Everly's Bedroom - A Toddler Room Tour

We have been living in our new home for just under a year, and in that time, Everly has moved bedrooms, moved from a cot into a toddler bed, and then into a regular sized bed and she’s also gained a little brother. That’s an awful lot of change for one little girl to go through in a year, and she’s handled it all so well. Click here if you’d like to read my post on transitioning from a cot to a toddler bed, it doesn’t need to be a long and scary process, and I am 100% certain your little one with surprise you with how well they adjust.

Today I want to share with you what her bedroom looked like once we converted her cot into a toddler bed. We did this at about 17 months, and she has now just turned 2. Her room now looks similar to these photos, except she is now in the big bed and the toddler bed has gone back to being a cot and is in Aaron’s room. I’ve kept the room as simple and open as possible, as I really like ideas behind the Montessori method: a child should have freedom of movement, and should be able to move independently around his (carefully childproofed!) room.

In a traditional Montessori room, there is no cot, but rather a bed/matress on the floor that the baby goes straight to sleeping on. I’m not quite that brave, and really loved our cot, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easily Everly did transition from being confined in a cot, to having complete freedom in her room. You can read more about how we did the transition by clicking here.

The Bed

This is the Stijl Cot from Cozi Cot (which included the toddler panels to convert the cot into a little bed).

I JUST loved how cute the bed is, and how perfectly sized it was for Everly. She could get on and off the bed herself (she only actually fell off the bed once, much to my surprise, and got back on within a minute and carried on sleeping). My only concern is the edges are a bit ‘sharp’ and little one’s are more likely to bump their heads, but Everly didn’t actually ever do this more than once or twice. What I particularly loved about this set up was I could carry on using Everly’s cot sheets, as you are still using the same matress as the one that was in the cot. This means we didn’t ever actually need to buy separate toddler bed linen, as she carried on using what she used in her cot, and then she went into an actual regular sized single bed and has used regular sized linen since then.

Also a note on bedding, Everly has always kicked her blankets off, and so she hasn’t ever (and still doesn’t) use a duvet. I just dress her really warmly, and then she goes to sleep with a woollen blanket that always ends up either on the floor or at the bottom of the bed. But it’s there in case she needs it. She also doesn’t actually use the pillow (the idea of a pillow is a bit like the idea of the duvet…us adults can’t imagine not using them, but they are ‘learned’ necessities and if they have never has them, toddlers/babies don’t know what they are missing. The pink fluffy pillow below is more for decoration that actual use, although I use it when I lie with her in bed for story time.

Chest of Drawers/Clothes Storage

This chest of drawers is actually an old piece from my moms house which she painted for Everly. It’s only now (at 2 years old) that Everly has been able to open her drawers (they are really heavy) and even now she doesn’t generally take everything out…but then again, she is a girl and I can imagine a boy might do things differently haha.

I keep her nappies (we do cloth nappies…click here to read more about that) in the top 2 drawers. Then the second two drawers are for her cloths, and the bottom drawer is filled with the next stage of clothes as well as shoes.

On top of the shelves you can see her pink Rose Quartz night light (although this doesn’t get left on at night…click here to read where we got ours from), a clock, a few meds, tissues, and her video monitor. The video monitor has been an amazing thing to have since she moved into a big bed, because now we can keep an eye on her and see what she’s up to when the door is closed. Everly has always been really quiet when she wakes up from her naps, and so I’ve always assumed she was just sleeping. Now with the monitor, I’ve watched her wake up, head to her book shelf and easily spend 30 minutes ‘reading’ her books. I say reading in inverted commas, because up until the last month, she hasn’t once tried to open her curtains or turn on her light and so would be ‘reading’ her books in the darkness. I don’t actually mind what she does in her room, as long as she’s quiet. Obviously, first prize is that she is actually napping, but on the days when she wakes up early/doesn’t actually sleep…it’s great that she is happy to amuse herself relatively quietly.

Toy & Book storage

Everly’s books are kept on a little old pine shelf we had in her old room. I had soft storage boxes from H&M (the pink and white ones you can see on the open shelf below) which I have always kept her toys in. Now these still work really for her toys and blankets (please tell me I’m not the only person whose child loves blankets?).

The plastic box under her books is where her linen, spare changing mat blankets (i use pretty receiving blankets over a waterproof change mat to change her nappy as they look so much prettier than the actual boring old grey change mat that came standard with our Dischem Nappy Bag) & box of blocks stay. Since moving our compactum to Aaron’s room, we change her nappy on the big bed in her room. It’s not at the greatest height, but it works none the less.

I don’t like clutter (although I’m sure close family are shocked to read that as I have been known to be a bit of a hoarder) but I’ve always tried really hard to keep my kids’ rooms free from clutter. As you can see from Everly’s toy shelf (my father-in-law built this above shelf for guests to use for their clothes when the house we now live in used to be a guesthouse…click here to see what it looked like before we moved in!), I try to keep things very minimal. I love wooden toys, not just because they seem to have become really trendy again, but because there is something timeless and magical about a wooden toy, as opposed to plastic. I then swop out her toys every now and again (from the small collection she has) and she loves this as it’s like she’s getting new toys to play with.

I keep her toiletries (wipes, bum cream, powder etc) on the shelf above her toys, and this is also where her ‘DooDoo’ and dummy are kept. She' only gets these things for nap & bedtime, and keeping them high up out of her reach helps to keep them just for sleep time. It’s also become a fun part of our routine, she she hands them to me when she wakes up and we put them on the shelf together when she wakes up, and she helps me take them down when it’s nap time.

And then at the very top of the shelf is the special Nifty250 poster I made to document my pregnancy with her. This came out so much better than I imagined it would, and I have since made one for Aaron too!

Hanging Space

I have one set of hooks that hubby put up near the door, this holds Everly’s towels, hats, and a few other little bits and pieces.

And then behind the door I found this door hanging rack that fits over the top of the door. This is where I hang her nappy bag and our beloved UbuntuBaba Stage 2 carrier. I don’t use this carrier much, as I’m generally carrying Aaron in the Stage 1, but hubby uses this often, and Everly loves riding on Daddy. It’s also got space to fit her wet bag (the waterproof bag we take with us when we travel that holds her nappies in for the day…we got ours from Trendlings.

Decor pieces

It is nearly impossible to drill into our old sandstone walls, and as the inside walls are actually mud walls, you risk huge chunks of wall falling out & crumbling when you do. So, I have had to make use of the original nails in the walls, and hubby managed to put up two more for my near the door. But what I do have a few things hanging on the walls in Everly’s room and they bring me such joy to look at them.

The first is this beautiful custom wall hanging by Woven Whimsy, which matches Everly’s room perfectly. Danielle is just the sweetest (she’s also a molecular geneticist by day…how amazing!) and set about to find the perfect shades of blush to make my order.

The second piece on her wall is one of my photographs of our cat Amber, as a kitten. This photo was actually on her wall in her nursery, and I love that it still fits her toddler room.

I also have a custom made pouffe and mat, both hand crocheted by the most wonderful lady called Jabu who runs Zende Handmade Creations. I met Jabu a few years ago at the Creighton Aloe Festival, and since then have bought so many beautiful things from her, and share her work on all my social media platforms so that other people can find her. She’s wonderful!

And lastly is Everly’s birth announcement, which was made by the loveliest lady I know, Jess from Watercolour Heart Illustration. It details Everly’s date of birth, her weight and height and is just so pretty. You also can get one done any time (I only actually ordered it when Everly was nearly a year) and I still need to get one for Aaron.

All of the wooden frames you can see are from Mr Price Home.

And lastly, perhaps my most favourite thing about her room is her custom made name plaque on her door. I actually had one made for Aaron’s room first, and then once that was put up, I realised I just HAD to have one made for Everly’s room too.

Taneille, from Liv Bespoke was just so wonderful to deal with, and send me endless messages with ideas and then step by step process photos so I could make sure it was exactly what I had in mind. And it came our perfectly! I can’t recommend Live Bespoke enough.

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So there you have it, a tour of Everly’s toddler room. As it stands now, her room pretty much looks the same, except the cot is no longer there and we’ve moved the big bed into the corner where the cot was. I plan on getting an actual wardrobe for her room next, as her clothes are getting bigger and she needs some hanging space, but for now, everything is still very functional for her.

I’ll do a full room tour of Aarons room soon too (I better actually get on that before he’s a toddler!) so look out for that post soon.

Transitioning from a Cot to a Toddler Bed

Everly is now 20 months old, and has been sleeping in a ‘bed’ for the last 3 months. She has surprised us all with how well she has transitioned (although this is something I kept reading would happen…that our kids are capable of far more change/independence than we expect) and so I’d like to share how we went about making the change.

Although some people told me Evs was too young to be in a bed, in reality, we didn’t have much choice. Aaron was on the way, and I wanted Everly to have some time to adjust to her new bed (and the freedom that came along with it!) before a new baby entered the house and life as we knew it would change. We also didn’t want to have to buy another cot, preferring to rather put Aaron in the cot and Evs in a bed. While I had planned to put her straight into a regular single sized bed (she has one in her room that was left over from when our new home was a guesthouse…click here to see photos of our home as it barely 6 months ago!) but the bed is an extra high one, and she is still rather little. I wasn’t worried so much about her falling off the bed (in my mind this could be solved with pillows on the floor/a pool noodle put under her sheet etc) it was more the getting back up on the bed that I knew she wouldn’t be able to do unless we had a ladder/box for her to climb on. And seeing as her cot converted into a toddler bed, this seemed like the perfect first step for her. Now that Aaron is getting too big for his bassinet, we will move Evs into the regular bed in her room (maybe by taking the legs off the base/removing the base altogether and just putting the matress on the floor) in the next few weeks and he will go straight into the cot. I’ll also be sharing photos of what her room looked like when she was in her toddler bed soon, and I’ll also share a post of what Aaron’s room looks like while he is in his bassinet. Once Everly is in her new bed, Aaron will then go into the cot and I can finally share photos of the gorgeous custom bedding I had made for his room. Look out for those blog posts coming soon.

The cot we have is the Stihl from CoziCot (which retails for R4708) but I bought it on special in 2016 for about R3500. The cot comes with toddler panels, and these were pretty easy to put on once the rails were taken down.

I love the simplicity of the cot, and the fact that it has two levels, meaning no more sore backs from lifting baby in and out. The only concern I have had since having it, is once you’ve lowered the cot so the mattress is on the lowest level, the sides have grooves where the cot base fits to raise it to the higher level, and for the more adventurous baby/toddler, these would provide the perfect ‘step’ to break free from their cot. Everly didn’t ever attempt this, which is why I only recently thought about it. We did put cot bumpers on the cot from about 7 months which hides the ‘steps’, but also to bear in mind, Everly was rather slow to reach her physical milestones. She only started crawling at 13 months, and only walked at 17 months. So she wouldn’t have really been able to break out even if she had wanted to. Just something to keep in mind if you’re looking at this cot.

So, how did we go about actually transitioning Everly?

We didn’t mess around, and basically took down the panels, and she had her first morning nap in it right away. Her first nap she barely moved in her bed, the second nap (she still naps twice a day) was shocking as she got off the bed and straight away bee-lined for the door and opened it. Our house is an old farmhouse, and the door handles are really low, and the latch on the door is very precarious, you can just about blow on it and it will open. And so, once she realised she could open then door, it was all bets off and so, after using all sorts of contraptions to keep the door closed (mainly ties tied around the door handle and a chair) we went out and bought a small hinge lock that secures her door shut. Her first night sleep wasn’t too bad, she got off her bed a couple of times and came to the door winging a bit, but I was most surprised that after 10 minutes she put herself back to bed. We had about 2 days of really horrible day naps, where she cried and cried outside her door, but I would go back in after about 10 - 15 mins and put her back on her bed. Often she would actually put herself back on her bed and cry for a bit longer before passing out. Her night time sleep was not affected at all, and it only took a few days for her day naps to go back to usual, especially once she realised she couldn’t open the door any more.

She did fall off the bed a couple of times in the following weeks, but after a few tears, she always got up again and put herself straight back to bed (I watched her on our video monitor…something I HIGHLY recommend to parents once your little ones are older so you can keep an eye on what they actually get up to when it’s nap/bed time). I think it really helped develop her own confidence to let her sort herself out when she fell off the bed, as I think us going in there every time would have disrupted her sleep. Toddlers are really incredible, and will continue to surprise you all the time at just how much independence they can actually handle (and how much they actually love being able to problem solve!) when given the chance.

All in all it was a rather quick and easy transition. Something that I do think helped a lot, was to make a big fuss of the fact that she was now going to be in a big girl bed. We also included her in the actual dismantling of the cot (look at her cute cross face when we had to take away the sharp screwdriver so she didn’t stab herself in the eye!).

Making her a part of the physical side of her new bed, and then being firm with her when she got out of bed in the beginning helped too. Giving your little one freedom in their room is a huge step not just for them, but for us as parents too. It’s not for everyone, but I really love the Montessori approach of giving your child the freedom to be independent.

We did go through a few patches of Everly waking up much earlier than usual from her night sleep, but as she could now get off her bed, instead of crying for me to pick her up, she simply got off her bed and would go get books to read on her bed. Although I’m not sure what on earth she was actually looking at as we keep her room pretty dark with block out curtains. We have also gone through a few patches of her resisting her afternoon naps lately. I have spent a few afternoons listening to her play the xylophone for over an hour, but it’s my thinking that as long as she’s quiet and not crying, she can do what she likes in her room during nap time.

Sometimes I do still go in and firmly put her back lying on her bed with her blanket and dummy, and often she does then go back to sleep (we got a video monitor from the time we transitioned her into a bed so we could see what she was getting up to), but sometimes she just lies there quietly singing to her toys/reading her books. I know this might mean she is ready to drop that second nap, but rather than drop the nap time, I am moving towards a ‘rest time’ where she has to be in her room, with the curtains drawn, and I don’t mind if she isn’t actually sleeping at this time. This allows me a bit of breathing room during the day, especially as I have another little one to care for.

Some things to keep in mind if you are going to allow your little one freedom in their room:

• Safety wise, you need to make sure the room is completely childproof. We do have a few electronics around her room, but I have moved the plugs and hidden them from view. She has never shown any interest in those plugs, and when she has gone close to them we have been sure to firmly explain that they aren’t for touching.

• You also need to keen in mind the heights of furniture, and make sure any furniture you have in their room is sturdy and won’t fall over if they climb up onto it.

• I was also quite ruthless with her toys, as she now has access to all of them. Her chest of drawers is very solid and the drawers are very sticky so she can’t actually open them herself, and then all the other toiletries (wipes, creams, medicines) are put up high out of her reach.

• Think about what you want to do with the bedroom door. Our old farmhouse is a little trickier with fitting a baby gate onto door frames, and this is why we decided to put a lock on her door from the outside. Everly no longer tries to open the door, so we don’t actually need to use it anymore during the day, but at night we definitely lock her door because I don’t want her roaming around the house while we aren’t there to make sure she’s safe. What friends have done is to put a baby gate on the door frame, meaning you can actually keep their bedroom door open if you want to. What you do to keep your little one ‘contained’ is up to you. Let me know in the comments below if you have any other creative suggestions.

How old was/is your little one when you moved them into a regular bed/plan to move them into a bed? How did the transition go? Let me know if you have any questions about the whole process, and I’d also love to hear how it goes for your toddler makes the big move.