help with transitioning a toddler to a twin bed

[Flynn]

We are going to transition our almost 2 year old daughter from her crib to a twin bed before baby #2 is born in October. Our daughter has always been a great sleeper and I don't anticipate a hassle but I would love to hear from parents who have been there, done that.

Any advice, or pitfalls to avoid?
Funny stories to make us all smile?

[SueC]

We let our daughter go with us to pick out the bed, and also let her pick out the bedding. My husband ended up half sleeping in there the first night and she did fall out a time or two, so we put pillows around the floor to cushion her fall.

[Phoebe]

We transitioned our daughter at 21 months to a twin size bed when we moved to our new house, a couple months before baby #2 arrived. She didn't miss a beat. The first night I was a little freaked out that she would fall out, but we put pillows all around her. The bed wasn't able to fit next to a wall so we bought two side rails which she still uses today. She thought it was so cool to use a stool to climb into bed.

Good luck!

Jennifer

It went better than I expected since my daughter was very attached to her crib/bed.
We removed the crib railing to convert it to a toddler bed and she was in that for a while. But we knew we would need the crib and decided to move her to a toddler bed -- around 2 1/2, I think. We let her pick out the sheets and pillowcase (online -- I just pulled up two webpages to give her limited choices). It went very smoothly! We put the bed in the same space her crib was in to keep things familiar. It was also helpful that she saw one of her friends had a toddler bed.
Good luck!

I think we probably waited too long, as Drew climbed out/fell out of his crib more than twice!

When we moved him over, the bed fit against the wall and we purchased a mobile railing ( I think it is by Regalo, got it at Wal-Mart less then $20) and he loved it. The only thing that we had to worry about was him getting out of bed. But we nipped that in the bud because he hated the child gate, and we would put it in his doorway so he couldn't roam the house at night!

Good luck!

[mommax3]

We also have some kind of rail thingie with netting that fits under the mattress.....don't know the brand, but we have had it for years. I agree with letting the kid pick the bedding if you can. We also moved familiar stuffed animals from the crib to the bed and kept the routine the same.....

Good luck!

Sally

[Amiens]

So this is what we did--- It was suggested to us by our pediatrician that we move Emma to a twin about 2-3 months before the new baby came. We were told it would cut down on the level of "jealousy" and would help decrease the probability of Emma feeling like she was being booted out of "her" crib. Emma was 15 months old (May) when we bought her twin bed, and it sat in her room on the floor. We let her play on it. We then moved the next month, and we dismantled her crib, and stored in a closet. We tried a couple of things before finding something that worked- 1) mattress on the floor, no railing: Emma hated it, and would roll out of bed and sleep on the floor. 2) mattress on floor, pillows all around the bed: Emma hated it, would roll out of bed and sleep on the floor. 3) mattress on floor, double sided bed railing: Emma loved it! I am guessing the railing helped her feel like she was still in a crib. Emma loved her bed from the start, just hated falling out it I should add. About a month after Brigham was born, we set up the crib in their room. Yep, they share a room and it works great. When I got it put together, the first words out of Emma's mouth were- "My bed! Yeah My bed!" As gently as possible I explained that it was Brigham's bed, and that it was a crib for little babies. She eventually figured out how to climb in it, luckily that wasn't until he was 6 months old.

Emma is almost 2 1/2 yrs old, and we have taken down the bed rails as we want to get her a bunk bed that can be taken apart, this next fall (gotta love IKEA!).

Crystal