How to Tell if Your Toddler is Ready to Sleep in a Bed

In order to be able to sleep in toddler beds in their own rooms, toddlers must achieve a few milestones. Once they are showing these readiness signs, transitioning them to their toddler beds is much easier and quicker. It's not enough for you to be ready to quit co-sleeping; your toddler needs to be ready, too.

Your child doesn't need to be sleeping through the night to be ready for a big boy bed, though it is a desirable prerequisite. Longer stretches of sleep and less frequent waking are more reasonable signs of solo sleeping readiness. If your toddler still wakes frequently, he probably isn't ready to stop co-sleeping, unless he can self-soothe.

Your child does not need to be able to soothe himself back to sleep or fall asleep on his own, though that does make the transition much easier. Being able to fall asleep quickly cuddling with dad or nursing with mom is sufficient, though this is not quite plausible if the child is still waking frequently. A child that falls asleep quickly with a bit of help is on his way to learning to fall asleep on his own.

Night weaning is also not necessary, but your child should not be spending large amounts of time at the breast at night when you try to transition him to a toddler bed. If he is accustomed to being attached to the breast throughout the night, he won't take too well to sleeping on his own. Try to get him accustomed to cuddling with a cup of water, offering him the breast only when he is completely insistent.

A sign that may be overlooked is whether or not your child is ready to be unsupervised at night or in the morning. If he sometimes gets up to play or potty in the middle of the night or before you in the morning, it may be best to continue co-sleeping, so that you're aware when he gets up and can supervise him. Be certain that he will stay in bed or is old enough to take potty breaks on his own at night safely before you transition him to a toddler bed.

I'm often told that if you don't break the habit of co-sleeping during a child's infancy, "You will never get them out of your bed!" When my toddler turned two, I began wondering if he would ever sleep in his own room. Attempts to transition him to a toddler bed were, to say the least, unsuccessful, because he wasn't ready. He was waking far too frequently, could not self-soothe, and nursed a lot. I was confident that when he started sleeping longer at night, stopped nursing as often, and learned to fall asleep without much help, our attempts would be more successful. I was right.