I know this has been asked before & i have used the search on here, but i have a bit of a twist...
The past 5 days or so only 1 of my 24 month old twins is climbing out of his crib and the other twin is not. They do share a room and he climbs out and bugs her during naptime (which is a whole other problem in itself!). It doesn't happen at bedtime, just naptime (he has not been a good napper for the past few months!). I'm scared he'll break his neck thumping out of the crib like that, so my husband and I have talked toddler beds (both cribs convert to toddler beds).
Has anyone with twins run into the problem of one twin being ready before the other? Did you transition them at the same time or just when each was ready? I can't imagine keeping one in a crib while one is in a bed, but is there something i should think about with putting a todder into a bed when she's not showing me signs she needs one yet?
Did you use todder beds or just go straight to "big" beds?
Thanks so much for any advice and support!
Thanks so much for all the advice! As of tonight he's also decided climbing out at bedtime is just as fun as naptime! So it's definitely time for a transition. We might still try the toddler beds (my kiddos are very tiny for their age, they still more than fit on their crib mattresses)... but I think i'll chat with my husband about doing the twin bed mattresses... i like the idea of starting with the mattress on the floor.
And I definitely understand that my twins are two separate people - they are night and day and we always treat them very individually, so that's not why I'd switch both -- i know that if my son has free reign of their room my daughter will get upset that she doesn't! I think the reason she hasn't climbed out yet is that she's much smaller than him and the sides of her crib are just slightly higher, so i think she just can't do it yet. As it is she gives me that "no fair mom!" look when i go in to put him back in the crib.
Thanks again and any other advice is always welcome :)
If it were me I'd just go get 2 twin mattresses and put them on the floor. One day when they are bigger you can get a bunk bed or 2 single beds or whatever. Kids love having their mattress on the floor and it is a short fall. You could put them in an L shape or together or separate.
I've done both and whatever you choose you'll do fine just remember that even though they are twins they are two separate people so if one is ready transition him ONLY! and maybe he needs to nap separately so your other little one can sleep. Good Luck
We moved our twins to mattresses on the floor. This really helped with the transition during naps and bedtime. Their cribs are the convertible kind, but we opted to skip toddler beds for the regular mattress on the floor (they were out at 21 months). Now they're three and have twin beds with the foundation. No frame yet, though, because they are still too wild. :)
our house is straight to big beds...all were transfered to one by at least 16mo of age. My youngest at 20mo still takes a nap in a pack n play though...
At this age i don't see it being a big deal for one to be in a crib and the other one not.
I personally feel that the younger they are the easier the transition.
I put them both in toddler beds when they were that age. One ended up in the other's bed, one spent months sleeping on the floor. Go figure. If you are worried about safety, I do not see any harm with one in a crib and one in a bed.
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Toddler beds are for toddlers. Yours are almost too old so I would skip them and go to a couple of twin sized beds instead. They are more than old enough to be out of baby beds.
There are lots and lots of posts about this topic and the "how" to move them to big kid beds.
We started with twin matressess on the floor for all three of our kids, at around 18 months, no need to worry about falls or bed rails or buying toddler beds :)
I'm on a big twin website and I've seen people do it all ways and succeed. In my house, we converted the girls cribs to toddler beds when they were 20 months old in conjunction with moving. They hadn't climbed out and didn't have problems with the cribs, but WE the adults were ready. (so - to answer your question, I didn't have any problems moving my kids before they fought their cribs)
We didn't move to twin beds until they were 4. No real reason... they seemed happy in the toddler beds so we waited until we redecorated their room. If I had had to buy toddler beds, I would not have done it - they could have gone right to twin beds at 20 months. But since it was easy, we tried the toddler beds and I'm glad we did because one of my daughters rolled around a lot and would have fallen out if she didn't have that little railing on the side.
I have several friends on the twin website who moved one child to a toddler bed and left the other in the crib for months or even a year. It seemed to work just fine for them.
I did want to add that I agree with Hannah, it seems that the earlier people move their kids to toddler/big kid beds, the easier the transition. It's like kids don't realize at age two that they can get up and wreck the room, so they don't. But if they switch closer to three or four, they get excited about the freedom and run around at nap and bedtime.
