We bought a rather plain, no frills crib for our babies. Now that my toddler has moved directly from a crib to a big girl bed, I'm suddenly seeing the potential benefits of a toddler bed, which I always pooh-poohed as uneccessary. I'm kind of regretting now that our crib doesn't convert to a toddler bed.

As another person who went straight from the crib to the twin sized bed, could you share with me what the potential benefits are? I never had any trouble with my little guys sleeping in the 'big boy' beds.

My toddler is a wild one. She refuses to stay in bed and just creates a lot of havoc in general. When we are staying with relatives that have toddler beds she stays in it better, and just seems to feel more secure for some reason. Just my personal observation with my wacky kid.

We bought the convertible crib, although my daughter is still in the crib. It goes to a toddler bed and then also to a big girl bed, one of those 3 in ones.

We do have a convertible crib, I think we're going to get years and years of use out of it, but it was also quite an investment. Those things aren't cheap! One thing my MIL did with my husband when he was little and getting too big for the crib but too wild for a standard twin, she just put a mattress on the floor. She also put pillows beside the mattress so if he rolled of he didn't get hurt. He slowly advanced to a mattress and box spring, and finally to a standard bed. Just a thought!

__________________
Tigriz
Mom to Alex - 1/21/06

Nope. I have plain basic cribs that I paid less than $100 for. I have girl/girl twins and they are almost 3--and still in the crib. I've heard convertibles are a waste of money.

We were going to buy the three in one but then decided we want the next baby pretty close to the first one if possible. Then we would have to buy another crib. Seemed like a silly idea in the end.