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Choosing child's mattress (plus bed transition)

NewEnglandLady

Ideal_Rock
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Jul 27, 2007
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My oldest daughter (who will be 3 this winter) loves her crib, but quite frankly is just getting too big for it. We've been hyping up the "big girl bed" for a couple of months now and I actually think she's starting to warm up to the idea of vacating the crib.

Katie's room is pretty large, so we're opting for a full-size bed in hopes that she can keep the bed for 10+ years. DH and I chose a bed pretty quickly, but now I'm stumped when it comes to mattresses. After doing some research, it seems like a mattress on the firmer side is better, but there are still so many options: interlocking springs, individual springs, memory foam, spring/foam hybrids. I want to get a good-quality mattress that she can comfortably use for a decade, but I don't want to just assume that the most expensive mattress with the newest technology is best. Right now I'm leaning toward the Serta Good Sleeper mattress because it seems like a consistently-liked, good-quality mattress. But I'm not sure if there are some considerations I'm overlooking.

For those of you who've gone down this path, what did you end up choosing? And are you happy with the mattress? Anything you wish you'd considered that you didn't?

Also just curious how the bed transition went. I'm planning on setting up the new bed in K's room, then letting her choose which she wants to sleep on. I'm hoping her excitement for the new bed over-rules her love for her crib, but am afraid if I take apart the crib and replace it with the bed, she'll be sad. Not sure if I'm making it a bigger deal than it is.
 

amc80

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Jun 18, 2010
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I can't really speak to the mattress selection issue- we have B in a toddler bed that uses his crib mattress. I can say that I think it's too firm for his liking, so when we move him to a real bed we will get one that's a little softer. He is long overdue to be in a bigger bed, but we plan on moving out of state in another 4-6 months, and I'd rather wait until we move to buy something new.

Anyway, we transitioned him from crib to toddler bed in April, when he was about 20 months. We moved and I just didn't want to set up the crib again, since I knew (size-wise) it was time for him to be out of it. It took about a week for him to understand that he needed to stay in it. I think he enjoyed the freedom quite a bit, and there was a lot of going back into his room and putting him back in the bed. But, Katie is much older and I'm sure she will understand the concept of a non-crib bed. Can you have her help pick out her new bedding? That might help.
 

NewEnglandLady

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Jul 27, 2007
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Yeah, I feel like crib mattresses are just super firm (I know Katie's is). I guess that makes sense--a soft crib mattress sounds like a suffocation risk. I think any bed mattress would be softer than Katie's crib mattress, even the firm ones!

I'm a big fan of letting Katie choose things--I was looking at Pottery Barn Kids sheets yesterday and she seemed to liked some sheets with owls on them. I think what I'm going to do is give her a few options for sheets and duvet covers and let her choose from those. I didn't give her an option for the bed itself, but asked her if she liked it and she said she "loved it". So I consider that a win.

I'm interested to see if Katie stays in the bed or not. I just hope she doesn't fall out of the bed--the issue with getting a regular bed with a regular mattress is that she's high off of the ground. In fact, I put her up on DH and my bed while I do laundry and she won't even get down from it because it's too high. She may not even be able to GET out of her bed!
 

lliang_chi

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Mar 13, 2008
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You can get bed rails for the full sized bed so she won't fall out. Also you can tuck a pool noodle under the fitted sheets to make sure she doesn't roll out. Ethan's a little monkey and climbs and jumps all over, he's unfazed climbing down our GIANT super tall bed.

To warm her up to the idea of the bed, maybe start putting her in the bed for naps. That's what we did for Ethan (put him on a futon in his room). So going to the bed was not a big deal since he was already sleeping on the futon for naps. He had a IKEA Gulliver crib that converts to a bed, so he still calls his bed his crib. Now some night's he wants to sleep on the futon instead of the bed.
 

baby monster

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Jul 2, 2007
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DS was very attached to his crib so he just recently changed out to toddler bed when he turned 4. The bed was his birthday present so that sort of eased the transition. But it took a few months of discussions prior to his birthday to go from "no, I don't want a new bed" to "ok, I'll try it." We set up the beds next to each other but once he slept in the new bed, he didn't want to go back to the crib so we disassembled it a week later.

We chose a foam mattress. It's medium firmness. I never had a spring mattress as a child, so never occurred to me to even look for one.
 

NewEnglandLady

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LC, I think starting in the bed for naps is a great idea. We'd planned to do that, though if she likes it immediately and wants to sleep in it at night, I won't object. Love the noodles idea--I don't really want to go through the hassle of attaching guards unless we really need them. K isn't much of a mover in her sleep, but she also doesn't have much room to move in her crib. Hoping that having a full-size bed allows her some movement without falling out!

baby monster, it's good to know yours made the transition so quickly! We're going to do the same thing--put the crib next to the bed. I'll be very happy with we can take the crib down within a week. Well, happy the transition is over, but sad for the reminder that she's growing up so fast.
 

packrat

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Dec 12, 2008
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London had my old full size mattress for about 8 years. It was a King Coil is all I remember, on the firmer side. We only finally got rid of it b/c the springs were about coming thru the dumb thing-I'd had that mattress since I was about 10, so my parents certainly got their money's worth out of it I'd say.

Now she's got a twin, my parents bought it, so I'm not sure what brand it is, but it's a regular coil mattress, nothing fancy, and I'm sure they didn't go top of the line. (They're convinced all mattresses are the same) I'd planned to get foam ones for the kids.

I'd just go lay on them-b/c you'll be laying on it too, so you'll want to find something comfortable for you as well.

When we transitioned London, she went to a whole new room. We let her pick out stuffed animals and such to decorate her bed but basically oh boy a big girl bed, the end. She was about 2 1/2.

Trapper was about 18 months and had been crawling out of his crib. So the crib went and the new bed came in. The end. Each of the kids had like one night of um..what the heck is going on here, and crying. I laid in bed w/them for the first few nights for a little bit and then that was all we did.

We didn't do any big production of transitioning.
 

Loves2Laugh

Shiny_Rock
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Mar 16, 2007
Messages
214
Hi NE!
I usually just lurk but I had to respond to your post because we just went through this 2 weeks ago with my daughter who turned 3 in August. We ended up getting her a bed that had an adjustable height setting and used a Bunkie Board along with a Serta Good Sleeper mattress. That way she's not off the ground too much and once we're ready we can put her up a little bit higher. I love the mattress and so does she. I was afraid we were going to have a tough transition because she also LOVED her crib. We made her big girl room a big deal and included her in deciding on some of the things she could like you mentioned. She LOVES her room and big girl bed. We put a rail up and butted the bed up against a wall and haven't had any issues. I hope to take the rail off soon because it makes it hard to make the bed. I totally went into it thinking the worst and hoping for the best. She's done great! We explained to her to let us know when she's ready to get up and we'll come get her. She doesn't try and come out at bedtime. She will call us back in a few times but it's usually for little stuff. Good luck! I bet Katie will do great and get excited that she'll have a big girl bed!
 

Bella_mezzo

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Aug 19, 2009
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B is in a twin bunk bed and we got the top rated mattresses from walmart.com. It's held up quite well for the past 2 1/2 years and we didn't want to spend too much as we had a tight budget and he used to get massive bloody noses all the time.

DH and I just got a new mattress after extensive research. We got the 8 inch special latex mattress from Sleepez.com. In the next year or two we are saving to replace the bunk mattresses with firm twin sized 8 inch specials. They are really comfy, super durable, and much less toxic.

E's crib mattress is extra firm latex wrapped in wool for a natural fire retardant and we really like it.
 

monarch64

Super_Ideal_Rock
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Aug 12, 2005
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19,206
I didn't know this was a thing. (Finding the right mattress, that is.) :errrr: A is still in her crib, although apparently there was an almost escape this weekend. My mother has mentioned several times that she and my dad want to buy her a bed so I guess we'll be taking her up on that soon. I should probably start researching. Sigh.
 
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