Toddler bed transition - no turning back?

[shadesofgold]

DS is 21 months old and we're expecting our second son in 8 weeks. He'd been mostly sleeping through the night in his crib except a few wakeups calling for water. He has napped well on a cot at daycare for over 6 months. Someone advised us that we should upgrade him to a toddler/big kid bed before the baby arrived, so he could have time to adjust and wouldn't connect the change with the baby. (And we are going to need that crib at some point.) It seemed like good advice, so we decided to convert the crib to the toddler setting with the rail and see how it went. I thought he might respond well to the independence. (Lol)

We didn't change anything else about the bedtime routine. Week 1 was fine, a few more wakeups through the night than usual, but generally the time between putting him to bed and falling asleep was less than 30 minutes. We did have to remove the lamp, humidifier, etc because he'd drag them down. But it seemed like a decent start. Week 2 just went totally downhill. Getting out of bed as soon as we closed the door became a hilarious game, he would tear apart the room, and the time this went on got progressively longer, until he was taking 1.5 hours to get to sleep. Part of it could have been that in week 2, we didn't have a super structured approach to timing our returns - we went in as soon as we heard him ransacking things, and we sometimes stayed in longer intervals singing or wrestling him. We were worried about him hurting himself and getting a little desperate.

So, 2 weeks in, we're both feeling like he wasn't ready. We're both frustrated. We'd rather wait until he is showing us more signs of readiness and salvage our evenings while we still have them. So today we turned the open side of his bed against the wall at nap time. He was so mad and discombobulated that it took him an extra hour to get to sleep (usually 10 min tops at naptime). I'm wondering if we can't actually turn back? Will he eventually embrace the crib life again, or are we stuck with our choice and need to power through? Should we attempt week 3 with more structure?

Thanks in advance for any advice, wisdom or tricks. We're feeling pretty clueless and tired.

[Yogurt]

What kinds of items are left in his room for him to mess with? I had to remove every single thing but the bed and dresser. Then I put locks on the dresser. There was not a single thing to play with, which really helped. She would eventually fall asleep on the floor and I'd scoop her into bed.

[Yogurt]

I never went back in when she got out of bed. That's a battle I could never win, so I didn't bother

[wesleycrusher]

I wouldn't put him back in the crib. I don't have much advice but want to mention- make sure the dresser is anchored to the wall.

[wedding]

If you put him back in the crib my guess is he will just learn to climb out. We had to remove everything from the room except the bed and dresser and bolt those to the wall. We also put a knob cover on the door so he couldn't get out. He spent many nights playing like a crazy person and passing out on the floor. Eventually the novelty wore off. We did not and do not go in if he gets out of bed.

[GhoatMonket]

Feb 4, 2018 15:47:26 GMT -6 shadesofgold said:

DS is 21 months old and we're expecting our second son in 8 weeks. He'd been mostly sleeping through the night in his crib except a few wakeups calling for water. He has napped well on a cot at daycare for over 6 months. Someone advised us that we should upgrade him to a toddler/big kid bed before the baby arrived, so he could have time to adjust and wouldn't connect the change with the baby. (And we are going to need that crib at some point.) It seemed like good advice, so we decided to convert the crib to the toddler setting with the rail and see how it went. I thought he might respond well to the independence. (Lol)

We didn't change anything else about the bedtime routine. Week 1 was fine, a few more wakeups through the night than usual, but generally the time between putting him to bed and falling asleep was less than 30 minutes. We did have to remove the lamp, humidifier, etc because he'd drag them down. But it seemed like a decent start. Week 2 just went totally downhill. Getting out of bed as soon as we closed the door became a hilarious game, he would tear apart the room, and the time this went on got progressively longer, until he was taking 1.5 hours to get to sleep. Part of it could have been that in week 2, we didn't have a super structured approach to timing our returns - we went in as soon as we heard him ransacking things, and we sometimes stayed in longer intervals singing or wrestling him. We were worried about him hurting himself and getting a little desperate.

So, 2 weeks in, we're both feeling like he wasn't ready. We're both frustrated. We'd rather wait until he is showing us more signs of readiness and salvage our evenings while we still have them. So today we turned the open side of his bed against the wall at nap time. He was so mad and discombobulated that it took him an extra hour to get to sleep (usually 10 min tops at naptime). I'm wondering if we can't actually turn back? Will he eventually embrace the crib life again, or are we stuck with our choice and need to power through? Should we attempt week 3 with more structure?

Thanks in advance for any advice, wisdom or tricks. We're feeling pretty clueless and tired.

So he figured out if he made noise/a mess, he got to stay up and get extra attention? Shocking. 

Take out the stuff he pulls down. Anchor the furniture. Take away any attention in putting him back in bed beyond physically putting him back in bed and walking out. 

[cribs]

Did he jump out of the crib? I would just leave him in the crib and buy a cheap second crib

[flippinchica]

Personally I would put him back in the crib. The other option is to do the room as a crib approach. Take everything out and make sure the dresser is anchored and don't go in there.
ETA: we just had #2 and DS1 is still in his crib at 2.5. If he is still doing fine in the crib when we are ready to move the baby into his own room we will either buy another or use the pack n play.

[cribs]

Obligatory cribs for Life!

[heybulldog]

Don’t turn back, KOKO with the toddler bed. Be consistent. Like Yogurt, we knew we wouldn’t win the battle every time he go out of bed. He wanted attention we didn’t engage him. As long as the lights stayed off and he didn’t leave his room, we just shrugged it off. If he did turn lights on or walk out, we ‘d put him back in bed, calmly say “it’s bedtine, good night, love you”, and walk out. After only a few days of trying to get a reaction from us, he quit trying and stayed in bed. I will admit that I would sit in his room for a few minutes after lights out, either telling him a Batman story (that I make up on the spot) or singing Baby Beluga. We still do this, a year and a half later, and he’s more often than not asleep before I finish singing/ telling story.

[lifesaverz]

I’d definitely go back to the crib in that situation. We transitioned DD at 2 years old because we had DS coming soon after, but she handled it pretty well. I think it was a couple months before she even tried getting out of bed. I just wouldn’t want to deal with toddler bedtime issues with a new baby if I didn’t have to.

[cyprissa]

Strip the room, anchor the dresser and get a baby gate and ignore him. If you don’t have the stomach for that, I’d look into the Sleep Lady Shuffle. We did both approaches (former with DS1 and latter with DS2) and I had great success with each. We moved through the Shuffle pretty quickly (a week and a half total). Good luck!

[Yogurt]

My guess is that if you put him back in a crib he will soon crawl out. He's tasted freedom. My concern was that she'd be more likely to hurt herself climbing out of a crib that crawling out of a low bed.

[Pizzaslut]

If he wasn't climbing out of the crib, I would maybe go back. DS climbed out at 21 months and it was weeks of pure hell. We eventually took everything out he could tear apart and got a lock for the outside of the door. There were SO MANY TEARS (on both ends) but I would say it took about a week of really cracking down before we got to a decent place. He still will not fall asleep without the door open. It's like he needs to know we are there. He will stay in the bed and chat a little and in the rare occasion we have to go in and give him another little back rub. We are actually getting ready to move him to a twin since the new baby will need the crib. I would've just bought another crib if he was still in it but since he's not, we decided on the twin bed with toddler rails.

[Pizzaslut]

Also, we tried the baby gate and DS would hurl himself over like a damn crazy person. We had to just lock him in there.

[itsmemeg]

I would take everything out of his room that he can play with or destroy. We told DS that mommy and daddy are not coming in when you’re whining and crying. We also got an ok to wake clock which has helped. Granted we did our transition when he was 2.5 years old so he may have gotten it a little bit more than one that is younger. I wouldn’t go back to the crib though.

[cyprissa]

Feb 4, 2018 17:04:19 GMT -6 Pizzaslut said:

Also, we tried the baby gate and DS would hurl himself over like a damn crazy person. We had to just lock him in there.

I had to do that when DS1 was obsessed with the stove at 18 months. I’m normally chill but the fixation gave me a full blown panic attack and he crashed the gate so I started locking him in if I had to use the front burners. 

[cnf]

We transitioned to a twin at 18m. She took to it well at first but had a few stretches of refusing to stay in bed. We ended up wrapping half a play yard around her bed with the gate at the spot on her bed where she could get out. We'd put it up and close the gate during times she wouldn't stay put then I'd go in and open the gate once she was asleep so she could get herself up in the morning. Once she's stop fighting bedtime we would take the play yard away and eventually she learned she needed to stay put.

We also got a sleep training clock. It's worked well and mat be worth looking into. She's 2 now and we have zero bedtime issues for the most part.

[frantastic]

I would go back to the crib. Mine are 22mo apart. DS1 was happily in a crib so we got a cheap mini crib for the baby. And then he ended up sleeping in the RnP for his first 6mo anyway.

ETA: DS2 is now 27mo and has shown no signs of climbing out. So your DS1 may still be good with a crib for a while.

[Deleted]

DD1 is 26 months with no sign of climbing out. We bought a second crib secondhand for DD2. They're staying in cribs as long as possible.

[shadesofgold]

Just wanted to thank everyone for sharing their advice and experiences! I was persuaded by every single suggestion here, so MH made the tie-breaking vote that we try going back to the crib for a night or two. We did and had the easiest nights we've had an a long while. So, we're going to take these cues from DS that he still prefers the crib. When we do try the big switch again, we will definitely take a more "room as the crib" approach and follow the stricter structure y'all spoke of. We have his big boy twin mattress and sheets on stand-by, which we may start hyping now. Maybe he'll ask for them himself.

Thanks again!