I am team crib til college. Change my mind

@neverbeenalone Mine never climbed out. They say you should take them out when their chest reaches the top so they don’t fall out.

Idk if you’re a sleep training family, I’m not, you do you but my 2yo was up crying and wanting to be in our bed so much and we just did it bc we wanted to sleep. We have her a “big girl bed” (our old, but pretty much new, queen sized mattress) we lay there and when she falls asleep we leave and she’ll maybe wake once but there’s enough room for me to lay with her and then I leave again. It’s against the wall on one side and I put a rail on the other. When she wakes up she doesn’t try and get down, she just calls us. Best thing we ever did bc she hasn’t been in our bed once since doing this
 
@neverbeenalone I am team crib til college but then my son daytime potty trained, and was often waking up dry too, so by his 3rd birthday I had to give him a bed. I wanted to give him the OPTION to get out of bed to pee at night.

6 months later, he shocked me by doing it himself. Literally couldn’t believe it.

But he also misses his crib. He LOVED his crib.
 
@neverbeenalone My 2yo is 99th percentile height. She could flip out, but she won’t bc she doesn’t want to fall. It all depends on your child. Her sister was the same way, I kept her in the crib until she was almost three. She wasn’t brave enough to climb out until then.
 
@neverbeenalone My daughter loved her crib then got to 11 months and suddenly hated it. Put the mattress on the floor and she slept like a dream. Since she started with no bars so young that curiosity to get out of bed at night has never been a thing. She's almost 4 now. Two months into 3 and she was night trained. She's gotten up to go in the middle of the night a total of 2 times.

We are team ditch the crib early around here. We did that for swaddling, the pacifier, and the bottle. All ditching just a bit earlier than suggested and zero issues. It's like because she wasn't mentally aware of how attached she could be to something it didn't affect her
 
@neverbeenalone Our son almost fell out, headfirst. I thought the transition would be tough on him to a big boy bed.

We bought the mattress and laid it out till the bed frame arrived. He happily took his nap on it and that was it.

I love his little room, we have a very tall gate at his door for safety and he happily plays in there after waking. I like having a safe space to put him when I had to pull something out of the oven or have a quick shower.

He’s 3 now, we’re still using the gate on his door. He opens and closes it himself. I keep all the toddler things in there that his baby sister wants to eat badly. It’s worked out great!
 
@neverbeenalone I’ve got nothing against parents who leave their kids in the crib until they max out the height restrictions. Same thing for rear facing car seats. There’s no rush if it’s working for you and you’re transitioning to a safe solution. My kids never tried to climb out but we started the transition when each of them turned 18 months. They’re both big for their age and lifting them up to put them into a crib was messing up my back. First, we set up their rooms to be as safe as possible so they could be in their by themselves without us worrying, then we installed the toddler bar on their crib. Once they hit 2 years old, they got their “big kid” bed which was an IKEA KURA. It’s worked out perfectly. Unless they something happened in the night, they wake up and play in their room until one of us comes to get them. I also love that my 4 year old has opening her brother’s door as part of her morning routine.
 
@neverbeenalone My concern with waiting till they try to climb out of the crib is what can go wrong when they do eventually try. If they’re little, they could easily fall out. If they’re big, they could fall out OR tip it over. To me that’s like saying I’m going to leave the lit candle here until they try to play with it. At a certain point, a crib is dangerous. If you’re concerned about them roaming the house unsupervised at night, you could put a baby gate door on their bedroom, or a child safety knob on the inside of the door.
 
@neverbeenalone This was my thought too and of course, like most parenting plans, it didn’t work out lol.

We’re a month shy of 2 and had been hoping to use the crib until 3. our child has never shown signs of climbing out. Ped noticed at her last height appointment she was over 3ft and pointed out she likely has outgrown her crib if she’s still in it and I mentioned we didn’t even realize because she just stands so good at the edge and waits for us. Then our ped let us know that at this point, it’s possible for her to topple out just looking for us because of the leverage she can get at this height! We switched her to a twin on the floor last week and baby proofed her room completely and made it a safe environment to play and sleep in and she’s been adjusting so well!
 
@taylordist So for travel, we have a great little blow up bed we put on the floor. She loves it, and even though she clearly can get out, she just sits and cries until someone comes to get her.
 
@neverbeenalone I would totally move her to a bed for safety reasons, in case she does try to climb out (say diarrhea or something!). I doubt you’ll have issues. My niece has literally never climbed out of her bed. Not once. She lays there until someone gets her. She sounds the same as your kiddo.
 
@neverbeenalone son never climbeed out, but got him a bed when he turned 2 and he was fine and dandy in dreamland on it. we also prepped him for a few weeks about getting a big boy bed. (it has a slide on it, which h3lps) lots of storage underneath, too.
 
@neverbeenalone Mine only tried to climb out once, BUT, the moment he realizes he's in his crib, he wakes up and cries to sleep next to me. So at the moment we are sharing our bed with him. Soon we will have to get him his own, so he can transition to his big boy bed
 
@neverbeenalone My almost 3 year old was in a crib until this week. He slept on a cot at Thanksgiving and demanded his big boy bed. And he’s stayed put, happily, since. It’s like a magic trick. I never imagined. It just -worked- when he was ready. Good luck.
 
@neverbeenalone Lmfaoo sameee he’s almost 2 and hasn’t tried to climb out. I’ve tried to make his crib a toddler bed when he was maybe 16 months old but it didn’t workout so we put the railing back on. I’ll see how long this holds up for lol
 
@neverbeenalone Same. Mine didn't even try and lean out ever.... perfectly content in his tiger bag (sleep sack with stripes) until 3.5 around which he had asked for a blanket and got better at sleeping with one. He's now the size of a 6 year old and still fits into his crib converted to a toddler bed just fine. In fact he doesn't get out of bed, but calls me to help him in the middle of the night if he needs to pee, which is pretty rare.
 
@neverbeenalone I fully agree. My son never tried to climb out, and he was scared of falling so he never did anything dangerous like leaning out far. I transitioned him at 3.5 and it was the perfect time for us. No shame in it!
 
@neverbeenalone I have no judgment about this statement, since it's how I always felt. But I will say that when we had to move our toddler to a regular bed, the process was much easier than I feared. He's had some sleep troubles lately coinciding an awareness that his baby sister spends time with us in the middle of the night, but prior to that, really no problems. I thought it would be hell.
 
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