18 month old and toddler bed?

So....Jack fell out of his crib this morning. Heard a big thud and went in and saw him laying on his back crying. Hopefully it scared him too much to try to do it again, but we'll see. And then dh went and googled and is now very anti crib tent. I'm not sure its possible to get an 18 month old to sleep in a toddler bed?!

 

My ds fell out of his crib at that age and he did stay in it for a couple months after. However at 20 months he started getting out ALL.THE.TIME. I like your dh, was against crib tents and tried the toddler beds. After 7 days of absolute H3LL we went and bought crib tents. My kids LOVE them and they saved our lives.
I've heard a lot of success stories with transitioning to toddler beds at that age, we just weren't one of them ardon:
Good luck!

 

I am so glad you posted this! My dh doesn't want to do the crib tent either but I can't imagine how I will get them to stay in the bed at this age. They are both working on getting out and I found my ds dangling before the inevitable plop so it's time to do something! DD doesn't have the upper body strength that ds has been she has learned that she can throw her leg up on the rail and then shimmy herself on it into a straddle position - NOT SAFE! People keep telling me that it will be a short phase when they are enamored with getting out but that they will stop and not to switch them too soon so I am at a loss!

 

I know there are some people who have made the transition that early and hopefully they will chime in. My DD began to get out of her crib around 20-21 months old and we transitioned her. She did pretty well with the transition but we do go through phases where she wonders out of bed and starts to play.
There are people who have had luck with crib tents and another idea that I thought was a good one, if you are not ready to make the transition, was the turn the crib around so the tall side is facing out and the side they would get out of faces the wall.
:hug: sorry Jack fell out and good luck with your decision.

 

It's certainly possible. We converted our daughters' cribs to toddler beds when they were 20 months and they did just fine. I'm sure they could have handled it a few months earlier too. Naps and bedtime were fine - no changes in how they went to sleep or how long they slept. We didn't make it a big deal; ie - we didn't tell them that they could now get out of bed but that they weren't allowed to. We just told them that they were getting to be little girls, not babies, and they could sleep in little girl beds. And it was smooth...

 

Yes, it is possible. We switched at 18 months, other that having nap problems the first few days, it has been smooth sailing and they LOVE their "tar deds" (car beds).

 

we made the switch at 18 months too & it's been fine. that being said, we never worried too much about actually keeping them in their beds. we toddler proofed the heck out of their room (they can't open their door yet) and just continued doing our regular bedtime routine. they do usually get out of their beds & run around & play (what with, i don't know since there are absolutely no toys in their room anymore) for 15 - 30 minutes before falling asleep. sometimes they'll fall asleep on the floor, other times they'll climb back into bed, sometimes they'll climb into the same bed together & snuggle to sleep :wub:. DH or i usually go in to check & move anyone back to bed that needs to be moved. once they're asleep though, they usually stay in bed for the rest of the night (exceptions include night wakings for teething or illness - then they get out of bed & knock on their door :wub: until DH or i go to get them).

 

They can do it...but the question is DO YOU WANT TO DO IT? I am thinking about that question as my other kiddos were out of their crib at 18 months. But that was singletons and they came to my room to sleep with me. these two think my room is a carnival so they would only come in and play! I couldn't imagine them being out and about!!! I would recommend the sleep tent for just a little while longer!

 

from what the others have said here it sounds possible... but I truly haven't wanted to tempt them to misbehave during their nap time... that's a 3hr block where I have to work at home...

with that said, if you want to try another technique that's working for us, is sleep sacks... with the sleep sacks on our twins can't hike their leg up and over the crib (yet). My ds probaby started being able to crawl out at 18 mo, and now we're at 22.5 months and he's still in. I do have a crib tent on now, but that's only because I got a great deal on them. I did not see the necessity to spend $150 on crib tents for both cribs... if I hadn't gotten a good deal I'd probably just see how long the sleep sacks work for us and then transition to beds.

what makes me want to rethink the toddler beds is that there are two of them in the room... what if they go and pull the other's hair? or hit each other... as they tend to do sometimes when they are fussy during the day...

good luck figuring out what works for you!

 

well we didn't have to worry about the nap thing as they napped at daycare - but we switched ours to toddler beds at 16 months with no problems. We had a baby due when they were 18 months and I ABSOLUTELY REFUSED to have 3 cribs! LOL

I think part of what helped though was that we had a nightstand between the two beds. Really just for their lamp, but the added bonus was that they couldn't see each other - and I think they had the whole 'out of site, out of mind' thing going. We had ZERO problems.

Our only problem, which stemmed from early babyhood and had nothing to do with the beds, was one of our girls would never let us leave the room until she was KNOCKED OUT cold. If we even TRIED to move, she'd pop her eyes open and then it was 10 times longer before we could leave the room. We finally had to let her CIO and now she sleeps like a champ.

We then switched them to twin beds at 2.5 becuase baby brother was now ready for a toddler bed. He was another story. After he figured out he could get out of his bed - he became a night wanderer. We had to curb that, but now he sleeps fine all night long too....