My husband’s birthday was 2 weeks ago and I came home early to relieve the sitter after our day of wine tasting and let him stay out and celebrate. I had it all planned out in my head…I’ll put Quinn down early, put on my comfies, face mask, and watch all my shows…best Saturday night ever right?! Wrong! About 10 minutes after putting Quinn to bed I was applying a face mask and heard the sound of tiny and fast feet running down the hall towards my room. The look on Quinn’s face was like she had just played the biggest prank on me…and she had! At the age of 3.5 she finally climbed out of her crib. The day I’ve been dreading was finally here!
All of my reading let me know that is was safest to keep Quinn in her crib as long as possible (up to age 4) unless they are climbing out. Quinn has literally NEVER tried. The next morning after this stunt she was showing off climbing in and out of her crib bonked her head…game over! We had a toddler bed ready to go in the garage and made the switch that day. I wasn’t really prepared and so anxious that this was going to be a disaster.
Quinn was SO excited to transition to her new bed and I wanted to make it special for her, so we went to Target and I let her pick out a few new things for her bed (AKA bribing her to stay in her bed and sleep!!).
We have this clock that turns green when she’s “allowed” to get out of bed. The first night went so well…she didn’t even attempt to get out of her bed and slept all night. Since then it hasn’t been that smooth, but overall a successful transition.
I’ve stopped giving her milk before bed and try and decrease fluids as it gets closer to bed time. I have her use the potty before bed (actually it’s usually her idea to potty before bed as one of her stalling tactics) and I still put her in a pull-up at night. She is able to hold her potty all night, but has been waking up earlier around 5:30-5:45am needing to go potty. She comes into our room, goes potty, then runs back into her room. I’m so proud of her being able to do this, but the bummer is she doesn’t really go back to sleep at this point. She will usually go back into her room and start playing until her clock turns green which is fine, but then she’s a disaster in the afternoon because she isn’t getting enough sleep. I’ve been letting her nap in the car or taking her for a stroller walk so she will nap, but this sometimes affects bed time.
So far, the time change has helped and she sleeping in a little later. We will see how it goes once she adjusts to the time change.
Overall, the transition has gone MUCH better than I expected. We have dealt with the usual transition struggles: she wants us to snuggle in her bed before bed and/or during the night if she wakes up, bed time procrastinating (hungry, thirsty, potty, specific stuffies, etc.), playing in her room when she should be asleep, and so on…I was expecting her to get out of her bed and coming downstairs 100 times a night and that isn’t happening, so I’m very thankful for that.
I’m sure this journey, like everything with kids, with change and evolve and have hiccups along the way. Thank you for all your awesome tips on Instagram…I’m sharing them below so they might help other mamas transitioning to a toddler bed. #RIPCRIBLIFE
Your Tips:
- The Hatch Light so she knows when it’s “OK” to get out of bed in the morning
- Keep taking them back to their bed no matter how many times they get out! It’s so hard no to give in!
- Consistency. Even if she gets out of bed 30 times bring her back to bed
- I would sing sometimes to my girls till they fell asleep and sneak out. Then there’s no battle
- A wake light! We love the Hatch Baby brand
- I’ve heard weighted blankets help
- Wake clock and baby gate in door so she can’t walk out
- A green light “wake” clock but you might have to use bribes to teach her to use it 😉
- We do an alarm clock that is red when they are supposed to be in bed and green when they can get up. Help some.
- Sticker chart
- One MnM in the morning if stays in bed all night
xx, A
