Baby pillow soothers

My first child was happy as a clam sleeping in the crib until she was 2 ½ years old. The only reason we moved her to a normal bed was because her baby brother arrived. While she was in the crib, we did not have to worry about things like baby pillows and blankets. She happily slept snugly in a sleep sack and pajamas. She could not swing her legs over the rail, while wearing the sleep sack. She was so happy in the crib, I don’t think she would have even if she was not wearing one. When we moved her to her bed, there was no drama. She took a couple naps there, then we moved her to the bed for nighttime, as well. We made the bed like we would for an adult. She had two pillows and a big comforter. Because she was almost 3, we did not have to mess with those little baby pillows or toddler pillows.

My son was an entirely different story. He learned how to unzip his sleep sack shortly after his first birthday. Swinging his leg up on the rail became a regular exercise. For months and months, that is as far as he would go. One night, he finally flung the other leg over too. We did not waste any time setting up his crib mattress on the floor.

Moving him to a bed presented all these obstacles that we did not have to deal with when we moved our daughter to a bed. It was a rough transition, because he was so young. He was a couple months shy of his second birthday. We had to remove most of the things from his room for a couple weeks, so he could not get into trouble. We also put a gate on the door, which was the best advice we received. He was so stubborn that for the first couple days, he would fall asleep sitting in the middle of the wood floor of his room. After a very LONG week, he was back in his routine.

He was digging his new bed when people started doling out the advice. “Oh, he is not old enough to be sleeping in a big bed.” “He could get into trouble, since he does not know better. “Do not use pillows and bedding.” Wait. What? He is old enough to crawl out of a crib, but not old enough to use a pillow? What about a baby pillow? So I hopped online to check out the age recommendations. Children under 2 years of age should NOT use a pillow or big blanket. Most of what I read says you can introduce those things around age 2 or when the child moves to a big bed.

I decided to introduce one of those baby pillows to the mix. It was the size of an airline pillow and did not look very useful to me. It did not look like our pillows, so I think my son thought it was something else. I think the need to put a pillow and bedding on his bed was due to my own notion of what a bed is supposed to look like. We finally put pillows and a comforter on his bed after about a month. He loved sitting up with the pillows and snuggling like he did in our bed. And he actually used the pillows for his head, so he was happy to have a normal pillow instead of that baby pillow.