How to Create the Perfect Montessori Toddler Room

Whether or not your child attends a Montessori school, you’re probably aware that these schools use very unique methods to stimulate learning from a very young age. Maria Montessori (the founder of this type of school) believed in “following the child” as they lead themselves through learning based on joy and wonder at their environment. You can recreate this method at home with a Montessori toddler room!

The job of a Montessori room is to provide the tools of exploration. That’s why so many parents are becoming interested in creating a Montessori-style toddler room at home as their baby begins exploring! Having those same kinds of tools right in their bedroom is an excellent way to enhance your toddler’s ability to learn.

Plus, if a Montessori toddler classroom is out of reach (either geographically or financially – tuition is often in the thousands of dollars), this is a great way for your child to enjoy a similar environment. We’ll even discuss how to find the necessary items for a Montessori room on a budget.

Some of the benefits of a Montessori toddler room are:

• Opportunities for your toddler to make choices, inspiring critical thinking
• Development of physical coordination through freedom of movement
• A lack of clutter, which leads to focused learning and easier cleanup
• A sense of independence for your toddler

Toddler Montessori Room Must-Haves

How to Transition from a Nursery to a Montessori Toddler Room

If your nursery wasn’t set up with the Montessori style in mind, the transition can feel pretty dramatic. You’ll likely need several new pieces of furniture, you may need to repaint, and items on the walls may need to be moved to a lower level (or removed altogether). It’s time for the glider or rocking chair to go – your baby isn’t a baby anymore, and a Montessori room is all about having items that are kid-sized for their use, not yours.

In this article, we’re going to go into detail on what makes a Montessori room Montessori style, the types of furniture you’ll need, how to arrange it, and other decor and play items you’ll want to have available for your child.

Elements of a Montessori-Method Toddler Bedroom Setup

Neutral or Natural Colors

The paint, flooring, and large furniture pieces in a Montessori bedroom should be white, beige, or grey. You might also incorporate muted hues of blue, green, yellow, or other earth tones. Creating a Montessori room will remove a lot of the focus from making your toddler’s room for a “boy” or a “girl,” because neutral tones are the most soothing to your toddler’s senses. These colors will also allow your toddler’s attention to be drawn to the toys, art, and photographs in the room instead.

This does NOT mean you can’t have pink, purple, or red items in your toddler’s bedroom. You’ll just want to avoid bright colors in items that aren’t toys or clothes and ensure that a calming, natural tone is the primary vibe of the room.

Natural Finishes

When choosing Montessori bedroom furniture, opt for finely sanded natural wood over plastic or painted finishes. Choose natural fabrics for the bedding, blankets, and rugs, like wool and cotton. Don’t be afraid to include a small fish tank or live plant, either! A tank can be secured to the wall behind the shelf it’s sitting on, and you can have a locking lid on it as well. There are planters with soil protectors to help mitigate the mess in case the plant is knocked over too!

Simple and Uncluttered

These days, most children are showered with toys by their families. However, a Montessori bedroom is nearly synonymous with a minimalist toddler room. You don’t have to get rid of all those gifts, though! Keep some in storage and rotate what’s on display every so often. This is actually a perfect practice for Montessori toddler bedrooms, and we’ll talk more about it later on.

Everything within Reach

From toys to clothes to artwork and pictures, everything in a Montessori toddler room should be within your child’s reach. If you’ve never seen a Montessori room, this might sound insane to you – but there’s a good reason for it. Having things in reach removes your toddler’s frustration at not being “big enough” to do things for themself. It scales the world down to size, creating a sense of calm as well as a sense of independence.

Of course, this means that everything that goes into a Montessori room must be carefully chosen. Furniture should not be bulky or tall. Artwork should be durable, unframed or in an “unbreakable” frame, and not priceless. You may need to purchase a mini wardrobe so your toddler can begin to learn to choose their own clothes and get dressed (we’ll talk more about that below, too).

And that light switch on the wall? Your kiddo can’t reach it yet! So how do we make it work for a Montessori room where your toddler is supposed to be able to do simple things (like turning on the light) by themselves?

Well, there’s a genius out there that invented light switch extenders. Whether you’ve got traditional light switches or the wider soft-touch kind, there are extenders available for you!

Room to Play and Move

Since everything will be in reach, your toddler will need space to explore all the things! And once you remove bulky furniture like large dressers and changing tables, it’s usually easy to incorporate some open space into your toddler’s room.

Montessori Bedroom Tour

Check out this gorgeous, simple 2-year-old Montessori bedroom shown in a very detailed tour by Hapa Family on YouTube. The room is small and efficient, and she goes over every single furniture and decor decision for the room. This video is chock-full of Montessori toddler bedroom ideas! (It’s also a Montessori toddler girl room, and incorporates subtle “girly” things while keeping to a very natural, neutral overall tone.)

The Montessori Toddler Floor Bed: Should You Use One?

A Montessori toddler room setup generally includes a floor bed. This gives your child the independence to climb in and out of bed on their own, and the transition to a Montessori toddler bed from a crib or bed-sharing can be a tough one.

What age is appropriate for a Montessori bed?

Believe it or not, there is no “too young” for a floor bed! Since there are cots designed for floor placement with mesh siding for babies, there’s no reason you can’t put your baby to sleep in a Montessori-style bed.

That being said, even moms who try to create a Montessori nursery for their babies might forgo the floor bed for the peace of mind of a crib. A toddler floor bed is often a brand new experience. For babies who still wake frequently and refuse to go back to sleep in their own beds, this can mean a lot of long nights ahead, and you’ll need a lot of patience.

Many Montessori bedroom designs include a simple, straight-on-the-floor mattress without any bed frame at all. There are tons of cots like this available, like the one below.

How to Transition from Bed Sharing to a Montessori Toddler Bedroom

If you haven’t even made much use of a crib, you may be wondering how to start getting your toddler to sleep in their own bed in the first place. The answer: consistency. Since your toddler will have the freedom to get up and leave the bed, they will probably do so a lot at first and try to climb back into yours. Keep walking them back to their room and lying them back in their own beds. You might even want to try lying on the floor next to them until they fall asleep.

Of course, there’s a limit to everything. My personal recommendation is to walk them back to their own room three times a night; after that, you can let them sleep with you – for the sake of everyone. Over time, they’ll learn that their bed is where they need to be.

Montessori Toddler Bed with Rail

Opting for a Montessori-style toddler room doesn’t mean you can’t get a toddler bed with a rail, and this may even be necessary for particularly wiggly toddlers. In fact, you may not even need to get rid of your crib!

For my son, we simply purchased the toddler rail that matched our 4-in-1 crib. Then removed the front piece of the crib, moved the link spring for the mattress to the lowest possible setting, and installed the toddler rail. Now he can easily get in and out of his bed, and he’s still in a familiar (and comfortable) environment!

A Montessori Style Bed Frame

A floor bed for a toddler doesn’t also have to literally be flat on the floor; there are tons of super-low bed frames that still allow a toddler the freedom to get in and out on their own. Plus, a common concern with the Montessori floor bed is mold, which can breed unnoticed underneath a direct-to-floor mattress – particularly ones resting on the carpet in damp environments. (If you run a humidifier for your child nightly, this can increase the risk of mold, so you’ll want a slightly elevated frame for sure.)

A Dressing and Changing Area: The Wardrobe

The first thing you’ll need to do for this part is decide if you need a diaper-changing table in your toddler’s room. Both of my children have been extremely slow to potty train, and we’ve had to use diapers or pull-ups well into three years old. However, that doesn’t mean you need a changing table, which can be a pretty bulky piece of furniture in a nursery.

The floor works just as well for a diaper change (if you’re able to get back up from it!). Plus, a toddler practicing independence and motor skills may want to take off their own bottoms and put fresh ones on themselves, completely negating the need for a changing area. If you can get rid of that tall, bulky piece of furniture, I recommend doing so.

But what if you keep all of your toddler’s clothes in that changing table that doubles as a dresser? Where are the clothes going to go now?

In a Montessori bedroom, clothes storage for a toddler may or may not be in the closet. If you choose to use a closet, you’ll need to make sure your toddler is able to open the door(s) on their own. You may also need to install a lower rail for hanging clothes where your toddler can reach them, too. Another option is putting a bin system in the closet so your child can easily pull out bins to get the clothes they need.

If you don’t have a closet, don’t worry – you still don’t need that changing table/dresser in the room!

A safe solution to storing clothes in a Montessori toddler bedroom without using the closet is to get a mini wardrobe. Not only are they super adorable, but they can also be anchored to the wall to ensure they don’t tip over. Your toddler will be out in the open space of their bedroom so they can try to put on their own clothes without banging into walls or a closet door.

The wardrobe above has pegs on the side for hanging coats, an acrylic mirror on the other side that won’t shatter, a pole for hanging shirts or dresses, space for shoes, and several other shelves for pants, pajamas, socks, and underwear. Just get a few fabric bins to add to the shelves!

Keep in mind that a toddler doesn’t need tons of clothes to choose from, either. Don’t stuff the rack with hangers or make the shelves impossible to navigate. I recommend keeping about 7-10 outfits’ worth of clothes in this kind of toddler wardrobe (this is also known as keeping a “capsule wardrobe”).

Making Room to Move

So how do you set up a Montessori toddler bedroom in a way that allows your child room to move around and play? Even in the smallest of rooms, it’s fairly simple. Just keep a space free of furniture and clutter, even if it’s a small perimeter among all of the furniture (of which you’ll need very little – but we’ll go over those details next).

Primarily, you want the space in front of their available toys to be open. A great way to identify this space is to put a rug down and show your toddler that rug is their “play space.” Even if the room is carpeted, if it’s not a very high pile, a rug with a different texture from the carpet can create a nice feel and depth to the room.

This faux-fur rug from Target has a 3-foot diameter and soft, plushy feel. It would work perfectly in front of your toddler’s toy shelves or bins as a safe space for playtime and would fit even in the smallest of toddler bedrooms.

A Montessori toddler bedroom layout doesn’t have to be set in a particular grid pattern or “feng shui” style. When it comes to how to organize a toddler room in Montessori style, as long as everything follows the guidelines for the aesthetics and is reachable for your toddler, you’re doing fine. You just need to incorporate the basics in whatever way they work for the room you have available.

Here are some Montessori toddler room setup pictures to give you some ideas!

If you happen to have twins or more than one toddler and they’ll be room-sharing, here are some Montessori twin toddler room ideas too: 

The Indoor Tent for Toddlers

You may have noticed a lot of Montessori toddler rooms have an indoor tent! My daughter has an indoor tent herself, but her room isn’t big enough to accommodate it, so we keep it in the basement (along with all the other “oversized” toys). If you can fit one in, though, they can be an excellent addition to a toddler room. They provide a cozy space that may be more enticing for naps or bedtimes (read: keeping them in their own room). It’s also a great spot for them to curl up with a book as they get older.

This teepee sold at Walmart is an excellent choice for a Montessori toddler room – the structure is made of natural pine wood with a white covering for a fresh, clean look.

Montessori Toys

Other than furniture and clothes, what should be in a toddler bedroom? Should toys be in a toddler bedroom – particularly a Montessori toddler room?

Absolutely! It just might look a little different than traditional kids’ bedrooms where ALL the toys tend to live.

This doesn’t mean you have to get rid of all of your toddler’s likely many, many toys. Just keep some in storage in your own closet or basement and rotate them out every few weeks. I’ve got a super in-depth article on toy rotation that includes a free toy rotation chart to get you started!

Rotating toys adds yet another benefit: your toddler will constantly have new, exciting things in their bedroom to interact with (even if they’re several months old).

Also, make sure to fill your Montessori toddler room with books. (You may not consider them a toy, but for a toddler, that’s pretty much how they’ll be used for a while.) Board books are best at this age; while not indestructible, they can’t be torn and will have a much longer read life than paper pages.

As for displaying your toddler’s book collections, you can probably fit them somewhere on the toy shelves. If you’d prefer something separate to help keep things organized, a toddler-accessible book rack like the one below from Walmart is an excellent choice (and it comes in many color combinations!).

Other Montessori Toddler Room Furniture

We’ve already discussed two pieces of furniture ideal for a Montessori toddler room: the floor bed and the mini wardrobe. And really, that’s all you need. But there’s probably a couple more things you’ll want if you have space.

Keep in mind that you’re working on scaling everything down, both so it’s on your toddler’s level and so your child isn’t overwhelmed by the contents of the room. You should also pay attention to smaller details from your toddler’s perspective. Will the knobs and handles on the wardrobes be easy for small hands to pull on? Is it worth hanging that expensive piece of artwork up high so your toddler can’t reach it if they can’t even really see it properly? Stick to durable, affordable items for the time being.

With that in mind, here are a couple more furniture pieces I recommend for a Montessori toddler room.

Toy Shelves

I say shelves instead of storage or bins because ideally, the toys will be visible, easy to grab, and easy to put away for your toddler. And bins are for storing large numbers of toys in a single space, whereas a Montessori bedroom ideally just has a handful of toys present at a time. This helps prevent clutter, makes cleanup easier, and keeps your toddler from being overwhelmed by choice.

These shelves from Target have that wonderful natural wood perfect for a Montessori bedroom. They’re only 26 inches tall so your toddler can reach even items sitting on top, and it’s just the right width to hold a variety of toys without being overwhelming. You can place toys directly on the shelves for easy access (and cleanup), or you can add clear bins or wooden trays to help contain smaller items better.

A Workspace

An often forgotten element, a Montessori toddler room can benefit tremendously from a dedicated workspace. Your toddler can draw, color, and sticker on their own private table, in their own toddler-sized chair, in the comfort of their own tailor-made room. The Pillowfort set from Target, below, is very cute, natural-looking, and affordable.

If you’re worried about a mess, well, you should be! But making messes is part of learning and maturing. You can help mitigate the mess by taping paper to the wall around the workspace and putting a washable rug underneath, like the one below from Pottery Barn Kids (they have a TON of beautiful ones).

Crayons, paints, and stickers are items that absolutely can be kept out of reach until it’s time for art, and then you’ll be able to stay in the room and “help” make art (read: keep an eye on your toddler). Just don’t keep them somewhere your toddler can see but not reach – this will lead to frustration and negative energy for your child. Just tuck them away somewhere they’ll be forgotten until you get them out.

Toddler Montessori Bedroom Decorations

There are more essential items for a Montessori toddler room than just the furniture! The way it’s decorated also needs some forethought. Get down on the floor on your toddler’s level to see the world from their perspective. From there, figure out what kind of decor would be appropriate – and at eye level.

Blackout Curtains

These are honestly a must for any nursery or toddler room, Montessori or otherwise! Blackout curtains make naptime and bedtime so much easier, especially during the summer months. Even if they don’t block out 100% of the light, darkening the room will make a huge difference in how quickly your child falls asleep in their room.

Just make sure you open the curtains immediately after naptime or waking in the morning because natural sunlight is an important part of a Montessori bedroom.

Montessori-Style Artwork and Prints

Stick to cheap replicas and unframed photos for decorating the walls. That way, if your toddler chooses to remove them from the wall (and likely damage them), nothing of great value is lost. But you shouldn’t leave the walls bare – stimulating visuals are important for brain development.

When choosing artwork for your toddler’s Montessori bedroom, stick to things that are natural and/or soothing. Images of all kinds of animals are a great choice, as well as flowers, trees, and bodies of water.

Etsy is full of images you can print (and reprint) from home, like the ones below! Just use some glossy photo paper and set your printer to “Fine” if possible for some very nice-looking DIY wall art for your toddler.

RELATED: Free Nursery Printables (That’ll Work in a Toddler Room, Too!)

Don’t forget to include photos of your family and any friends your child may have!

Mirrors

Mirrors are a very important, specifically recommended item in Montessori rooms. They allow children to see themselves in action, which can help them coordinate and refine their motor skills. When dressing themselves, they’re able to get an idea of how the outfit they’ve chosen looks!

Toddlers are generally fascinated by mirrors and they add a great deal of learning opportunity right inside the bedroom. Just make sure it’s hung at toddler level and is acrylic or shatterproof, like the sheet below from Home Depot.

Night Light

Since your toddler is going to have the freedom to move around the room – even at night, if the feeling strikes – they need to have a little light at all times to see what they’re doing. A night light helps you see what you’re doing, too, if you decide to lie next to your toddler until they fall asleep before sneaking out of the room. (I may have done that a few times myself.)

Green and blue lights give off a cool, calm light that’s less harsh than standard white lights. This night light from Target can change to any color of the rainbow! If one seems to help your toddler sleep better, stick with it.

Fantastic Finds You’ll Love

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Congrats, you’ve made it to the end of an extremely comprehensive guide to what will end up being a relatively simple Montessori toddler room! We’ve gone over the basic elements, the kinds of furniture, decor, and extras you’ll need, and how to arrange the room. You’re ready to get going on your new design!

What do you like most about Montessori-style rooms? Do you find they make your child smarter or more prepared for learning in school? Let me know in the comments below!