Ben Is Six Weeks From Three and the Crib Has to Go

Ben turns three on October 30, which puts the crib on borrowed time. He hasn't tried to climb out. He sleeps flat out and sideways like he does everything and I'd leave him in there another year if the calendar let me. But everything I've read says the window for the move is somewhere between two and a half and four, and three is the sweet spot, because a child that age can follow a rule about staying put. So I'm using the next six weeks to get ready, and I'm doing the getting ready in a particular order.

The routine goes first and the bed goes second. If you take one thing from this post, take that.

When should a toddler move from the crib to a bed?

Later than you'd think, unless he's climbing, because a child who has started to get a leg over the rail is a safety problem and the bed happens that week, whatever the calendar says. A child who stays put can wait until "stay in your room" means something to him, and at two it's mostly noise while at nearly three it lands about half the time, which is a big improvement.

I've also seen it said that children who move before they have a settled bedtime have the worst stretch of it, with the crying and the bargaining. That matches what I remember. The bed doesn't create the trouble. It just takes away the one thing that was holding a loose routine together, which was the rails.

Get the bedtime in order before the bed arrives

Our bedtime is loose. It's pajamas and teeth and two books and a song and lights out, but the order moves around and the two books have been known to become five on a night when I'm tired enough to let them. So for six weeks it's going to be the same every night, and I'll be the one who changes first.

Pediatric sleep advice says to start about thirty minutes before the time you want him asleep, and to keep the last hour free of screens and wrestling. Caleb is eleven and has his own opinions about the wrestling rule, since Ben's favorite game is being chased down the hallway by his brother. We'll move the chasing to right after dinner. He picks the two books before we start, from a short shelf so the picking doesn't eat twenty minutes.

Lights out around seven.

One thing worth deciding now, and writing down if you're the kind of couple that forgets, is who does what when he's up at 9:40 asking for water. David and I settled it at the kitchen table last week. Whoever is closest takes him back and says almost nothing.

Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.

D&C 88:124

This verse is addressed to the grown-ups, the ones who stay up past eleven with a phone, and I'm not going to claim the Lord had toddlers in mind. It's useful for a household because it names early to bed as a plain good, and children pick that up from watching us do it. A bedtime that the parents also keep is easier to defend than one that only applies to the smallest person.

What happened when Lily moved

Lily went into a bed in March 2021, a few months short of three, and the first night went exactly the way every article says it will. She got out nine times. I know it was nine because I was counting on the back of an envelope by the hall light. The fourth time she came out holding her stuffed horse and told me very politely that she had a question, which was whether horses sleep standing up.

I answered her, and for the next two weeks every trip out of the bed came with a question, and the questions got better, which is the dangerous part. Where do horses go when it snows. Does the horse have a mom. I'd have been glad to talk about all of it at four in the afternoon, and at ten at night I was the most informative hallway in the county.

What fixed it was dull, which was to stop answering and walk her back with a hand on her shoulder, say "it's sleeping time" and leave, and by about the sixth night it took two trips instead of nine. By the third week she stayed in bed and called out only when something was really wrong.

Every source I've looked at says the same thing in different words.

Where does the dog sleep?

Biscuit, whom nobody ever writes about in these articles, has slept under Ben's crib since the week we brought Ben home, and he's a golden retriever of six who treats that spot like an assignment. When the crib goes, there's no under. There's a bed on a frame and a dog who will stand in the doorway looking at me as if I took his desk.

My plan is to put a rug beside the new bed and see whether he figures out that it's the same job. If he hops up and sleeps on the bed itself we'll talk about it, and I suspect that conversation will be short. Either way the dog should be settled in his spot before Ben is in the bed, so that Ben doesn't wake up to find the one familiar sound in the room has moved.

My sister's idea of a mattress on the floor would skip the frame and the rail altogether, and with Biscuit in the picture I may still end up there.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I put a gate on the bedroom door?

Yes, because once the rails are gone he can walk anywhere in the house at two in the morning, and a gate at his door costs very little next to what a stairway at night can cost you. If your bedrooms are upstairs, put one at the top of the stairs too.

How long does the adjustment take?

Plan on one to two months and be glad if it's less, since Lily's was three weeks of real work and then it was over, though the first two or three nights felt like proof the whole idea was wrong.

Do I need to buy a toddler bed?

We're not buying one, since a twin with a rail on the open side does the job and he'll be in it for years. Let him help pick the sheets.

What if he won't stop getting out of bed?

Walk him back every time and skip the conversation. If you laugh at something he says, you'll get five more trips that night.

Fix the bedtime this week and keep it the same for a month. Don't buy the bed until the routine holds.

with love, Melissa