the childgate. My son got bored once and pulled all the dirty laundry through his gate piece by piece; that's when I put the toys in then! I also have a slide bolt on the wardrobe and one for the changing table with a ribbon round the cupboard doors at night for extra protection following the incident whereby he emptied the contents of both (you should see the photos I just had to take - it was like he'd been burgaled).

Hope that helps! Sure she'll settle into being a big girl just fine.

halia

wow - you are very brave. I'm nto tackling th ebig bed move until DS grows tall enough to climb out of his cot or tells me he wants to move!

He's finally sleeping through the night at 26 months so as its not broke I ain't fixing it!

(we got a cotbed so there's no worry about him growing out of it lengthwise)

ooo000ooo

When we moved our 3yo into a big bed at 2 we bought him a new quilt cover set (buzz lightyear or bob the builder i think he was really into at the time) bought one of those safety things to stop him falling out of it and turned it into a bit of an adventure for him. We had a few tears at bed time on the first night but nothing since then. We had a safety gate at his door to stop him wandering about.

nats3006

yep mine stays in bed all night like a big boy!!! if he gets up in the middle of the night i will say like things like go to bed and you can watch thomas in the morning and he will smile and get back in bed, soon as he wakes up its mummy put thomas on!!!

amandawilkes

How did it go? We both of our daughters into big beds around their 1st birthdays. I figured that the earlier done the earlier sorted! They were both quite big babies and never really enjoyed a cot (not to mention a MOSES BASKET which we found to be a complete waste of money as they preferred a V pillow on our bed or in the cot when they were small!). My eldest daughter went through the stage of getting out a few times each night but the novelty soon wore off when we kept on saying 'No - bedtime now'. The youngest took to it like a duck to water but we always made a point of letting her see how much sister liked to go into her big girls bed! It is very rare that they get out of bed during the night and I am convinced that it is because we did it early and so got them into a routine. My friends say that we were brave doing it early but they tell me about the problems they still have now with children at the same kind of ages (3 and half, 1 and half) and I am so glad that we have 2 children who like to sleep in their own beds. Good luck and I will be watching this space for your news.