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The best advice I have ever received about child care has come from my daughters’ babysitter, my mom, and my grandma.
Here I sit writing a blog post about advice, which feels slightly hypocritical, but I share it in the hopes that maybe it makes someone else’s life a little easier.
Transitioning children from:
- bassinet
- crib
- “big kid” bed
is not for the weak.
It’s emotionally exhausting, mentally draining, spiritually humbling, and somehow always happens during a season of life where nobody is getting enough sleep anyway.
In my post Skip the Toddler Bed: How We Got It Right the Second Time, I shared why we ultimately skipped the traditional toddler bed phase with our younger daughter and what worked better for our family instead.
These are the products that genuinely made those transitions easier for us along the way.
Sound Machine
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, my husband is a first responder. When he comes home from shifts at 2am, we can hear his every move in our very cozy Cape Cod-style house.
We also live in a suburban neighborhood with:
- driveways on both sides of our house
- neighbors leaving for work at 5am
- lots of unpredictable little noises
That’s a lot of potential sleep disruption.
This sound machine has been in my daughters’ room for over 5 years now. We keep it on low just to soften the background noise and help everyone stay asleep longer.
It travels with us on vacations, gets packed for overnight stays, and has become one of those products I truly cannot imagine parenting without.
A must-have.
Toddler Pillow
Both of my daughters have had these pillows for over 4 years.
They’re:
- the perfect size for toddlers and young children
- soft without being too fluffy
- easy to wash after inevitable illnesses, accidents, and “punky napper” moments
Honestly, they’ve held up shockingly well considering the amount of use they’ve gotten over the years.
Mattress Protector
My younger daughter recently had her first overnight accident in months.
She woke up:
- confused
- scared
- completely soaked
This mattress protector saved us.
I was able to:
- quickly change her clothes
- remove the protector
- toss it in the washing machine
- get everyone back to sleep
without needing to completely strip and deep-clean the mattress in the middle of the night.
That alone makes it worth it.
Chucks Pads
For extra protection, I always put chucks pads between the mattress protector and the fitted sheet.
Just in case:
- someone moves in their sleep
- the protector shifts
- accidents leak through
These are super absorbent and save mattresses from stains and lingering smells.
Not glamorous.
Very necessary.
Sometimes survival parenting is simply:
“throw it away and go back to sleep.”
Fold-Down Bed Rail
Check out one that is very similar to the one shown: toddler bed rail.
Bed rails are a must when transitioning from a crib to a twin bed.
The last thing you need is:
- your child falling out of bed
- getting scared
- suddenly becoming afraid to sleep independently
We can’t protect our kids from every fall in life, but when sleep is involved, I firmly believe in erring on the side of sanity-saving.
Here is my most important mom-learning-curve discovery:
Spend the extra money on the fold-down bed rail.
My older daughter has a cheaper rail that does not fold down, and changing the sheets is such a pain.
My younger daughter’s rail folds down easily and makes changing bedding infinitely easier.
As a matter of fact, I intentionally make my older daughter’s bed first and save my younger daughter’s bed for last because it feels like a reward in comparison.
Final Thoughts
One thing motherhood continues to teach me over and over again is that the best systems usually come from people who have already lived through the chaos.
Not perfection.
Not aesthetics.
Not expert advice from strangers on the internet.
Just practical wisdom from women who have already survived this phase of life.
And while no product magically solves toddler sleep transitions, these are the things that genuinely made our lives easier during those exhausting years.
Spruceprints 