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From Crib to Bed

Helping Toddlers Make the Transition to a Big Bed

By Keath Castelloe Low

"Another important thing to keep in mind is to protect your child from going downstairs," Keeley says. Use a sturdy safety gate on the stairways.

Mills says she misses "the cageability of the crib." It is true that a crib offers more containment than a bed. Many parents complain about their child getting out of the bed in the middle of the night.

Karen Spring from Deptford, N.J., says that her kids definitely got out of bed repeatedly in the beginning. "When the kids got out of bed, which they did, my husband and I didn't speak to them, but simply walked them back to their beds," she says.

Spring kept things low key. She never became angry with the children. "Even when they flipped out and cried," Spring says. "We simply walked them back to bed. It took many walks to those beds and surprisingly we didn't wear out the carpet!" Eventually, the kids got the hang of things and understood expectations. "Once it's bedtime, you stay in bed."

It is taking Gem Levine's son a while to adjust as well. "He sometimes gets up 10 times before going to sleep and tells me he loves me," says Levine from Forest Hills, N.Y. "There are some nights he wants to go to the bathroom five times." Other nights he blissfully goes right to sleep.

Levine says one thing that helps make bedtime a happy time is "a great set of sheets and a comforter from the Cars movie." Levine also found colorful wall stickers to put near the new big kid bed.

Meno says that what worked best for her kids was "routine, routine, routine and being consistent in returning them to bed."