The Transition from a Crib to a Twin Bed

One major plus for having another girl is the nursery furniture situation. Hadley’s matching crib and dresser set are clearly more girly, so we’re excited to get more use out of it and pass it right along to baby #2! Giving this crib to another baby means that it’s time to transition Hadley out of it, a milestone I’ve been hesitant to make simply because Hadley sleeps so well in her crib!

For Hadley’s first “big girl” bed we decided to give her my old twin day bed that I had growing up and that I adored. Because it’s about 18 years old it needs to be refinished, but otherwise it’s in beautiful shape! I love it because it can serve as a regular twin bed with a headboard and footboard, a day bed with three sides, or a fully-enclosed bed by adding the extra fourth rail. It’s really the perfect transition bed, plus it’s sentimental to me because it was my 10th birthday present (that I remember wanting so badly!).

I did a quick search to see if the furniture company (This End Up) still carried the bed, and they do! Hooray! Take a look ! We have it in the white-washed color.

My parents have been storing the bed at their house until the time was right to pass it along to me, so when we decided to spend the holidays with my parents here in Alabama I asked my dad to go ahead and set it up for Hadley to sleep in during our visit. My mom surprised us by picking out Sophia the First bedding and making the room inviting for Hadley.

I was a nervous wreck putting her to bed in it the first night, assuming that she’d be very confused. Not only was this Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but she wasn’t in her crib or pack ‘n play! I laid down with her for about 15 minutes and then decided to see how she did alone. My dad put up a gate outside of her door just in case she decided to fly the coup, something I was fairly certain she would do considering she’s such a little explorer and Miss Independent.

I went back to check on her about 10 minutes later, and she was out like a light. I continued to check on her a couple more times throughout the night and she never made a peep. She woke up talking and playing like usual around her normal wake-up time, and we’ve had a tremendous amount of success in her new bed ever since! Honestly, I really can’t believe this milestone was this easy.

This is how I found her around 6:30 a.m. after waking up the next morning to check on her. She’s always loved sleeping in a cave of blankets!

One big tip I received from Hadley’s PAT teacher regarding the transition was not to say “Hadley, do not get out of your bed” before she even tried to do it. The teacher explained to me that if I told Hadley not to do that upfront that it would probably plant that idea in her head, and then she would really want to try it! Pretty genius thought that I’ll be sure to apply to other lessons!

The only prep I did before making this transition with Hadley was talking to a couple girlfriends. They each had their own successful ways of helping their child move on past the crib, so that gave me confidence to just try what I thought would be best for Hadley on our own schedule and to not try to do exactly what they had each done.

We’re super excited to take this bed back with us to Kansas and get her all set up to sleep in her new bed in her bedroom. Taking apart the crib will be much less emotional for me knowing that another little princess will soon be calling it hers. 🙂