My answer: 

Children younger than three in a bed is opening a whole kettle of additional difficulties. While you may be solving one (climbing out of the crib), you are opening the door to other, even more difficult ones. The main challenges is how do you keep them in the bed/in their room? It’s close to impossible. Here’s why: At 2 years, children can cognitively understand the rule (“I’m supposed to stay in bed”) but they don’t have the capacity to USE that information to direct their body. This ability doesn’t

come online until around 3 years. That means, for potentially another year, you are going to be walking your child back to bed many, many times a night. Plus, how do you keep them from roaming the house once you go to bed? Close the door? Lock the door? Toddlers hate that. You will also need to safety-proof their room. See? It’s a lot. So, what to do?

1. Lower the crib mattress ALL the way to the floor.

2. If this isn’t possible, there are pajamas (littlegrounders.com) with a band sewn between the legs to block the ability to raise their leg and climb.

 

The short answer is… hold off on a toddler or floor bed as long as you can. While it might solve a short-term problem, it can cause a few bigger ones that will stick around for a while. 🔆