Toddler Transition From Crib to Bed

How did I get my toddler to transition from her enclosed crib to her crib with no railing (not even the half railing) in a week?

Disclaimer: Although this is great, it wasn’t my plan! It just worked, and I analyzed why it worked after-the-fact.

So, here’s the story:

When Cora hit 22 months old and after she had enough time to transition from being an only child to the eldest of two, we decided it was time for her to transition into a toddler bed with a short railing. Although doing this before nap time wouldn’t have been my first choice, my husband had the time and motivation to do it one day, and it just happened to be right before her nap. So, he went in there and lowered the railing… no… that didn’t happen. He actually took the entire railing off, because the railing didn’t actually lower, and we don’t have a smaller rail.

Joel left the house shortly after exposing our little one’s bed area to the evils of this world due to the absence of bars, and I was left to put her to sleep for the afternoon. yaaaaaaay…

………….

Let’s take this time to count the things we did wrong here:

1) We skipped the step of lowering the crib railing, which would have allowed our child to slowly adapt to feeling naked in her own room.

2) We chose naptime for this big sleep change, which we would normally do at bedtime, since she is usually a lot more ready for bedtime than she is for naptime.

3) Only one parent was at home to implement this change, which was difficult to do when you have an infant and a toddler who is scared out of her mind due to the change!

………….

So, there I was. Four-month-old Benson was asleep, so I had the time to help Cora get ready for her nap without distraction. We read a story and talked about her new bed. She was a little apprehensive, but she seemed ok. I left the room, and she instantly started screaming and crying. I went back in, snuggled her, and talked to her for a few minutes. When she seemed fine, I left. SCREAMS! CRYING! ‘Ugh!’, I thought! ‘This was a horrible mistake that Joel made.’ It’s always nice to blame others in your mind. It totally makes you feel better. (Kids, that was a joke. It’s never good to blame others unless it really IS their fault.) ;0)

After coming out of her room numerous times and crying all-the-while, I decided to put her in her brother’s crib, which is in a separate room. She cried in there for a few minutes, but she went to sleep and woke up happy. Ah!

Joel and I decided to try for a week. If she wasn’t ready, we’d put the rail back up and try again in a couple months. There is no reason to make our little girl so upset over a railing!

At night, Cora had the same reaction to her crib. Joel ended up laying next to her until she fell asleep. She fell out of bed in the middle of the night.

Joel to the rescue! She ended up making it through the night without dying of her newfound freedom, and the next day we put a pool noodle under her fitted sheet along the edge of her bed so that she wouldn’t fall out. I’m sure you’ve seen that technique on Pinterest! One of my Fb friends reminded me of it. Thanks, Jenna! We cut the noodle so it would fit. We didn’t need to put any tape on it. It stays because of the tight sheet over it. She didn’t fall out after that, and she LOVES jumping in her bed every night in attempts to hurdle over the noodle.

Her comfort increased over the next few days. For the first four days, she ended up sleeping in her brother’s crib for her nap, because she kept coming out of her room. Every day she progressed. She went from coming out of her room and crying, to coming out of her room quietly, to just opening her door and looking out of her room, to not opening her door until she was finished with her nap 2-3 hours later. She adjusted to sleeping in her non-railing crib for naps in about a week. At night, she had the first night breakdown when she fell out of bed, the second night she ended up coming in our room, so Joel put her back to sleep, and that was it! She was good from there.

This is what I attribute our success to:

1) We never let her crawl in bed with us in the middle of the night. She was always taken back to her home base, even if we had to lay on the floor for a while to make her feel secure.

2) We didn’t insult her or punish her for not sleeping in her new bed.

3) If she was screaming and constantly coming out of her room at naptime, I would just move her directly into the enclosed crib with a few items from her room. Because this wasn’t HER space with all of her normal items there, she was slightly uncomfortable there. She would cry when I first put her in there, but the amount of crying decreased to about 30 seconds the day before she stayed in her bed for the entire naptime for the first time. I think being placed outside of the comfort of her room became an incentive for her to learn to adapt to her new bed situation. If you don’t have another room with a crib in it, maybe you can use a Pack ‘n’ Play in another room.

4) We used our instincts based on knowing our child! This is probably the biggest key. Whether you use our techniques or not, you will have a much higher probability of succeeding in implementing a smooth transition if you listen to your intuition.

Like I said at the beginning, I did not research the proper way to transition her. I just used my instincts based on the knowledge I have based on raising her for the last 22 months. I’m positive what we did will not work for everyone, but if it seems like a good fit for you and your little turbo, please take our positive experience as your own!

GOOD LUCK, and SOUND SLEEP!