The end of this week will mark a month since we officially moved Baby C into her toddler bed. The move was long overdue – she first climbed out of her crib nearly 3 months earlier, and despite getting pretty scared by the crash that followed, she continued to make attempts regularly thereafter. I, however, wanted to put this move off for as long as possible. Baby C is a night owl – her usual “fall asleep” time these days is around 9:30, and she has always needed at least a half hour of wind-down time. The crib worked well in this regard – we’d put her down around 8:45, she would roam around, play with her stuffed animals and blankets, and fall asleep when she was ready for it, while we got a little bit of time to read and relax ourselves. I knew that once the crib rail was no longer in place, the roaming would extend to her room and out. Although we had no safety concerns about this, I selfishly mourned the loss of what little time I had to relax myself if Baby C started wandering out of her room regularly.

Since our crib is convertible, the change was fairly minor – we took down the crib rail and put up the little guard. We talked to Baby C about her new “big girl” bed, but she didn’t really seem to internalize the change. For a full week and a half, it was almost as if nothing had changed. Although she got in and out of bed freely during the day, once we turned the lights off, she stayed put and fell asleep as she usually did. And then the jig was up.

The first night that Baby C wandered out of her bed, she spent the time in her room. We babyproofed extensively and made sure to leave no toys that made noise or lit up. While she was in her room, we let her be, and eventually she settled down as usual. But the next night she beelined straight for her door, and insisted that she wanted to sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed (weirdly, since she’s never slept in our bed before). We returned her to her bed, spent time some helping her settle down, but this newly found freedom kept her up until nearly 11 PM that night, and similarly the next night.

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Checking out her new digs

Exhausted ourselves, and at the advice of friends and fellow Bees here at Hellobee, we decided to try locking Baby C’s bedroom door. We were admittedly hesitant – I’m generally very sensitive to doing things that might unsettle my kid, and I was worried that locking her in might scare or upset her. However, after rattling the door a few times, she seemed to accept pretty quickly that it was locked and went off to wander around in her room. I heard her play with her toys and she’s fond of rocking in her rocking chair. After 15 minutes of silence, I went in to check on her (our baby monitor doesn’t give us a full room view), and found her curled up next to her rocking chair. She might have even dozed off, but the new door lock opened with a bit of a thump and it took me another 30 minutes of hand holding, belly rubbing and comforting to get her to finally fall asleep.

Now that we’re into our 4th week of this transition, we seem to have settled into a routine, though one I hope we don’t keep for long. We put Baby C down into bed, and it is nearly certain that she will get out as soon as we close the door and find a spot on the floor to lay down on. Usually it’s near the bed, or the door, which presents a challenge because if she falls asleep there, we then risk waking her up by opening the door and nudging her with it, given her proximity. This weekend, we decided to try solving for this problem by buying a blanket, both to cover her bed during the day and to serve as an additional spot for her to roll around on once the lights are off. The reviews on that strategy are still out – she seems to like the blanket, but both nights that we’ve had it, she’s wandered back toward the door anyway.

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Hanging out anywhere but in bed

Thankfully, we haven’t had any more 11 PM nights, but it’s still taking her longer than usual to settle down (closer to 10). She’ll wander back and forth between the door and the blanket and the bed, roll around, etc. We’ve inevitably had to go in to sit with her, rub her belly and do whatever we could to help relax her, though it’s usually for naught. As has been true for this kid, she will not fall asleep until she’s absolutely ready to. We just hope it’s not too late and in a spot we can easily move her back to bed from. And as we watch her make her rounds, we wonder what might come next in this transition.

How did your kids’ big kid bed transitions go? Share any tips you might have!