YOUR toddler looks like they're fast outgrowing their cot bed - but how can you be sure they're ready for a big bed?
Well, according to parenting and sleep expert Lucy Wolfe, there are three boxes you need to check first.
Lucy opened up to Zoe Blaskey on The Motherkind Podcast as part of their Toddler Milestone Series with Baby Annabell.
"For me, if at all possible, I try and avoid the transition to the big bed until perhaps I have the rule of threes," Lucy said.
"And it is this.
"I love the idea that your child is older than three, because developmentally we know that they are able to process the information and not only process the information but see it through.
"So impulse control - I ask you to do something and maybe you’re able to do it.
"Whereas often before 2.5 or 3, I ask them to do it, they understand what I’ve said but they can’t necessarily see it through.
"For example, stay in the garden, don’t go out the gate, hold my hand, don’t touch the hot surface.
"That skill starts to manifest closer to 2.5/3, so again I’m might then say ‘Stay in your bed, don’t get out’, is more manageable for a slightly older child.
"So I like the idea that they might be over three."
Next, Lucy likes the idea that the child is nap free.
"So I’ve no more naps so I don’t need to worry about trying to wrestle them into a bed in the middle of the day," she said.
And her third rule is that the child is nappy free.
"The reason behind that is, now I really know, you’ve got an instruction and you can see it through," she continued.
"You’ve learned how to wait so if I said, ‘wait, i’m going to go to the bathroom, I’m going to go away and then I’m going to come back and check on you’, I know that they’ve learned that skill because they’re toilet trained as well.
"That’s my ideal setting because then I feel it can be a much smoother transition."
But that's not to say that you can't transition your child before the age of three.
Lucy said she's had clients' children around 18 months who were alreayd sleeping in a big bed.
However, if a younger child is becoming "unsafe" around their cot, Lucy finds herself getting "curious" about the reasons why.
And if they aren't ticking her "rule of threes" checklist, she tries to investigate that.
"I might stay with them and teach them how to be in the cot one more time," she added.
