How to build a Montessori bed for your baby

Téo was only 10 months old when I found out I was pregnant with my second child. For us, It was more than obvious that we weren’t going to buy a second crib. I’ve always looked up to the Montessori methods. So, building a Montessori bed for Teo was a must for us. This way we could use his crib for our second baby. Plus, I thought it was a good change for Teo , in the sense that he would go from crib to the Montessori bed, to his « big boy bed » later on.

AT FIRST

We did a couple research on Pinterest to get us inspired by other Montessori bed. We wanted to use a double bed frame and mattress that we already owned to build his bed.

At first, you need to build a lower base. This base will help elevate your mattress from the floor so that air can circulate in between the floor, the bed frame, and the mattress. To do so, you will need to use 2 X 4 to build a rectangular base.

Following this, you will build what surrounds the mattress. The best way to do so is by measuring your bed frame and creating a plan. It’s also at that point that you need to decide how high you want the playhouse to be. You have to take into consideration the height of your ceiling, to give you an idea Téo’s little house is 5 feet tall.

Once all the pieces all cut, we partially recreated the playhouse to make sure everything was fitting like a glove. Then we painted every piece of wood in white. It took us two coats of paint to reach the ideal white. You need to plan a couple days in between each layer, to make sure everything will be dry and ready to assemble. Then we took all the pieces in Téo’s room and we put the bed together.

To be honest, it took quite some time to see the final result. I am also lucky, as my partner is really good manually and that he had all the tools on site. If we both had my personal construction knowledge almost nothing, it would have been really tough.

BUILDING THE FENCES

Another important step is to build the fences. To do so we my partner created a large rectangular frame to which we added the pieces of wood to create the fence. Make sure that the pieces of wood are spaced-out equally and that the space in between is small enough to avoid your baby’s head passing through the fence. But the space needs to be big enough for them to pass their arm through it. Once that’s all good, you can pursue with the same steps as for the frame.

It’s also possible to buy already-made fences for kid’s bed. Which means you won’t have to build them. It’s up to you and how much you wish to be challenged! 😉

COST AND TIME OF EXECUTION

Overall, my boyfriend spent about 10 hours building the Montessori bed and I took about 2 to 3 hours to paint every piece.

It cost us 150$ of materials (2×4, screws, paint, fences). We already had on hand the mattress and the bed frame. To be honest, we really like how it turned out and Téo is really liking his playhouse. Let’s say it was far from being a small Sunday afternoon DIY project 😉 .

If you also wish to build your own Montessori bed, don’t hesitate to ask me your questions and why not sending us a picture of your Montessori bed on social media!