Hi, this is Jessica Sawicki of Luli Sleep Consulting. Today on the Sleepy Qs podcast, I’m going to talk to you about a topic that I’m very familiar with: the transition from crib to bed. So I have four kids and with each of them, it’s been a very different experience, but the one that I will never forget, and the reason why I’m sitting here today and talking to you about this now is the experience that we had with my second son. He decided to jump out of the crib under the age of two. I will never forget. . I heard when he jumped out of the crib at 5 in the morning. It really caught us by surprise. Funny thing is, is that when we started working with Linda. Linda helped us get him sleeping in the bed and sleeping through the night again.
And thanks to her, I am now a Gentle Sleep Coach as well. But anyways, going back to the transition from crib to bed, every child and every parent has a different experience, but that’s okay because that’s what I’m here for. We’re going to talk about when and how to do that transition from crib to bed. Now I know it’s very exciting to have a big boy bed, but the first thing I’m going to tell you is there’s really no rush in transitioning your child out of the crib. The one thing I always say is that there’s no direct correlation between your child’s IQ level and how long they’ve slept in a crib.
Age matters
So when is the right age? I definitely suggest waiting until your child does at least 3 years or older. Under the age of three, it’s very hard for your child to understand that they must stay in bed. There’s a certain level of maturity that needs to happen with your child, a behavioral component, and an understanding component of being in a big boy bed, having the freedom, but still respecting the boundaries.
A lot of parents rushed to do this at 2 years old. Many parents think that now that they’re a toddler, they can be in a big boy bed, but I strongly, strongly suggest against that. Two and two and a half years old is probably the worst age that I would transition your child into a bed.
Can it happen? Yes. Is it suggested? No. At 3 years old, your child is able to understand, okay, I’m in a bed and I can come out, but I’m not really supposed to. I’m not supposed to be coming out of my bed 20 times in the middle of the night or at bedtime. So I’m going to stay in my bed until I fall asleep.
What about crib jumpers
So now you’re going to ask me, okay. But what if my child jumps out of the crib like yours and I can’t keep him in the bed. I totally understand where you’re coming from. So, what should you do if your child jumps out of the crib, the first thing I’m going to say is can you try to put a crib tent? So crib tents are great because it’s a mesh covering over the crib that helps your child stay in the crib and not come out. If a crib tent is not an option, then yes, you’re going to have to transition your child into a bed for safety reasons.
Timing matters
Now, if there’s no immediate necessity, if there’s no urgency, when would you do it? So other than age, what else should you take into consideration? The timing, the timing being, is there anything else going on in my life? Are we moving? Is there a sibling coming next week? I probably wouldn’t do that change right away because moving into a bed is a very big change in your child’s life. And you really don’t want anything else going on. So really look at your calendar and say, okay, do we have anything big going on? Potty training, starting a new school, a new sibling, a new job? If anything else is going on at the same time that can affect your child’s sleep. we don’t want to couple that with another big change in your child’s sleep.
Get your child involved
So I would focus on the crib to bed transition at the age of 3 and when nothing else is going on. But now the next question you have is how are you going to do this? So first and foremost, I would suggest involving your child. Speak to your child about it, see how they feel. You can even leverage older siblings or older cousins and say, look, sweetie, just like your cousin, John is sleeping in a bed so are you. Explain to him, how he’s now a big boy and how other people in his family and his surroundings are also sleeping in big boy beds. Next is getting the bed. So here’s a question that a lot of parents ask me, does it have to be a twin bed? Can I just use my crib and converted to a toddler bed?
Full size bed vs toddler bed
I would say it’s really a personal choice. Under the age of 3 if you have to move them into a bed, I would probably keep them in a toddler bed. So convert that crib into a toddler bed if possible. Why? Because it’s smaller. It’s a little bit cozier. There’s still half of the crib up there with the railings so there’s not such a big change for those children under the age of 3. But if your child is 3 or older, I think that’s a personal choice. You can absolutely use the crib to bed toddler conversion, or you can get a twin bed. Either way works. Now the suggestion I would give you is, do not keep the crib and the bed in the room at the same time.
So a lot of kids will see both options in the room and will start flip-flopping between one and the other. And they will say, Oh no, tonight I want to sleep in the crib on or not tonight. I want to be a big girl and sleep in a big girl bed. And we really don’t want this because this can open the door to bedtime battles or middle of the night wakenings. So once you bring out the bed or convert the bed, then I would definitely get rid of the crib. So you don’t have that option in the middle of the night.
Sleep independence is key
So now, you know, the age, you’ve had the conversation and you’ve transitioned the crib into a bed or you’ve purchased the bed. So now what? The transition should be smoothly. If your child has been sleeping great until now, and they haven’t needed you to rock them or hold them or be by them until they fall asleep, chances are the transition will be very smooth and there won’t be any sleep issues. Now, if your child wasn’t sleeping well prior to the whole transition, then you should not expect that the bed will just resolve the issues. If there were sleep issues prior to the bed, there will be sleep issues when the bed comes out. So if your child needed you to rock him or hold his hands or be by his side, or even take a bottle to fall asleep, your child will still need all of that with the bed. And this I really want to emphasize because a lot of parents confuse the idea if they are co-sleeping with their child in the bed and the child sleeps perfectly fine in the parents’ bed. Parents often assume that they will move their child into a bed on their own, in their own room, and the child will sleep perfectly fine. But that’s not the case. If you have been co-sleeping with your child in your bed, then your child has needed you to fall asleep and fall back asleep. So when you move them into their own bed and their own room, they will need that same sleep association. They will still need you to fall asleep.
So what happens if they don’t have any issues? What happens if they’re sleeping perfectly fine and your child is 3 or 4 and you move them into a bed and we expect the transition to be smooth, but maybe your child actually does start crying or isn’t happy about the transition and they start protesting and they don’t want to stay alone. That is normal and that’s okay. You want to make sure that you support your child without creating a whole new sleep association. So what does that mean? We want to be there by them. We can sit by their bed and we can sit by the door, but we’re not going to start creating new bad sleep habits.We’re not going to start getting in the bed with them or holding them to fall asleep. So if they have a rough transition in the beginning, provide the support and the Shuffle is a great method to provide that support without creating new seep crutches.
Behavior modification clocks
And now it’s night 1, again, we want to expect that everything will be okay if there wasn’t any prior issues, but what are things that you can do or use to reinforce this new sleep habit, this new sleep space? First and foremost, I love is the behavioral tot clocks. I think they’re great. They really help teach your child when it’s time to go to sleep. And when it’s time to go up, the top clocks are either an image or a light, no words or numbers because these kids cannot tell time yet, but it’s an easy image or light that your child can see and know when it’s time to go to sleep and when it’s time to wake up, You really want to teach your child to look at it every night and in the middle of the night and in the morning and really, really reinforce it.
Sometimes physical boundaries are needed
The next thing I would suggest is putting a gate at the door. The gate does 3 things. First safety: it stops your kids from running around the whole house in the middle of the night. The second thing that gate does is it provides a crib-like feeling to the room. Our kids were once in a crib with the railings and now they have an open bed. the room is now a crib-like feeling. And the third thing that gate does is it allows the child to have the door open because many kids at this age want the door open or the light on, but the gate stops them from coming out.
Behavior charts are magic
So I strongly suggest getting that gate. The 3rd thing that I would suggest, or that you want to explore are behavioral charts. Behavioral charts are great. They’re great when you want to adjust your child’s behavior, whether it’s sleep or not. And I love these charts. But you have to make sure that you use them correctly in order to see the results you want to see.
As we all know, sometimes our toddlers like to protest that bedtime, in the middle of the night and they start coming out and then it starts becoming a battle. And the chart really helps reinforce the behavior of having them stay in their bed.
So you really want to bring in those reinforcements, the tot clock, the gate, the chart to help you, if you need help in that transition from crib to bed. Again, the Shuffle is a great method that I even used with my own son and keeping the boundaries and setting the limits, but still providing the support. And again, when you do this big transition, make sure that your child is age appropriate and that you’re ready because while we expect it to be a smooth transition, sometimes there’s a few hiccups.
Good luck.
