Infant pillow

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. We did not even think about baby pillows and blankets. She wore a sleep sack and was snug and happy. 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. 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. We did not bother with one of those little baby pillows. We went straight to normal pillows.

My son decided not to follow the crib path his sister did. Early on, he learned to unzip his sleep sack. 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 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. Since he was so young, it was not an easy transition. 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. “He is too young to be out of his crib.” “He could get into trouble, since he does not know better. “Do not use pillows and bedding.” Wait. What? He can not use a pillow? How is he going to be comfortable? Can he use a tiny airline baby pillow? Being an overly cautious mom, I checked in our medical baby books and online. Indeed, it is NOT recommended that you give children under the age of 2 any pillows or heavy blankets. Once a child is 2 or they move to a big bed, you can introduce them then.

Since my son was not yet 2, I decided to follow the advice and start with one of those baby pillows. It was the size of an airline pillow and did not look very useful to me. It got lost in the full size bed and my son did not seem to know it was really a pillow to put his head on. 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 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 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.