If you have been around for a while, you know that our 4 year old is a tiny girl. Her issues with failure to thrive were daunting and at nearly 4.5 years old, she is only 39 inches tall and 30 lbs. When we transitioned her from her crib to her toddler bed we did it quickly because she was crawling out and eventually would get hurt if we let her continue to stay in a crib. Our transition to her big kid bed, was much easier and here are some tips to make it easier for you too!
1. Talk with your child: When we decided that we would be turning her nursery into her big girl room, we spoke with our little girl for about a month about her big girl bed and even did some drawings of where we would move everything helped her understand that big girl beds are awesome. When the time came to finally switch her crib/toddler bed into her full size bed, it was the most exciting day for her ever and she was elated to help us!
2. Order a Mattress Ahead of Time: So this one is a bit odd to the list, but hear me out. We ordered her a mattress and had it shipped to our house. It sat by their playroom and she was able to see it constantly and ask questions about it and get more comfortable with the idea that she would be getting a new, bigger, more awesome bed!
We ordered ours off of Amazon through an amazing company called LinenSpa. I was able to get a full size inner spring mattress with a memory foam topper for about $120.00. The LinenSpa mattresses go on sale all the time and today are only $88.00 with Prime Day happening. You can snag a twin for $72.00, just click here and select your size!
LinenSpa has all sizes of mattresses and ships quickly with Amazon Prime. The mattresses come very securely packaged and are easy to open and set up when you are ready. For us this part was important. We wanted to have the mattress in the home so that she could get used to the idea of getting a bigger bed, but we didn’t want to have it taking up a ton of space. Linenspa’s packaging was perfect for that!
Another aspect we looked at when shopping for the mattress was comfort. I think that is the first thing people look for and although we were nervous about not being able to lay on the bed and try it out, once we opened the mattress and allowed it to spread out and laid on it, we were so happy we chose the LinenSpa mattress. The fabric is so utterly soft that it makes you want to sleep and the memory foam is just the right amount to have you sleeping on a little cloud of your own.
Our daughter loved that she was able to get on the mattress before we covered it in a plastic sheet (yes I did, because accidents), and her regular sheets to test it out. I wish I would have had photos, but we were all laying on the mattress and laughing and talking about the excitement of a big girl bed. I know that having her mattress in home for a couple weeks before we set it up, helped build that excitement!
3. Let your child pick our a new comforter set or bedroom theme. Our daughters nursery is elephant themed because my late mother in law loved elephants and we wanted to incorporate her in our daughters room. Nearly all the decor is handmade by myself or my mom and was put together with so much love and passion. It nearly killed me to change the comforter to suit my daughters current passion, but this is her room, I want her to love her room and be excited for it, so we made a big deal out of getting to pick out her new comforter set.
She is my Frozen loving girl and was so excited when we found this set (on clearance too), that she couldn’t wait to sleep in her big girl bed, with her new blanket and pillows. We compromised and were able to keep much of the elephant decor (for a little while longer) and still have her Frozen bed which she was really happy with (and so was I). Getting into bed her first night was a breeze. She literally ran into her bed, got under the covers and told me to turn the lights off so she and Anna and Elsa could get some sleep….and sleep they did. A full 13 hours of sleep people. I didn’t even know that she could sleep like that.
4. Start Practicing a new Bedtime Routine earlier than later. This was so important for success in our home. The day that the LinenSpa mattress was delivered, we started to transition her bedtime routine as well. Our prior bedtime routine was room clean up, teeth brush, bath, PJ’s, book, snuggles in her rocking chair and then bed. The rocking chair would be leaving her room and so would those snuggles. We needed to have time to prep her and we did. Each night we lessened the time in the rocking chair and moved more time to her bed. We read her book in her toddler bed instead of the chair and I would sit on the edge of her toddler bed after tucking her in instead of rocking chair snuggles. It took some time to get used to, but it made the day of the big kid bed transition a million times easier.
5. Let your Child Help Set Up the Room: When we started putting the bed together and getting everything ready, she was alongside us the entire way. She would bring the bolts we needed or grab the screwdriver and we even let her “tighten” some bolts. Once the bed was set up, she then helped me decide where she wanted her toys and we set her big girl room up together. Having her take ownership helped make the transition so much easier and exciting for all of us.
