Time for Big-Kid beds! – Part 2

It took some time, I know, but here’s finally the follow-up post to Time for Big-Kid beds? – Part 1. There are several reasons why it took me so long to write this (or any) post, including of course the Christmas and end of year activities, the two weeks of December "holidays" with no daycare, bad weather outside and two snotty and coughing toddlers at home (I should probably write a post about those two weeks at some point…), but also the transition to the Big-Kid beds – as my precious two hours of silence during afternoon naps are now gone, and apparently won’t come back anymore. But for those of you considering making the switch to toddler or Big-Kid beds soon: don’t worry, it’s not all bad news! Read on for our experience so far with the transition of our twin girls to toddler beds: the good and the bad, the successes and the disasters…

Let’s go back to 25 December, 2014. After several weeks of preparing the girls’ room (and our minds) for the big change, we decided this was the day. I still had many doubts even the very moment my husband started to take off the rails of our girls’ cribs to convert them to toddler beds. For several weeks now, our girls did not climb or fall out of their cribs at all and they were still sleeping very well at night and fairly good at naptimes. Should we not try and wait a few more months before making the transition in order to assure a few more months of good sleeping? But then another voice in my head reminded me of the risks of keeping our girls in their cribs longer knowing that they were able to climb out. It had already been several weeks and we were lucky nothing had happened so far, but I would not forgive myself if they would have a nasty fall out of their cribs just because of us having waited too long.

So that was it, the crib rails were gone and the big change was now a reality. When we took our girls up to their room for their afternoon nap, I was worried for a second that they would be a bit scared in the toddler beds without the security of the crib rails. But our first experience with the big beds was a very good one, as our girls loved their “new” beds and were incredibly proud to have "big girl" beds now. So fortunately one thing less to worry about. We then prepared the girls for their nap as usual and left the room, hoping that they would accept to sleep in their changed environment. But we were asking too much of them, of course. How can you expect from a toddler to go to sleep when she is now enjoying a whole lot of freedom she didn’t have before? Let alone two toddlers who are able to enjoy this new freedom together!

Naptime? Party time!

Naptime ceased to exist and has now converted into “party time”, with an occasional (or some days frequent) episode of quarreling between the two sisters over something they both want or over something the other did and they didn’t like, including some pushing, hitting or even biting as words still aren’t quite sufficient to express all feelings and disagreements. We had a little hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be a phase while they got used to their new environment and that their newly acquired freedom would lose some of its attractiveness after a few days or weeks, allowing them to go back to the habit of napping in the afternoon at some point. However, unless the adaption time is longer than three weeks, it seems this is not going to happen. The result so far is no more quiet time for Mom and Dad in the afternoons and two cranky and sleepy girls at dinner time. On the upside, when the girls don’t sleep in the afternoon we make sure to start their dinner at least half an hour earlier than usual, resulting in an earlier bedtime as well. This has worked well for all of us so far, as the girls are too tired to stay up until their normal bedtime if they haven’t slept in the afternoon, while at the same time this gives us a somewhat earlier start of our evening, which is not bad at all considering that we are usually too tired to stay up late as well.

Just to summarize: naptime after the transition equals quite a bit of disaster with just a few positive notes here and there. Nights after the transition, however, have fortunately been a huge success, and I’m so happy about this that I’m willing to forgive and forget just about anything happening at naptime (ok, maybe not immediately when or after it happens, but an hour later or so…) as long as the nights continue to be peaceful with many hours of sleep for all of us. After seeing how naptime converted into party time on 25 December I of course started to worry about our nights, but fortunately our girls seem to respect the dark and understand that they have to sleep when it’s dark outside (I’m so glad it gets dark here in Costa Rica at about the same time during the whole year – for people living in different latitudes, I would recommend if at all possible to make the switch during fall or winter to make sure kids have fully adapted before days get longer again). Except for the few normal moments of crying after a nightmare and a few rare occasions when one of the girls got out of bed at night just after putting them down and we had to put her back in her bed, we have had excellent nights since the transition to toddler beds with no parties or girls running around their room at night. Most of the times they fall asleep almost immediately after putting them down around 6:30 pm and they wake up somewhere between 5:30 and 6 am. Not bad at all for toddler twins, I think!

A few recommendations based on our experience so far for those (twin) parents considering to make the transition to toddler or Big-Kid beds soon:

• Place a safety gate at the door if you haven’t done so already, so that it will not be possible for your twins to leave their room. The risks of any accidents happening will be much higher if the twins are able to run around the house. Besides, the newly acquired freedom of their own room is already quite a lot – if it would include the entire house, they would probably never sleep again!
• Make sure the room is fully toddler/twin-proofed before making the transition. There should be no dangerous objects within reach or pieces of furniture that could fall if kids attempt to climb or hang on them. For example, we moved the changing table out of the girls’ room as it could easily fall on top of them if they would try to climb it. Also, my husband made a latch on the door so that the girls cannot close it – especially important with multiples sharing a room as one could close the door while the other still has her fingers in between.
• Try not to make any big changes to the room except for the bed. If possible, try to convert the cribs to toddler beds instead of buying new Big-Kid beds, as this will make your toddlers feel like big kids with newly acquired freedom while still being in their own trusted, safe and familiar environment. If any big changes have to be made to the room before the transition (like removing furniture or placing a safety gate), try to do it several weeks before so that your toddlers can get used to it before the transition. It might be tempting to combine the transition to big kid beds with a complete new design of the room, but it’s probably better to wait with that as your twins could either be afraid or overwhelmed with so many changes, or they could be so excited with all the changes that going to sleep will no longer be an option.
• Continue with the same bed time routine as before the transition. Everything should go on as usual with the only change being the bed.
• Try to use a reward system for good behavior instead of getting (too) angry over bad behavior. Our girls love to receive stickers for good behavior, and even though it hasn’t worked for us so far to get them to sleep again in the afternoon, it has worked to stop other pretty annoying behavior at naptime (like taking off diapers).
• Try not to worry too much about what will happen after the transition to big beds. I know, that’s easier said than done. But really, you will have to go through this at some point and worrying about all different scenarios beforehand will only make you more tired than necessary. It’s better to just be prepared without too many worrying and deal with things as they occur – for example, all my worries about the girls no longer sleeping at night now (thankfully) turn out to have been unnecessary.

The upside of having had so many unnecessary worries about the transition to big beds is that I’m now a little less worried about the upcoming twin potty training. I still don’t think it will be easy, but I’ve decided to just take things as they come and not to worry too much about how things will go or when they will occur. The first steps of potty training have been made already in the last couple of weeks, but I won’t force things or try to accelerate the process. Instead, I’ll just let the girls sit on their potty when they want to for now and will see with time how things go and when I consider they´re ready for a more intensive training. But more about that in a future post about twin potty training – one day and one thing at a time!

If you have any experiences or recommendations yourself regarding the transition of your children to big-kid beds, please share in a comment below!