Hi,
My dd is 1.5 years old, and I am wondering when we should move her over into a toddler bed. She cannot climb out of her crib yet and we do not have another one on the way as of yet so she could probably stay a bit longer. Any tips or suggestions on when and how to do this best?
Thanks.

All of my kids have used a twin size bed right away. They sleep with us until they start squirming too much/not sleeping well/hogging the bed hehe Then we start them out for the night in their own bed. We've never used a toddler bed. Have considered it with this one simply for the space it saves us, but, alas, he's using an air mattress on the floor ;) (twin size) He's been there a couple of months now (off and on, due to Thanksgiving illness), now 11 months, he does fine with it. He stays on the bed for the most part. The other night was the first time he ever crawled off...but he wasn't asleep when he went in there as he usually is. It was a night he was fighting sleep hard, so I just put him in there, not nearly as groggy as usual. He crawled out of bed and was 'scratching' at the door LOL But when he tired out, he crawled back in bed to sleep. I found him in his bed in the morning ;)

Anywho...

All of mine have gone to a twin size bed by 1 yr with no problems. Just get one of those side rails if you're worried about falling. Or start with the mattress on the floor. Then graduate up to putting it on box springs, then to the full frame set up.

We didn't move our boy into a bed until he was 2 - because it was a big cot and he never tried to climb out. He could probably have been in there even longer, but I wanted to make the transition well before his baby sister arrived so that he didn't have too many changes at once. Also, he was showing signs of wanting to sleep in a 'big bed' at this stage. We let him have his naps in the 'big bed' for a couple of months before we put him in there for the night sleep. I found that this worked really well - it was a really smooth transition for him when we eventually made the complete swap. We also got him some special sheets (his had airplanes on them) so that he could be really excited sleeping on them.

We didn't move our ds until after he was 2, he was comfortable in his crib and didn't have any problems with getting out. When our 2nd ds was born we decided it was time to get him into a bed as we needed the crib but we didn't want to make the transition too quickly but once we did, it went so smoothly we were surprised and he really loves his bed.
I also made it special by getting him a nice comforter and making it special for him.

My dd moved to a toddler bed when she was about 18 months. This child has absolutely no fear. I found her one morning half out of her crib so I decided it was time for a change before she fell!

We just moved ds from his crib to a twin bed over the holidays. He is 20 mos. He never tried to climb out of his crib or anything, but was just not sleeping well. Twisting and turning and such. We went straight to a twin size because we used bunk beds and our older ds sleeps on the top bunk. They both do better with someone else in the room with them so it worked out great. Ds sleeps so much better with the extra room to move around. We just purchased one of those bedrails from WM and it works well keeping him from rolling out of the bed! :D