One of the more surprising aspects of parenting, at least for me, is the number of decisions that I never anticipated and that completely took over my headspace when they arrived — things like the right age for a crib lovey, or whether we should introduce peas before pears. The most complex of these are the ones that involve some kind of transition. From a pre-child standpoint, my view of the world was that, for example, at some point kids are in diapers and then later they are in underwear, completely skipping over what now feels like an entire phase of my life spent potty training.
The crib-to-bed transition is one of these complex moments. At one point, your child is in a crib. Then, later, they’ll need to be in a bed. It seems like nothing until you’re in it, and it’s everything. I still remember when we did this with my daughter, more than 10 years ago. As usual, as parents, we wonder: Is there a right way to do this? A right age? The American Academy of Pediatrics says 18 months to three years, but that’s a very wide range.
There is no “right” answer here, and there are a lot of constraints that you might face (for example, needing the crib for a younger child). But data can help us organize our thinking, so let’s start with that.
At what age do people make the crib transition?
We have surprisingly little data on this question. For today, I’m going to pull data from two sources.
The first is a study published in 2019 in the journal Sleep Medicine that collected data from 1,983 respondents in English-speaking countries who were using the Johnson’s Bedtime Baby Sleep App. The study divided toddlers into three groups — 18 to 24 months, 24 to 30 months, and 30 to 36 months — and collected data on their sleep setup and their sleep quality.
I’ll also show you some data from a survey I ran of my Instagram followers. This is decidedly non-representative (although it may be more representative of this audience). I collected almost 5,000 responses in this way.
In the Sleep Medicine article, 63.4% of toddlers ages 18 to 24 months, 34.3% of those 24 to 30 months, and 12.6% of those 30 to 36 months were in a crib.
For the survey I ran, the graph below shows the age of transition from crib to something else (it was crib versus not-crib, so this could include beds, floor beds, toddler beds, etc.). This group is notably later than the published data in terms of transitions, with 30% of the sample saying they transitioned their child after 36 months.
The reasons for making this transition run the gamut. In the survey I ran, people mentioned the arrival of a younger child, the child being too big for the crib, or the child waking themselves up bumping their head through the night. Nighttime potty training may play a role, and, of course, if your child is climbing out of the crib, which can be dangerous.
How does sleep change?
A primary argument of the Sleep Medicine study is that sleep quality is worse when children are in a bed rather than a crib. The authors find that, at all ages, night awakenings are more frequent in bed-sleepers (an increase of about 0.3 wake-ups per night), and sleep latency (the time from bedtime to sleep time) increases by 6 to 11 minutes. These data also show that the differences are larger for younger children. For example, for sleep latency, in the 18-to-24-month group, the bed-sleepers are 11 minutes slower to fall asleep, whereas this difference is only 6 minutes in the 30-to-36-month group.
Parents in this study also reported that bedtime was more difficult with bed-sleepers (this isn’t specific — it’s just a question about how challenging parents find bedtime).
It’s important to be cautious about causality here. This data isn’t about transitions. It is possible that the kids who are moved to beds have more disrupted sleep for some other reason. For example, if parents are moving kids out of a crib when a younger sibling arrives, it might be the younger sibling and not the bed that’s the issue.
This is one of the reasons I was interested in the Instagram survey, even with the sample limitations. I asked parents here about what happened to their child’s sleep after the transition. The graph below shows the share who reported each category: sleep got a lot worse, a little worse, about the same, a little better, or a lot better.
Perhaps somewhat reassuringly, more than half of people said that their kids’ sleep stayed about the same (is this reassuring? I guess it depends on where you started). But of those who said it changed, the distribution is skewed — about 30% of respondents said their child’s sleep got a bit worse or a lot worse, with only 10% saying it got better.
Here are a sampling of some comments:
- Temporarily, it took him longer to fall asleep as he explored his newfound freedom, but after a week or two it went back to normal. It did not require any additional intervention by us. We just sat there amused, watching him on the monitor.
- At 34 months, our great nighttime sleeper was suddenly afraid of the dark and of being alone. We thought transitioning to a toddler bed might help him get back to sleeping or at the very least be safer. We were so, so, so wrong. We’ve tried everything. We have not slept through the night in over three months.
- At day care, he was already sleeping on a mat for naps, so at home we let him nap on his mat. We laid out rules for napping on the mat and he followed them well. So when we transitioned to a bed, it was just an extension of the mat rules to the bed. No issue at all transitioning, and he actually started sleeping better. He was also able to use the potty himself so he didn’t wake us up anymore to pee in his potty.
- At first, they didn’t realize their freedom and were fine! Then it hit them.
It seems that the younger the child at the time of the transition, the more likely parents were to report worse sleep. Parents who transition a child after 36 months are the least likely to say that their child’s sleep got worse. In that group, only about a quarter of people said sleep got worse, versus almost 40% who transitioned their child between 24 and 30 months.
As with the published study, there are significant cautions here. The timing of transition may be directly related to other behaviors, so it’s hard to move beyond correlations. In addition, neither of these surveys are really able to distinguish between temporary and longer-term transition issues. Some people did report that the problems they encountered lasted for a significant period (“years”), but others said explicitly that things worsened and then got better. Clearly, there is more to understand about this — for which we’d need better data.
Using logic to plan
My overall read of this data is that, on average, sleep gets a bit worse when kids transition from a crib to a bed and that, perhaps, this is slightly less true if you transition your child at an older age.
Data is great, but it is useful to combine it with logic. The essential difference between a crib and a bed is that one is a cage and one is not. This means that your child is more likely to be able to get out of their bed, leave their room, and … do whatever! If we look at parents’ complaints about sleep for their older toddlers and small kids, “leaving the room” is the core complaint and source of conflict.
The main advice on how to deal with these sleep issues (whether you have made the toddler-bed transition yet or not) is to have a bedtime routine, decide what the sleep rules are, and then be boringly consistent about enforcing them.
This can work to fix problems when they arise, but it’s also an opportunity to solve your problems before they start. Decide what you want bedtime to look like: what the routine is, what your expectation is about your child staying in their own room, and where there is flexibility and where there is not. You should make rules about staying in bed versus staying in their room.
Use the opportunity to set these expectations with your child (this is where it’s going to be a lot easier with a 3-year-old than an 18-month-old) and get on the same page with your partner or any other caregivers. And then, when you are ready, implement.
It may be a smooth transition and it may not be. Your child may try to come out of their room. (Maybe, like one of the survey respondents, traveling could set this awareness off: “The knowledge of his freedom had not set in until we were in a hotel room”). This is where having set your own plan and expectations is key. If you go into this just hoping for the best, you might get lucky. But if you don’t, it might be hard to know how to respond in the moment.
A final note: You may be tempted to make this easier with … lies. Example: At night, the floor is actually made of electrified lava. I would discourage this. It’s not so much about the lie — we tell white lies often (Santa). It’s more that you’re easily found out: the first time they accidentally step and discover that their foot is not on fire, they’ll see right through you.
The bottom line
- Most people transition their child from a crib to a toddler bed at around 24 months old.
- On average, kids’ sleep gets a bit worse when they transition from a crib to a bed. This is slightly less true if you transition your child at an older age.
- Deal with sleep issues by having a bedtime routine, deciding what the sleep rules are, and being consistent about enforcing them.
Log in
We transitioned my daughter shortly after she turned 3, even though she was perfectly happy in her crib. The bedtime sleep didn’t suffer terribly, but naps are nonexistent now. Anyone have any ideas? We could drop the nap but shes a mess by bedtime without it
We started using a floor bed (with 3 crib walls and 1 face open) for our son at 8 months old, The main reason was because he was 99.97th percentile in weight, and my back was killing me from deadlifting him from the crib. He loved it from the start because he could get himself in and out of the bed. We did go through some trial and error to keep him from falling out of the bed – we eventually settled on using the triangle-shaped Nugget block at the opening. He is now 21 months old and has become very accustomed to sleeping on the floor with or without walls. This comes handy when we travel (and we travel as a family a lot) because all we need is a floor mattress and he’s good to go.
Another thing to point out is that we keep his room’s door unlocked at home. This means when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he is allowed to roam the entire house. This is unlikely everyone’s cup of tea, but we feel comfortable with it because we’ve baby-proofed the house and my philosophy is that he becomes more independent and capable if he’s given enough opportunities. This has a tremendous impact on my chance to sleep in. He can play by himself for up to an hour before waking me up for food.
Overall I’m a big fan of starting babies on floor beds as early as possible. I did it for practical reasons but later reaped the benefit of getting a very independent toddler.
We moved our first from the crib when he was just over 2 years. He was throwing a tantrum, so we stuck him in the crib to have a safe space to calm down. Well, it turned out to be not so safe when in a fit of rage he flipped himself out. His head was heading straight for the floor. My husband luckily had quick reflexes and caught him. We all 3 sat there stunned, then we rush ordered a bed. Any taller rails and we wouldn’t be able to reach in and get him.
Our second went to a bed at around the same age…and then had to go straight back in the crib. After a week, it was clear it was a disaster. He would get up and turn on the lights and play at 3 in the morning. He then slept happily in the crib until almost age 4. He’s a huge kid, but fit just fine in a standard crib.
I transitioned my kid to a bed when he was 10 months. He was too big for the crib, so we had to convert a bed into a crib. The bed is now a giant crib, with protected walls, and it has worked wonders. It amases me that this is not an option mentioned in the article, considering this would solve, for some, the dreaded escapist baby.
Its probably not mentioned because I doubt many people have the resources or opportunity to do that.
Most of the discussion online about this does not say much about kids climbing out, which I have found frustrating. At 21 months, my kiddo climbed out (without even using her legs…she just leaned over, so a sleep sack wouldn’t solve that) but was mentally absolutely not ready for a bed. Many people in our position use the mosquito net thing but they’re not super safe, so we didn’t. But it’s not like we “decided” to transition her too early. Any pediatrician will say you definitely need to stop using the crib once your kid can get out on their own. Sleep absolutely got worse for us. We feel like we have to “be” the crib wall because young kids really do need that boundary. We too gated the room and made it safe and boring. But it took months to transition. Solidarity to anyone with a one year old in a bed reading advice online that is clearly for 3 year olds.
I’m always surprised in these conversations about the problem of them getting out of their room. We transitioned shortly after 18 months because of baby #2 being on the way but first put a child gate in front of the door first. He also can’t navigate the door handle yet and we always closed the door, so we had no problem with him leaving his room. The first night he cried and pounded on the door and fell asleep on the floor (I went in and moved him to his new bed). After that he never leaves his bed unless he drops his blanket or something, in which case he gets down, gets it and goes back to bed.