3 Tips to Transition Your Child to a Toddler Bed

This is part two of a two-part series all about transitioning from a crib to a toddler bed. In part one I talked about all of the things that you want to do before making this big transition and keeping a young toddler in their crib as long as possible. If your child is under 2.5 years, I really don't recommend moving to a bed yet because developmentally they are just not ready for all of the freedom that a comes with an open bed.

How to Know When Your Child Is Ready for a Toddler Bed

The first thing to mention is that if your toddler is sleeping great in the crib, you don't have to move them to a toddler bed.. If you wait until they are closer to three and maybe even a little bit over three that’s perfect. 

Really the only reason that you want to transition your child into a bed is because they are getting too large for the crib; it's hard for you to pick them up and put them into the crib.

If they have any sleep troubles you really want to focus on that and get those squared away first while they are still in the crib. I would say that 99.9% of the time moving to a bed will not improve their sleep - it will actually make things worse! 

So, if you have a great sleeper, they're just getting too big for the crib and they are developmentally ready to make that move then I have three tips for you for how to do that successfully. 

1. Keep Your Schedule and Routine the Same

The first tip is to keep your schedule the exact same. Know that on the first night that you have that bed set up, you’re going to be excited, they’re probably going to be super excited too, but you want to keep your routine the same. You don't want them to feel like this is something new and big and different and exciting. Yes it is, but you want to have the same foundational pieces in place.

You know the end goal is that they go into their bed and they fall asleep the exact same that they would go into their crib and fall asleep. So yes, this is a new settings but we want to still keep the same routine because the expectation is still that they will sleep in this new bed. 

So whatever timing that you did bedtime, whatever order that you did the bedtime routine in, you keep all of those things the same.

Having visuals both to help support bedtime and to support early morning wakeups help children this age know the boundaries around staying in bed. Need some support with that? Download my free preschool routine printables here!

2. Give Your Toddler Some Power

The second tip is to give your toddler some power. Now that they're older, 2.5-3 years old, they're going to want some choices in their in their life. This is really going to apply at anytime during the day, but especially at bedtime. They want to feel really empowered and that they are calling the shots. 

So we give children choices. That’s how we can make sure that we are still making sure they are safe and taken care of, but they also feel like they have a choice and a say in things. You can let them choose what sheets they want on their beds, if they want a pillow, what kind of pillow they want. If it doesn't really matter, you can choose where the bed goes in the room, what side of the bed they want to put their head on, those kinds of things that in the grand scheme of things, us as adults we don't really care which sheets are on the bed or which end their head and their feet are at, as long as they are in that bed. 

When offering choices, you just want to step back and think: “is this kind of is this a battle that I wanted to take it? Is this just something that they want to exert their independence on? Yeah, let them do it - perfect! But is this something that's like a non negotiable? Is it not safe is it? Is someone going to get hurt or sick?”

You just have to run those thoughts through your head. “Is this going to be something that's going to delay bedtime and ultimately we are going to be up 8 million times because I said yes, you can have this water bottle but then the water bottle is going to spill or run out and I’ll need to refill it.” So it's important to think ahead to what are some things that I can give them the power with and what are some things that I have to reserve and put a limit around?

3. Use a Toddler Clock

The third tip is to think about how to keep them in their room. I always recommend the Hatch because it’s my favorite, but really any kind of toddler clock will work because the premise is the same. 

The Hatch is really great because you can program it remotely from your phone; it has an app that comes with it so you can change the time to wake up whenever you want. There's also a toddler lock feature on it, which is amazing. If you touch the Hatch without the toddler lock on, it will change the brightness, turn it off, change the color and sound. You can create a program to set it to turn on at a specific time and when to turn off. There is a spot on the bottom for a toddler lock, and if you switch that little toggle, no matter how much you touch the actual Hatch light, it will not change. This is really nice because then your toddler can't manually turn it off, on, or change settings while they're in their room independently. 

Having a very concrete example of it turns red, you go in your bed; it turns green, you can now come out of your bed. This really helps them understand what your expectations are of them and what the boundaries are, because without that it's really hard for them to know. “When can I get out of my bed? Is this the appropriate time? Is this not an appropriate time? This sun is up, but it's 5:30 in the morning, can I now get up? It's still super dark out, but it's 7 a.m, can I get up?”

The Hatch really takes all that guesswork out. It doesn't matter the season, it doesn't matter your location, any of that - it’s consistent. 

If you have any questions about making that transition to a toddler bed for a child older than 2.5 years, pop them in the comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.