I think he is completely ready to transition into the big boy bed. I had to transition my son at about 20 months since one day he decided he had no business with the crib. Also I think it may be easier to transition him now than later during your pregnancy. When are you planning to potty train him?

I love the flag painting, what a great idea! So cute!

I’ll join the others by saying it’s time for a big kid bed! Kids can get pretty seriously hurt falling out of cribs (I used to work in a pediatric ER, and you don’t want to hear the horror stories 🙁 ). We transitioned my daughter to a big kid bed right after she turned two (because she tried to climb out after her nap one day), and it was a non-event. Well, there was one week of 1+ hour bedtimes, but then things calmed down and her sleep was back to normal really quickly. However, I think we were lucky; from talking to my friends and reading parenting forums, I’d say about half of the kids have a rough time. My friend’s boy is the same age as Henry, and after they switched his bed, his bedtime switched from 8 pm to 10 pm (they literally can’t get him to go to sleep earlier than that!), and it’s really rough for them! My advice is to make the transition, like, TOMORROW. You want Henry completely used to it and adjusted WAY before the new baby comes, because the addition of a new sibling can be really tough and often results in lots of regressions and limit testing (which is totally normal). Good luck!

Wow, cool 4D shot. I had my anatomy scan done at 18w4d (by measurement), and they gave me a pic of the face in regular 2D… looks like an alien. They estimated 9 oz for the weight, so maybe it’ll be giant?

Also, my tech seemed pretty happy that we didn’t want to know the sex because she said she often feels pressured to look, even if baby is not in a good position.

awww, love the last picture of you and Henry! 🙂

My 2 year old avid climber did this a few months ago. Only the first time I couldn’t find him and he’d climbed into his cot and was pretending to sleep, and the second time I rolled over to find him staring at me proudly beside our bed. We panicked but fortunately life got in the way of our weekend plan to convert his cot to a toddler bed and he just never did it again. I’m not sure what it was that made him stop (he certainly doesn’t pay any attention to what I say) so perhaps it was just that we didn’t make a big deal and casually said “Oh, don’t climb out of your cot, you’ll hurt yourself, just call for us”.
At the time we thought we needed to free up the cot anyway but it sadly wasn’t to be so I’m really glad we didn’t move him straight away. Maybe give it a week or two – it could just be the excitement of discovering he can do it and it may pass. Good luck – 2 is a wonderful and terrifying age 🙂

My oldest started leaping out of his crib the week of his 2nd birthday. We made his room really really safe for him to be in, put a mattress on the floor and then put a gate in his doorway. He could get off the mattress and come to the door but couldn’t get out. He quickly learned that it was no fun to stand at the gate and slept fine after a couple of days (and continued to nap with no problems).

Time for a big boy bed! It’s just a natural part of growing up and another milestone that all kids will reach eventually. It does happen out of nowhere and can be kind of a shock to the parent, but it’s just another step – like eating solid foods or potty training. The good news is that you can get him settled into a new bed and a new normal before the big change of the new baby! It will help him not feel so jealous (BIG brothers sleep in a BIG bed!) of the baby and feel secure in his surroundings and routine when there is so much change going on around him that he doesn’t really understand yet.

I put my son (who is now 3) in a big boys bed after the first fall out of the crib. Scared me too much to want it to happen again. I actually found he slept better in a bed as well so that was a bonus! We had a convertible crib so it was pretty easy to go from a crib to a single bed.

It never would have occurred to my older two kids to attempt to climb out of their crib. The third one? She’s a different story. The day she climbed out is the day we took the crib down. We don’t do toddler beds in our house and we weren’t in a position to get her a big bed yet so we just put her crib mattress on the floor. I did put a little bed rail around it on the open side (it was in a corner so only one spot to fall off) to keep her feeling safe. I put her favorite blanket and stuffed animals in it and told her it was just like a “kitty nest”. She was big on Hello Kitty at the time and that was all it took. She couldn’t wait to sleep in her kitty nest. She never got up and wandered around at all. I can’t remember how long she slept there but we didn’t have any issues. Good luck with working out what works best for Henry 🙂

I hear the odd parent say the transition from crib to bed goes smoothly. For the rest of us it seems to be a week of interrupted sleep with lots of attempts to convince the toddler that it’s ok to stay in bed at 3am. (My only rule of parenting is not to generalize and I’m totally doing it!) And then one night they get it, mercifully. Now we have the odd morning of little feet running into our room when he wakes up first and wants to cuddle. I love it. For some reason it hasn’t occurred to him that he could be getting into mischief on his own. Do the transition before the baby comes. There are lots of positives with it and yet another sign that Henry is getting to be a big kid! 🙂 good luck.

A lot of my friends are going through this now. I say follow Henry’s lead and hang in there.