If you have a toddler,
you might be familiar with this scenario.
You've had a baby who has just started
to get into an excellent sleep pattern.
Suddenly they turn one and a half, two,
two and a half years old, and bam,
sleep problems.
This could be due to nap transitions, separation anxiety,
sleep regression, starting preschool,
a new sibling, any number of things.
But toddler sleep can be tricky.
Today I'm going to be answering your sleep question,
we are trying to move our toddler to a bed,
and she won't stay, help.
And in this video,
I'm going to talk to you about how you can
transition your toddler into a big bed
and get them to stay there.
Tell me in the comments below,
how are you going with your toddlers sleep?
How old is your toddler?
Are they in a big bed yet?
How did that transition go?
We would love to hear from you.
But first, let me introduce myself.
My name is Nicky, and I'm one of the founders
of a company called Little Ones.
At Little Ones we specialize in infant and toddler sleep.
We've written a set of comprehensive sleep programs
that guide you through everything
related to sleep in the first years
of your little one's life.
One of the key reasons that we started this company
is because, like you, we're parents.
I have three beautiful children.
And when I first became a parent,
I experienced massive sleep deprivation.
My eldest daughter just did not sleep at all.
She wouldn't nap.
She wouldn't fall asleep.
She would just lie there, awake,
either staring at me or screaming all the time.
I know how hard that can be.
Part of my incentive to start this company
was to be able to help other parents
who were in that same situation
that I was in the first time around.
We have now helped over 200,000 families worldwide
with our sleep programs.
And we would love to help you, too.
So please check us out www.littleones.co
Right, so let's talk about
your toddler and the transition to the big bed,
because this is a big, big, big step
in your toddler's life and in their sleep journey.
First thing I'm going to say here is
I'm not sure how old your toddler is from this question,
but just in general,
don't be in a rush to move your toddler out of their crib.
Unless of course you need it for a new baby,
but even then see if you can get around that,
somehow borrowing an extra crib for the new baby
or having them in a bassinet to start with,
because honestly the longer your toddler
can stay in a crib safely, the better.
By safely I mean that they're not
climbing out of the crib
because that obviously is dangerous.
And as long as your child is not doing that,
I would literally keep them in there
until they physically outgrow it.
The reason being that until they reach a certain
mental maturation, it's not easy to reason with them,
that you cannot sort of have a discussion with them
and say, "This is why you need to stay in your bed."
They're just a lot less logical
and they're very impulse driven.
So if your child is one and a half, even two,
and you're putting them in a big bed
they simply don't have kind of the logic
part of their brain working yet.
They're still very impulse driven.
They can get out of the bed.
So why wouldn't they?
So the longer you can keep them in a crib,
the better all around.
So then let's talk about how you might manage
this transition in a slightly older toddler to the bed.
First of all, I would suggest getting the bed
and having it in the room at the same time as the crib,
if that's possible for you and your family.
This is because then the bed in itself,
isn't something terrifying,
and new things for babies and toddlers and children
can be quite scary.
They have no frame of reference.
We know ourselves, okay,
I'm gonna go out and I'm going to buy myself a new bed.
You are thinking about it.
You're maybe researching online.
You've gone and looked at several.
You know you're gonna get it.
You're also an adult.
So you've had a lifetime worth of experience of change
and adapting to change.
Our little ones don't have this.
They have no experience of adapting to change.
So any change, even though we might not even
think it's a big deal, can be a big deal to them,
especially a change as big
as something in their sleep environment.
Don't just get the bed,
get rid of the crib in the same day
and expect your toddler to be fine in it.
It is a big deal to them,
even though it might not be to you.
So if you can, have the bed and the crib in the same room.
I would be looking at how you can make your toddler
comfortable with the bed being there.
So it might be initially that their bedtime story
or their bottle or their milk feed
or their cuddle and their song before bed
happens in the big bed and then
they're popped into their crib for the night,
so that they're having some,
starting to get some of those associations of the big bed,
but they're not expected to spend the whole night in there.
Take it easy and be patient.
The next thing I would look at doing would be
your toddler's daytime nap in the big bed,
if they're still having a nap.
And then you can remove the cot
and move into night sleep in the big bed.
Something that is going to really help this transition
is to keep everything else
in their sleep environment the same.
So if you're using white noise, keep using white noise.
Keep using your blackout blinds.
If they have a little blankie or a cuddly, keep using that.
And I would go so far as,
if your toddler is sleeping
in a toddler sleeping bag or sleep sack,
keep them in that when they're moved to the big bed.
Trouble a lot of parents get into is
thinking I'm gonna move them into the big bed
and they can have all these cute blankets,
but realistically at that sort of age,
they're just, blankets are a nuisance.
They're going to get tangled in them.
They're not going to be able to
pull them up themselves in the night.
They're possibly going to be waking cold.
It's, again, it's a big change and it's a big novelty.
If at all possible, keep your little one
in their sleeping sack when you move them into the big bed,
because that is going to just reinforce that sleep
and help with that sense of normality
that they're used to in their crib.
The other good thing about them still being
in their sleeping bag is it can restrict
their movement a little bit.
They still feel cocooned to an extent.
So they don't immediately think,
oh, my legs are free, and I can get out of the bed,
so I'm just gonna wander around the place.
I know when I transitioned
all three of my kids into a big bed,
they were still in toddler sleeping bags
because I swear by those things.
For like weeks at the start they didn't even
get out of the big bed even when they could have,
when they woke in the morning or after nap,
because they were so used to being in their sleeping bag
and then the mentality that
they wake up and I come in to get them, which was amazing.
I will say though,
that if there's a bit of danger in your house.
So, so we have a staircase
that once your child is in a big bed,
if there's a risk of them being able to get out and say,
go down the staircase,
obviously they shouldn't be in a traditional sleeping bag
or sleep sack because that can be really dangerous.
What I do definitely recommend is ergoPouch
do these really amazing sleep sacks for toddlers,
that you can zip up the legs to be two separate legs.
So they look like a little starfish,
so they can actually still walk
quite competently in the sleep sack.
So I will link those below 'cause they were a savior.
Check those out.
If your little one is potentially going to be
getting out of bed and there might be
some hazards, like stairs.
So that sort of sets up when and how
your little ones should be moving into a big bed.
So now let's look at the question of
you've moved them into a big bed,
so you've presumably done all of that in that order or not,
it's irrelevant now, they're in the big bed
and they're not staying.
This is because toddlers would find it
hilarious and exciting.
Like I said earlier,
the thing with the big bed is they're not trapped.
So they're like, woo hoo, here I am,
with all this newfound freedom.
I'm just gonna keep coming out into the lounge room
because I can, and to a toddler, any attention,
negative or positive, it's still attention.
So even if they are coming out and you're going
"Errr, get back to bed," that's still attention.
They're still getting rewarded for that behavior.
So they're getting some kind of response.
But in saying that, I'm not going to immediately assume
that they're doing it to be naughty.
There are a couple of things that we can rule out first.
So the first would be that,
that your toddler is actually ready to go to bed.
If your toddler is to severely undertired.
So say they're like three, two years old,
and they've had like a three hour nap during the day,
and you're trying to still put them to bed at 7 p.m.,
they're actually just not tired enough.
Like in a crib they maybe would happily
be lying there for ages,
but because they can't get out,
you perhaps don't realize that they're just
lying there rolling around awake.
In a bed, because they can get out,
if they're just not ready to fall asleep,
they're gonna be popping out all the time.
I can guarantee it.
The same will be happening
if your little one has maybe dropped their nap too early,
and they're overtired.
That adrenaline and that cortisol is going to mean
that they just can't settle easily to sleep.
Making sure that those two factors aren't featuring
and your child's popping out of their room
is really going to affect the success of them
staying in their big bed.
Now let's assume your child has had the perfect
length and time nap for their age, or no nap at all,
depending on their age,
they're going to bed, say 6:30, seven in the evening,
popped them in their bed,
and you've just settled yourself on the couch
in your PJ's and they appear.
Remembering, of course,
that any response from you is win for your toddler.
What I would suggest you do
is silently return them to their room,
make it as boring as you can.
Don't engage with them.
This sounds really mean, but you don't need to talk to them.
Or if you're going to talk to them, you just,
I would be repeating my sleep phrase.
So I would be saying,
"It's sleep time now."
And you just lead them back to their bed.
No playing, no engaging if they're asking you for things.
Pop them in their bed, walk out.
You might need to do this 150,000 times
because, especially the first night or two,
because they're literally testing the system.
So we know that toddlers and preschoolers and children
are the absolute kings of reasons to get up at bedtime.
My son once got up at bedtime to ask me why we have skin.
He's also asked me, how do ducks cough?
He's told me that there was a bird outside, shouting at him.
I've been asked how fish float.
What are tongues made of?
And then of course the eight million glasses of water
they suddenly seem to need at bedtime.
Don't engage.
Don't fall for it.
If your child is getting out repeatedly,
it's a game to them.
Don't play the game.
Say your sleepy phrase or saying nothing
and escort them silently,
it's called a silent return, back to their bed,
pop them in their bed.
Walk out again.
Don't get frustrated.
It's very hard because you're so desperate
to watch that show on Netflix.
Don't get frustrated or angry.
You just need to be patient with them.
They are learning the boundaries here.
And as toddlers, that's kind of their job
is to push, push, push, and learn their boundaries.
And you silently returning them to their bed is saying,
this is actually what I expect of you.
I would also be really careful here
about establishing some new sleep habits
and sleep associations.
It could be really easy to say,
I'm just gonna sit next to them and pat them,
or I'm just gonna lie down in their bed with them
while they fall asleep.
Two nights in you'll be doing it forever.
You'll probably be visiting them at university
to lie down with them while they sleep.
They will adapt to any new sleep habits
and associations really quickly.
Stick to the routine, stick to what you've been doing.
You've just got to teach them
that the expectation is that they're going into their bed
and they're going to go to sleep.
In the morning when everyone's bright eyed and bushy tailed,
presumably, talk to them about it.
And you can say you were really good last night
when you went to bed, for the hundredth time,
and you stayed there and you went to sleep.
Praise them when they got it right.
You can also do this overnight.
If your toddler is getting up overnight,
then silent return is definitely the way to go.
Nobody wants to do that in the middle of the night,
but believe me, a couple days in
and they will be like, okay, well,
this isn't fun anymore because you're not engaging,
you're not getting me,
you're not answering my crazy questions,
you're not getting me like 400 bowls of cereal
in the middle of the night, so I'm not,
I'm just actually gonna go to sleep,
'cause everything else is boring.
So a couple,
just sacrifice a couple nights and it will be worth it.
So those are the key things that I would be trying.
Check that their nap is okay.
That seems weird, but that's quite crucial
because if they're overtired or undertired,
of course they're getting out.
So they're just not gonna wanna stay there
no matter what you do.
And then just silently return them to their bed.
If you wanna go down the road
of creating some kind of reward chart,
like a sticker chart to do every morning,
for them staying in their bed,
that's definitely something that you could look into,
but silent returns and not engaging in the game
is the best way forward from here.
Well, I hope that's given you
a couple of things to try to keep your toddler
in their bed overnight, in their big bed.
Please remember that if you're thinking about
transitioning your toddler to a big bed,
keep them in their crib as long as you can.
Don't be in a rush to do it.
They'll be in a big bed for the rest of their lives.
The longer you can keep them in their crib,
honestly, the easier it will be.
Thank you very much for watching.
And don't forget if you're
having trouble with your toddler's sleep,
we would love to help you.
Check out our website, www.littleones.co
and have a look at our sleep programs.
We've got all the answers for your toddler's
sleep struggles and challenges on there.
Thank you for watching.
And I'll talk to you again soon.