How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed

26/9/2017

How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed

How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed - Maeleth smiling happily after waking up!

As I am writing this, my daughter Maeleth Sarah Goh is 19 months old.
In the past month she had trouble sleeping through the night in her baby cot, and would wake up in the middle of the night every night to come sleep on my bed.

After a week of this happening, my wife Amilee and I deduced that she didn't want to sleep in a cot anymore and wanted to transition from her cot to a toddler bed.
It could be due to her being taller now than before and when her legs kicked the side of the cot, it would annoy and wake her.

Initially we were nervous about the idea of transitioning her from a cot to a toddler bed - "What if she wakes up before us, runs out of the room and gets injured, or worse?".

We brainstormed ideas on how to prepare for Mae's first night in toddler bed, executed the plan, and everything was very successful -
Mae slept soundly through the night (If you're interested, click here to read my post about how we helped Mae to sleep through the night) and woke up safely the next morning, climbed onto my chest and shook me awake.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Mae smiling at me :)

In this post, I would like to share with you the safety measures that we put into place to prepare for Mae's first night in toddler bed - to clarify, Mae is sleeping on a single sized adult bed.

1) Infant Safety Bed Rail for a child's first night in toddler bed.

I remember that when I was a young child, I would often roll off the bed and sometimes I injured myself due to the fall.
We didn't want the same thing to happen to Mae so we bought an infant safety bedrail to protect Mae from falling off the bed when she tosses and turns in her sleep.

Many times in the night, Mae would roll and bump against the infant safety bedrail.
Thank God that the bedrail is there, if not Mae would have fallen off the bed many times over!
If you're planning to have your child sleep in an adult bed, it is important to have a bedrail installed for his or her first night in toddler bed.

2) Foam Mat for a child's first night in toddler bed.

We also placed interlocking foam mats on the floor surrounding Mae's bed in case she woke up quietly in the middle of the night and climbed over the bedrail.
The foam mats would act as a barrier to cushion a fall, reducing any potential injury.

As the foam mats are individual small squares, they can be placed to fit the shape of the bed with minimal gaps.
You may want to leave the foam mats as a semi-permanent fixture in the room as they can double-up as a playmat for your child, to protect from any incidents of injuries from tripping and falling.

Foam mats are helpful if you're preparing for your child's first night in toddler bed.

3) Home Surveillance Camera for a child's first night in toddler bed.

If you're sleeping in a separate room from your child, it is helpful to have a home surveillance camera so that if he or she wakes up in the middle of the night (while you're still awake), you can ensure that your child is not doing anything dangerous.

We personally use a Foscam camera and have a positive experience with this brand. It even has a recording feature (with in-app purchase) so you can look back at the video history if needed.
It also has a motion sensor which can be useful to alert you on your smartphone when your child wakes up.

Many times when Amilee and I are spending time together alone as a couple, we have the Foscam app active on our iPad and when Mae wakes up in the middle of the night, we can go coax her back to sleep immediately even before she begins to cry.
It is such a helpful product that has served us well in our parenting journey and it has given us a peace of mind.

If you're preparing for your child's first night in toddler night, do consider having a home surveillance camera as an additional security measure for a peace of mind.

4) [Alternative] Folding Mattress to be placed on the floor for a child's first night in toddler bed.

As an alternative to letting your child sleep on an adult bed, you could also purchase a foldable mattress to be placed on the floor for your child's first night in toddler bed instead.
That would ensure that your child won't get injured by falling off the bed.

However I would like to share that there are benefits to having your child sleep on an adult bed.
Firstly, when you bring your child to travel overseas (Interested to read our comprehensive baby travel checklist? Click here) , the hotel usually doesn't have a floor mattress.
If he or she is already used to sleeping on an adult bed, there will likely be no problems adjusting to sleeping on the hotel bed.

Another benefit of letting your child sleep on an adult bed is that you wont have to purchase another bed when he or she gets a older, and there's no need to adjust again with the transition of bed type.

Ultimately, it's up to your discretion to decide which type of bed is better for your child as every person's situation is unique.

How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed - Through the mesh!

I hope you enjoyed reading my post on "How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed".

What other ways can you think of to prepare for your child's first night in toddler bed?
Share your answers with me by leaving a comment below.

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Many Blessings,
Milton Goh

How you can Prepare for your Child's First Night in Toddler Bed

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