big kid bed
The AAP recommends that children move out of a crib by the time they are 35 inches tall. The concern is that children 35 inches and taller will be able to climb out of the crib (or attempt to), which is extremely unsafe. That said, I know many parents who have a child over 35 inches who still happily sleeps in a crib without making any attempts to escape, so you will know your child and know what makes the most sense for your family.
Once you do move out of a crib, there are three options for your big kid bed:
- A crib conversion kit that turns your existing crib into a toddler bed
- A dedicated toddler bed, which is the same size as a crib (you can continue to use the crib mattress), but fashioned as a real bed and often with a guard rail option. The Oeuf Perch toddler bed is a neat option because it can transition from a toddler bed to a little sofa too
- An adult-size bed with bumpers or rails
A benefit of the crib conversion kit or the toddler bed is that they have very small footprints (same size as the crib), preserving more open space in the bedroom. They also won't be cause to rearrange the whole room to allow for new, larger furniture.
We ended up putting our two-year old in a queen size bed, which seems sort of insane, but I think we did it for good reasons. At the time we transitioned our oldest out of a crib, I was pregnant with our second, and we decided against the crib conversion kit because it'd mean we'd have to buy a second crib for the new baby. Instead, we preserved most of the nursery as it was and moved our son into a new "big kid" room (previously a guest room). The new room already had a nice queen size bed, so we just added bumpers. While the scale of the bed is comical and dwarfs our little guy, the queen size bed is really nice for bedtime and stories because the whole family can snuggle together (dog included). I will note that the change in scale can be really jarring for a little person who is used to a smaller, cozier crib environment, and it may have contributed to some of the sleep training issues we ran into when we did the transition (more on this below). We also have a low bed frame, so it's easy for him to climb in and out on his own. We originally did bedside rails, but we found them to be huge obstacles that were extremely hard to maneuver (they supposedly snap down and can fold under the mattress, but we could never get that function to work). After a month living with the rails unhappily, we switched to bumpers that we prefer much, much more. They are a firm but compressible foam (you can easily sit on the bumper while tucking in your toddler), and they even come with travel bags so you can bring them with you on trips.
A side note on a cool alternative to the ideas discussed above: a Montessori-style toddler bedroom where you put a mattress on the floor with no frame. The child can easily get in and out of bed on his/her own and there's no need for rails or bumpers.
Lastly, may parents (us included) run into sleep training issues when they move their child from a crib to a toddler bed. Once he was in his new "big boy room" our son realized he could get up and walk out of his room, so he did, repeatedly, for hours after his bedtime. After a few very tough weeks where everyone was short on sleep, our solution was to follow Ferber (we also relied on Ferber's method for sleep training when our son was younger), which was extremely effective after just two nights.