Out of the Crib and Using a Baby Pillow
05/04/09
My first child happily slept in her crib until she was almost 3. The arrival of her baby brother meant we had to move her to a normal bed. While she was in the crib, we did not have to worry about things like baby pillows and blankets. She wore a sleep sack and was snug and happy. The sleep sack prevented her from crawling out of the crib, because she couldn't swing her legs up. I don't know that she would have anyway, as she was so happy in there. When we moved her to her bed, there was no drama. She took a couple naps there, then we moved her to the bed for nighttime, as well. It was a full size bed in a beautiful wooden frame. We ordered a cute girly comforter and grabbed a couple adult sized pillows. Because she was almost 3, we did not have to mess with those little baby pillows or toddler pillows.
My son was an entirely different story. He learned how to unzip his sleep sack shortly after his first birthday. Swinging his leg up on the rail became a regular exercise. For months and months, that is as far as he would go. One night, he finally flung the other leg over too. We immediately took the crib mattress out of the crib and set it up on the floor.
Moving him to a bed presented all these obstacles that we did not have to deal with when we moved our daughter to a bed. Since he was so young, it was not an easy transition. He was a couple months shy of his second birthday. We had to remove most of the things from his room for a couple weeks, so he could not get into trouble. Another parent recommended putting a gate on the bedroom door, which turned out to be incredibly helpful. There were many nights and nap times, when he would stubbornly sit in the middle of his wood floor and fall asleep sitting up. After a very LONG week, he was back in his routine.
He was digging his new bed when people started doling out the advice. "Oh, he is not old enough to be sleeping in a big bed." "He could get into trouble, since he does not know better. "He is too young for a big blanket and pillow." Say What? He can not use a pillow? How is he going to be comfortable? What about a baby pillow? So I hopped online to check out the age recommendations. Indeed, it is NOT recommended that you give children under the age of 2 any pillows or heavy blankets. Once a child is 2 or they move to a big bed, you can introduce them then.
Since my son was not yet 2, I decided to follow the advice and start with one of those baby pillows. It was the size of an airline pillow and did not look very useful to me. It did not look like our pillows, so I think my son thought it was something else. I think the need to put a pillow and bedding on his bed was due to my own notion of what a bed is supposed to look like. We finally put pillows and a comforter on his bed after about a month. He seemed to enjoy having a big bed with all the accessories. He was happy to not have that little tiny baby pillow for his head too.
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