“Baby” is the generalized name I provide for any age child I refer to (age 0-5 years), so look for other context to decipher if age matters for the specific info given. Most of the time, the term refers to infants and toddlers alike!
Change can be difficult for all of us, but it’s especially hard for our little ones! Preparation is a great tool to ease some of the pains that come with change. Read on to learn of some of the things we did to prepare our daughter Ada to change from a crib to a big girl bed.
Wait
Whenever possible, I advise parents to wait until at least age 3 to make the crib-to-bed transition. I encounter many common objections for delaying this transition, but you can find several solutions to those objections in this blog post.
In our case, when Ada turned 3, we had no immediate reasons to make the transition, so we held off. She was about 3.5 years old when we moved her to the big girl bed, and we would have kept her in the crib even longer if we hadn’t needed it for Holly! And if they had been closer in age, I would have bought a second crib in order to keep Ada in a crib until at least age 3; after all, so many cribs convert to bigger beds, so I see no problem with two cribs!
Waiting until Baby is at least 3 means that she’ll be able to understand rules and consequences — rules like staying in bed all night long!
Make the Change Exciting
The more you can talk about the change in a positive, exciting way, the more likely Baby is to see the change as positive and exciting. Talk about how Baby is getting a new bed (and possibly room!) because she’s a big girl now and have her help pick out the sheets/comforter/decor.
Since Ada was not only changing beds, but also changing rooms, we made an event of moving her things to her new room — we spent one morning moving her clothes to her new closet and dresser, and we spent another morning moving her toys and some of her decor (like a big “A” and a picture frame with her baby handprint and footprint) to her new room. The idea was to physically show that the new room was becoming her room!
Move the Bedtime Routine
We eased Ada into the change by doing her bedtime and naptime routines in the new bedroom for about a week before she actually started sleeping in there. This was our way of dipping our toes into the change, and it actually worked to get her more excited about the change! (Obviously this would be an unnecessary step if Baby is staying in the same room.)
Practice all the things
Another thing we did to make the change less daunting for Ada was to practice all the new things she’d be doing — getting into a bigger bed (she went from her crib to a queen-sized bed), getting out of the bigger bed, making the bed. I wanted her to feel confident about all of these changes.
If you’re simply moving Baby from a closed crib to an open-style toddler bed, Baby might not need to practice anything.
Count Down
As I mentioned above, we started doing Ada’s routines in the new room before she started actually sleeping in the room, and something unexpected happened — the first time we did the routine in the new room, she protested going back to sleep in her crib. Since time is a tricky concept to understand, we ended up making a paper chain with one link representing each sleep she had before the change (one link for each nap and one link for each night), and she’d rip a link off after waking up from each sleep. This helped her get a better idea of when the change was going to occur. She was SO excited when she ripped her last chain!
Go over Rules and Expectations
Finally, we had a little family discussion with Ada about the sleep rules we expected her to follow. For kids who need more sleep training, I advise four rules: Stay in bed, Close your eyes, Stay very quiet, Try to sleep. Since Ada has been sleep trained for years, we focused on just two of those rules: Stay in bed and try to sleep. She often talks or sings to herself in bed before falling asleep, and I have no problem with that.
And then, even though you’ve prepared your little one, just know that he or she still might protest — it’s still a change, after all.
Even after allllllllll our preparations, and even though Ada legitimately seemed SO excited to get to sleep in her big girl bed, she still cried for a few minutes before every sleep for 5-7 days, asking to sleep in her little bed again. Like I said, change is difficult for all of us!
If you need help navigating this change or any other sleep issue, set up a free discovery call with me to see how we can best work on the changes together!