Parenting: 2-Year-Olds Community

Depends on the child. DD pretty much stays put when we put her in bed. She's only gotten up and roamed once shortly after we put her to bed one night - but went right back into her bed once we put her in there again. She does sometimes wake up early and get out of bed (6:30 am), but we keep the door to her room shut and have a monitor on in there still so we can hear her when she gets up. We don't keep any toys, books, etc in her room, so there isn't anything to get up and play with in there (it's all in the living room).

She has her crib converted to a toddler bed, so to keep her from rolling out in her sleep onto the floor we just tied one of her old crib bumpers across the open side of the bed and the other side is against the wall. The bumper is enough of a "speed bump" to keep her from rolling out, but not so big that she can't climb over it to get in and out when she wants to.

I agree with the PP, it does depend on the child. But she may really surprise you. DS has been in a toddler bed for a couple of months now and he has not tried to get up once unless we were in the room with him. Even during the few times that he's been crying because he didn't want to take a nap or something, he still just sits up in his bed. When he wakes up in the morning, he lies in his bed and talks to himself until we come in and get him. I think sometimes they feel a certain sense of security in their bed and don't want to venture out of it unattended or something. We still made sure his room was well baby-proofed just in case. As far as making the transition, we just talked it up that evening. DH put it together and brought it in, and DS kept trying to jump on it before the mattress was even on there. Then we gave him about 30 mins to sit on it and play a little, and he was REALLY excited about his "big boy bed". They say it helps to put it in the same place where the crib was, so we did that....probably helps to have the same view of the room that he's used to when the lights go out. We also put his same bedding he's used to having on the toddler bed (one perk of having a toddler bed instead of going straight to a twin since the mattress can be reused along with the bedding) Once it was time for bed, we still picked him up and placed him in the bed as we would have with the crib, and continued to tell him how big he was and how proud we were of him for sleeping in his big boy bed. We have never had a single issue.

We moved DD to a bed at the beginning of the month. There is no gate on her door so if she is up she can roam around. It took about a week for her to be transitioned over. Basically, every time she got up, I just put her back into bed. It took about 3 days before she stayed in her room after we read books. Then of course she would wake up in the middle of the night and get up. (Use to wake up in the crib but couldn't go anywhere so she went back to sleep.) So same thing, I just put her back in her bed and left. It took a few days for her to realize that she needed to stay there. Like I said about a week in all. (We did actually stay in there the first night or two until she fell asleep but we quickly stopped that since as our experience with DS proved, that can be a hard habit to break.)

We just got the bed and put him in it. He slept in it the first few nights but wouldn't sleep in it for naps; he just kept getting up. That only lasted a few days and in less than a week, he was sleeping in his bed for naps and at night.

DH put a half door up and there's a latch on it DS can't reach from the inside. A few times, he keeps getting up after we put him down for his nap or at night so we've latched the half door so DS can't get out. On at least 3 or 4 occasions, DS has fallen asleep on the floor behind the half door. If it's for his nap, we'll just leave him there and will unlatch the door so he can get out when he wakes up. If it's at night, we'll put him in his bed and unlatch the door.

It's just one of those things that you have to try and see. I thought for sure DS would be all over the place once we switch his crib to the toddler bed. We child-proofed the room all over again. We took out anything that looking like it could entice him into getting out of bed. And then we just went for it. That was almost a year ago and most days he still calls for us to come and get him out of bed.

Thanks for your tips everyone. We aren't sure if we are going to attempt it or not yet, she can't get out of her crib yet (sleep sacks work wonders) so we aren't in a big rush and we don't need it for another LO anytime soon. I was just getting some ideas and what has worked for other mommies.