How To Transition Your Child to a New Bedroom

“This is a sponsored post on behalf of Projectables. All opinions and tips are my own.”

The transition from an upstairs bedroom to a basement bedroom can be a scary one for kids.

If there weren’t so many scary movies about basements, I think we would have a much easier time getting our kids to sleep down there!

Last year we moved from a condo where the kids all slept upstairs to a house where they all sleep in the basement.

My older kids who were 11, 13, 15 & 16 where all OK moving to the basement, but my 6 year old had a harder time. He didn’t feel comfortable “so far away from us” even though we explained to him that it’s the same distance as it was when he slept upstairs. So we learned a few tricks to help him feel more comfortable.

First let’s talk about two questions you should ask yourself before you move your child to a basement bedroom.

These are all my opinions so you need to remember that each child is different and has different needs. So ultimately you need to decide for each child separately.

1. Is your child capable of escaping on their own in an emergency? When a child sleeps in their own room far away from mom and dad, it’s very important that your child can open a window and get out of their room all on their own. They need to be old enough to understand what to do when there is a fire alarm. If they aren’t old enough to do this on their own make sure there is an older sibling that they share a room with that is capable of doing this.

2. Is your child emotionally independent? Can your child soothe themselves back to sleep if they wake up in the middle of the night? Believe me, it will be a big pain in the neck to have to run downstairs all night long helping your child get a drink or tuck them in. It’s much easier when they can take care of the small things all on their own.

Now let’s talk about a few things that can help make the transition easier.

1. Get a fun nightlight for your child’s room. Not only does a night light make your child feel better, but it will make their room safer if they have to get up in the middle of the night. Especially if your kids rooms are as messy as mine! Too many things to trip over.

My favorite night lights are Projectables® LED Night Lights by Jasco. The Motion Projectables project a colorful landscape that moves across the walls and ceilings. My 12 year old son loves the Aurora Borealis night light. It projects moving changing lights across the wall that look just like the natural phenomenon.

It helps the kids calm down and encourages droopy eyelids. It’s just the right amount of light to help the kids go to sleep. They turn on at dusk and off at dawn so you don’t need to worry about turning them on and off. The LED lights have a long life and they are very energy efficient. They stay cool to the touch so they are safe for every kids room.

My 6 year old son loves his Batman Projectables Night Light. It brings his favorite character to life. He loves the fact that the “Batman Spotlight” is shining on his wall. It makes him feel like he has his favorite superheroes on his side.

Projectables are also available in a six-image night light that project a 3 foot image on the wall, ceiling or floor that are plug-in or battery-operated. This makes going to bed something fun to look forward to.

2. Use a baby monitor or a walky talky so your child can communicate with you without getting out of bed. This can get annoying if they know you can hear them all the time so we have a rule. They can only talk to us on it if there is an emergency. We have the “B-Rule”. They can only talk to us if someone is bruised, bleeding, broken, or stops breathing. This keeps the chatter down quite a bit. Ha Ha!

3. Take care of all their needs before they go down to bed. Teeth brushed, drink of water, bathroom, story, song and snuggles! Once everything is taken care of they don’t have an excuse to come upstairs.

4. If needed, ease them into sleeping downstairs over a few months. If your child is having a hard time sleeping in the basement make it something fun to do on the weekends with the whole family. Everyone has a sleep over in the bedroom on Friday and Saturday nights. Once they see that the basement is a fun place, they will feel more comfortable sleeping down there.

5. Make their bed into a fort or fortress. Another fun thing for the kids to look forward to at bed time!

6. Let them help you decorate their room. If they have a say on how their room looks they will more likely want to sleep in it when it’s finished. They would take pride in their accomplishment and they will be excited to spend time in it.

7. Spend time with them in their room reading and playing with toys. This way they know that it’s a fun and safe place to be.

Hopefully if you are planning on moving your child to a basement bedroom, these tips will help you make it a smooth transition.

Have you moved your child to a basement bedroom and have some tips for us? Leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to this post.