My first child happily slept in her crib until she was almost 3. The arrival of her baby brother meant we had to move her to a normal bed. 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. The sleep sack prevented her from crawling out of the crib, because she couldnt swing her legs up. I dont know that she would have anyway, as she was so happy in there. It was an easy transition when we moved her to a big bed. 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 decided not to follow the crib path his sister did. He learned how to unzip his sleep sack shortly after his first birthday. He could easily swing his leg up on the crib rail. For months and months, that is as far as he would go. Until one night, when he climbed out of the crib entirely and walked to greet me at the door. We immediately took the crib mattress out of the crib and set it up 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. Another parent recommended putting a gate on the bedroom door, which turned out to be incredibly helpful. 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.
When we finally got him comfortable in his new bed routine, the advice from well meaning people starting coming in. "Oh, he is not old enough to be sleeping in a big bed." "It is dangerous." "Do not use pillows and bedding." Say What? He can not use a pillow? How is he going to be comfortable? Can he use a tiny airline 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. My son did not seem to need pillows or bedding; it was just my need to make it look like a normal bed that kept bugging me. We waited about a month, until my son was totally comfortable in his bed. Then we put pillows and a comfy blanket on his bed. He seemed to enjoy having a big bed with all the accessories. He was happy to not have that little tiny baby pillow for his head too. More Reading Infant pillow - Travel pillow - Baby pillow -