Moving child from cot to bed

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There are a few wise parents on these Boards so I’m wondering if any of you have any tips for how to help your child make a successful transition from his cot to his bed. Typical issues include:
- falling out of bed
- getting up and playing instead of sleeping
- crying because the bed is not as cosy and familiar as the cot

I’m also interested in knowing at what age you moved your kids into sleeping in a bed.

 

Handcufs and duct-tape should keep the little buggers in bed and quiet!

I'm gussing you mean a 'crib' when you say cot. A crib is a small bed for infants that has bars on all sides to keep the said infant from falling out. A cot is a tightly suspended sheet of nylon used mainly by the military for sleeping when normal beds aren't practable.

From my experence with my 4 neices, getting a child a crib that easily converts to a bed makes things easier. They will reconize the parts for their old crib that are now the head/foot boards, and the transition becomes easier.

Putting the bed next to a wall also eliminates one side of the bed to fall off of, so keep that in mind.

Also, reward your child when he/she/it sleeps a full night in the new bed without crying or getting out.

If all else fails, use the afore mentioned handcuffs and duct-tape.

 

I thought a 'crib' was a place where rappers hung out with 'home-boys'. But yes, I mean the thing with the bars that very young children sleep in.

 

A crib in the most normal sense, is a small bed for an infant.

A 'crib' in the contex of, "Yo dog, lets chill at my crib." is a one bedroom sh**-shack in the middle of Compton that those idiots using ebonics use to refer to their mom's house.

If you use the first, you are a normal english speaking person...however, if you use the latter, you are a typical moron that's trying too hard to talk like Snoop Dog.

 

If you read Kitrax's first post carefully he actually has some good suggestions. Add their favorite blanket and stuff toy to help with the sleeping. Wait for Rallymama to tell you how to do it.

 

That sounds like an excellent piece of advice.

 

We gave our oldest son his first bed for his third birthday. He enjoyed his new status as a "big kid" and was very excited about sleeping in it. The bed we gave him was a low-to-the-floor ikea bed with a nice foam rubber mattress. I don't think he ever fell out but we did keep some pillows on the outside part of the bed to stop him from rolling. Being as getting a new bed meant that he was a big kid, he didn't miss his old cage-like crib at all.

And on a side note - If he gets the monster-under-the-bed syndrome or the similar monster-in-the-closet syndrome, all you need is a handy dandy bottle of MONSTER-BE-GONE spray. (Spray bottle with nice smelling coloured water that you tell him gets rid of all monsters when you spray it.) If you are artistically inclined design a nice label for it. The only person that has to believe in it is your little guy .

 

Wait, there wasn't a monster under the bed?
If they do get the monster syndrome, just take a poker into said area, thump a pillow, and go out of the room. Thy monster problem is fixed!
(Gawd, I'm not even in college yet.)

 

Another thing you can do to make his new bed more confortable is load his pillow with sweet dreams. I used to sit with my son at bedtime and first make him knock all the bad dreams out of his pillows and then both him and I would send good dreams about candies and and hamsters and Thomas trains etc. into his pillows for good sleeping.

 

What we did with our first two daughters was raise the cot/crib mattress up to its highest setting, and leave the side down low so they get used not being surrounded by bars. Then after a week or so of that we switched them to a toddler bed (a small bed low to the ground like Dragonfly said) and ours had a little side rail in the middle of the side not against the wall. As for keeping them in the bed and not sitting up and playing, positive reinforcement for good behavior is great, but unless you have angels for kids it takes punishment as a rule. Two nights of getting a spanking was enough for both of my girls with occasional reinforcements over the next month. I'm sure there are people out there who disagree with the spanking part, but thats a thread for a different place.

 

There's a toddler bed I used for my daughter. It was low-slung (about 12" off the ground) and had mini mesh bars at the top of the bed. See here.

The transition happened when she was two and a half years old. She never fell out, but was usually curled in a ball and sleeping kitty-corner (diagonal) across the mattress. She really liked it and hated to give it up for a single bed. Hope this helps.

 

I'm not sure I'm visualising that properly but it sounds like having the kid up really high with no barrier. Wouldn't he hurt himself when he fell out?

My son is 21 months old so some of the techniques described might not work so well (e.g. not sure he's worried about monsters or bad dreams). But he definitely likes having his blanket and his friend 'Baby Tad' with him in bed so we'll be making sure he still has those.

We'll also need to make his room a bit safer, because the other day he managed to knock over his chest of drawers, by opening every drawer at the same time, from INSIDE his cot (still not sure how he managed that feat). Lucky he was safe in his cot when that happened, otherwise he would have been underneath when it fell . . . . .

 

Not surprised. Little monkeys get into everything. Try to move the furniture and things far, far away from him.

My daughter slept through the night, so her playing wasn't an issue. Getting her to bed...well, you know.

 

Crap, I'm really on the spot now, aren't I?!?!?!

The crib that Arlyn used (and Marcus is currently using) has a removable side. Starting around age 2, we took that part off so he was still sleeping in the crib but had free access in and out. At first he didn't like it and asked to have it back on, but about two weeks later it was gone for good. He's always been a good sleeper and not much of a climber, so we didn't have to deal with those issues. Something tells me that Marcus is going to fix that gap in our experience.

Before the crib-side came off, we started applying one of those press-fit child gates across the doorway of his room at night. THis way he was able to get out of bed but was confined to his room, since the rest of the house wasn't well child-proofed. By the time this gate actually mattered, he was used to seeing it and it was no big deal.

Arlyn moved into a big-boy bed (a regular-height twin that was mine when growing up!) when we moved into the new house. He was 3, and we just set up his new room with the new bed and that was that. He got to pick out which blankies and stuffies he wanted in there with him. I think he's fallen out all of once.

He really liked having his own big room and we made a point of that being one of the first rooms to be decorated (outer space theme). Letting him help pick out such things helped make the room more HIS.

@Dragonfly - I love the idea of loading a pillow with sweet dreams! We did something similar, where Arlyn loaded a stuffed toy with hugs for Marcus when he was born, but I have to remember that if we ever have to deal with bad dreams.

 

Jack moved into a big bed at age 15 months, mainly because his cot was falling to bits. I don't really have any useful tips, all I did was put him in the bed. he took to it right away

I should imagine some helpful tips would be

• Favourite teddies
  An interesting bed ie cool covers and maybe a cabin bed or something?. Jack has a bed with a slide on
  A wet sheet!
  Nightlights
  Music

 

I didn't have any problems with my first two kids. They were excited to move from crib to bed -- I would recommend a toddler bed (using the matress the child is used to). You keep the same sheets, stuffed animals, blankets....

There are rails you can get for any bed. They don't cost much and will prevent rolling out of bed.

The getting out and playing could be an issue -- one you just need to work on with the little one. It really wasn't a big problem with my kids. They would stay up late and play every now and then. If I caught them, they got in trouble. Quite often, they would play quietly and be really tired the next day (they eventually learned).

My son got to where he would 'sneak' toys into bed with him. It was quite a sight to see him sleeping on 20-30 matchbox/hot wheels cars and trucks -- or to see him clutching a Tonka truck like a teddy bear.

 

We just moved Zach from crib to bottom bunk 2 weeks ago. He is #6, so we have been through this a few times. I find that giving him a few of his favorite toys (Buzz Lightyear right now) and then lying down next to him for about 5 minutes does the trick. Within a few weeks, if he is anything like his brothers and sisters (although he is a bit more spoiled than they were--youngest and all that) he will just lie down at bedtime and go to sleep.

 

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I can't quite see how the railing on the side of the bed can help - how does that stop him going off the end of the bed (given that he hardly sleeps in the normal lengthways position under the covers all night and is just as likely to go off the end as the side).

Oh well, you guys all make it sound like a piece of cake so I guess I have nothing to worry about.

 

HB, if you're really concerned about your kid falling out of bed, just surround the ground beside it with pillows and folded blankets.

I wondered if mine would roll out because she liked to wriggle a lot. Thankfully, she's like me and once asleep is too busy sleeping to move around.