Transition to a Toddler Bed
We moved E to a big kid's bed last August. We wanted to do one transition at a time and decided to tackle this before potty training.
I purchased Elmo's Big Enough for a Bed book and read that to him the day we moved the bed into the room. He was very excited about the new bed :)
We also followed advice I'd heard to not change anything else in the room or bedtime routine. So the crib stayed there and we did the exact same routine of books/snuggles/songs as before.
About three weeks later E helped dismantle the crib and that was that!
A couple strategies for dealing with protests:
1. They don't want to lie down.
"Show me how you climb into bed"
"Show me how you lie down"
"Let's tuck in Raccoon"
"Say 'night night' to Raccoon, give him kisses and hugs"
"Lie down and we'll tuck you in and sing songs"
If he's really protesting even lying down, then we're probably not wound down enough. So maybe another book or two, deep breathing, snuggling and singing. Once you've hit way past over-tired then you may have a few tears :( I'll leave the room to "get" something or sit outside with the door open in hopes that when I come back and do more snuggles, he'll be willing to lie down and have me tuck him in.
2. They protest you leaving the room (not hyper-ventilating or inconsolable, but protesting):
Standing right outside the door repeating "You're okay, I love you, Lie down, Night night" over and over.
When they're quiet I stop talking, when they're not I keep repeating. I'll open the door a peek if it escalates.
Repeat the mantra, and if it doesn't work, go in and repeat the latter half of the routine from songs and snuggles onward.
But realistically some kids might find the opposite approach better. Ignore their protests and if they're quiet go in and say good night.
Best of luck! Let me know what worked for you!
I purchased Elmo's Big Enough for a Bed book and read that to him the day we moved the bed into the room. He was very excited about the new bed :)
We also followed advice I'd heard to not change anything else in the room or bedtime routine. So the crib stayed there and we did the exact same routine of books/snuggles/songs as before.
About three weeks later E helped dismantle the crib and that was that!
A couple strategies for dealing with protests:
1. They don't want to lie down.
"Show me how you climb into bed"
"Show me how you lie down"
"Let's tuck in Raccoon"
"Say 'night night' to Raccoon, give him kisses and hugs"
"Lie down and we'll tuck you in and sing songs"
If he's really protesting even lying down, then we're probably not wound down enough. So maybe another book or two, deep breathing, snuggling and singing. Once you've hit way past over-tired then you may have a few tears :( I'll leave the room to "get" something or sit outside with the door open in hopes that when I come back and do more snuggles, he'll be willing to lie down and have me tuck him in.
2. They protest you leaving the room (not hyper-ventilating or inconsolable, but protesting):
Standing right outside the door repeating "You're okay, I love you, Lie down, Night night" over and over.
When they're quiet I stop talking, when they're not I keep repeating. I'll open the door a peek if it escalates.
Repeat the mantra, and if it doesn't work, go in and repeat the latter half of the routine from songs and snuggles onward.
But realistically some kids might find the opposite approach better. Ignore their protests and if they're quiet go in and say good night.
Best of luck! Let me know what worked for you!
We knew we were going to have to move our schmoo to a new room. So we set up the "big boy bedroom" about 2 months in advance, getting his help to choose and arrange the furniture and everything else. We did similar setup but instead of a book, we used shows like Daniel Tiger.
ReplyDeleteWe just said when he was ready, he could let us know when he wanted to start using his new room. About 2-3 weeks later, in he went and that was that. The rest was sleep training, but we'd actually done that much earlier and he was pretty good about taking to it. He's got a night light within his reach to control built onto the wall and a gro-clock that he helps us set that tells him when it's okay for him to wake up enough to start making noise. Beyond that, he doesn't get out of bed until we open his door and tell him it's okay. We've been lucky in all of that working. He's happy as a clam lying in bed and singing to his stuffies or just doing puppet plays with them while lying in bed when he's not sleeping. <3 Glad to see the transition went so well! ~ Jos