Flipping Out of Crib

[HCas]

Need advice...

My daughter is almost 18 months old and she has now flipped herself out of her crib multiple times when she was suppose to be napping. I've been wanting to get her in a toddler bed for a few months now to have her good to go when by the time our second child is born, but my husband would prefer to keep her in the crib until about a month before baby arrives. I'm starting to get scared since the floor of the room is tile and that's a decent height to fall from. My husband on the other hand is worried she's too young for a toddler bed and that she won't go to sleep in one.

What's the best way to get him to understand that she can no longer stay in a crib?

 

[staralfur]

I would simply say that safety takes precedence over sleep. It might take time to get her sleep to transition to the toddler bed but surely that's better than potentially seriously injuring herself on a hard floor?

When we switched my LO to a toddler bed we put a bed railing up that she was too little to get over. Eventually she did get big enough and learned to climb over the railing but her bed was only a foot off the floor and it wasn't dangerous. But before she learned how to get out it was sufficient at keeping her in the bed in a crib environment instead of climbing out repeatedly. So you could offer that as a suggestion.

Honestly though I wouldn't be negotiating much in this situation, I'd be pretty firm about switching over.

 

[Scout]

Safety first. I put dd in a regular full size bed at 17 months and she did just fine. I had a mesh guard rail on the sides and a stool beside the head of the bed so she could climb up and down off it. I baby proofed her bedroom and put a baby gate on the door. The first few nights she got up and played (even found her asleep in the floor a couple of times), but after the newness of it wore off, she stayed in bed and slept just fine. (until at age 3 when she decided she'd rather sleep with me! LOL)

 

[Zephram]

You need to put her in a bed. It's not safe for her to be in a cot if she can climb out. The last thing you want is her to actually hurt herself falling out. Get a bed now.

DS1 went into a bed at 19 months as he started climbing out. DS2 is in a bed already! He's now 15 months and we put him in a bed a couple of weeks ago as he hardly used the cot anyway due to the fact we cosleep at least some of every night.

They both fell out exactly once on the first night and not after that. We have king single beds for both of them with a roll out mattress underneath, we just pull out the mattress underneath a little bit so they can use it to climb up and to cushion any falls.

I kind of feel like cots are baby prisons, haha, heaps of kids hate them. Sure, some never try to climb out, but mine are little slider monkeys and sleep better and are happy in beds.

 

[HCas]

Thanks. Got him to take me to the storage unit to get my nieces old toddler bed... Sadly we found out that we're missing most of the screws so she's in her crib for one final night. When he gets home tonight from his night shift we're going to go get the missing pieces so we can put it together first thing in the morning.

 

[krissie328]

I switched ds to his bed for naps only but kept him in the crib at night. Now he's sleeping well during naps I'm gonna switch him to it full time. He's not climbing out so not a factor in the slow transition.

 

[SarahBear]

Better to have a kid not sleeping than a kid rushed to the hospital due to an injury from flipping out of a crib. It's a safety hazard.