Big Boy Bed Help

My youngest had to be taken out of his crib at 7 months. He's a monkey. We had to put up baby Gates. Can you put those door knob things that you have to squeeze them in the right spot to open?

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My youngest had to be taken out of his crib at 7 months. He's a monkey. We had to put up baby Gates. Can you put those door knob things that you have to squeeze them in the right spot to open?

Mine never were big climbers - we could always lower our cribs so they couldn't get out easily, and by the time they were really able to I suppose, we were ready to put them on the floor on just a twin mattress (we used those mesh bed rails to keep them in place, and pushed mattress up against wall).

As for getting out of room .. we never ever closed door. I guess I wanted to hear them and as soon as they were up, they were up. To me, that signaled end of nap. Ours napped until they were ready to give it up - so they were nappers, and then they weren't. There was a period I suppose of in between where they might have rested or had a quiet period instead - and usually fell asleep on our couch for a doze at some point if they got tired. They didn't always sleep in their crib at that point. Often, I'd lay down with them after reading a story - maybe on our bed instead, and we'd just doze off for quick nap.

I've not heard of people using the door alarms before. I'd be more inclined to use a baby gate of some sort I think if I had to.

*Our kids had doors open in the night also - during the preschool years when they went through the night terror phase, they made their way to our room by way of night lights lighting our hallway. I just barred the staircase with baby gates secured into actual walls.

Climbing out of the crib and leaving the bedroom are really two separate thing. Climbing out of the crib is not safe. There are just way too many ways a child can fall and get hurt. If he can climb out of his crib, he should no longer be sleeping in his crib. Both of our boys began sleeping on a mattress on the floor when they were about 18 months. There really isn't anywhere to fall if the mattress is on the floor, so we were very confident they were safe. When they were each about 2 years old, we let them sleep in a regular bed.

We never tried to make our kids stay in their room, so I don't fully understand why you are concerned about that. I did close the door during naptime, but that was mostly so that I wasn't worried about waking them up. At night we've always kept all bedroom doors open, and if they needed us in the middle of the night, they knew where to find us and weren't afraid to come into our room.

He's a toddler - he's almost 2 - time for a big boy bed.

What are you going to do when he figures out the alarm goes off AFTER he closes the door and he's on the OTHER side of it? To me? that's the issue.

Why do you have your children KNOCK on their own doors to get out?

We've not shut our bedroom doors, they are somewhat closed, but they are not SHUT tight....guess to each his own...I like to hear if my kids are okay

my boys were in twin beds at 18 months.

None of my boys "escaped" their room. We didn't have door alarms and locks.

My concern would be him walking the house and possibly OUT of the house at night. I hope your door locks are high enough that he can't reach them. But that in and of itself causes problems if there is a fire in the house and people are trying to escape.

Either get a toddler bed or put a twin mattress on the floor so he can get out safely. Because you are right, now that he knows that he can climb out, he's not going to stay in. You can put a baby gate across his bedroom door or, if you have a narrow hall, across the hallway to keep him contained in a safe area.

Yes, it's time to remove the crib. You can either get him a toddler bed (maybe the crib mattress will fit it) or get him a twin bed with rails so that he won't fall out of bed.

It's not really important whether he sleeps in the bed or the floor - just so that he stays in his room. If you don't fight him on WHERE he sleeps in his room, he will end up sleeping where he is most comfortable. (And that's probably the bed...)

If the door alarm doesn't continue to keep him from wandering around at night, which is a safety concern, then put a lock on the outside of his door.

The less stimulus there is from you at night, the more chance that he will get bored and sleep. It will take time for him to self-soothe. Right now he's trying a new thing - getting out of the crib.

For naptime during the day, if he is taking 2 naps, drop one of them. If he is still not willing to nap during the day in a bed, then he is probably dropping his daily nap. That's hard on him and you, but toddlers sometimes drop their naps.

You have 2 issues here, and it helps to separate them: climbing & coming out of his room when he should be in bed.

Climbing: For a while, we just put the side of the crib down so there wasn't so much high climbing. He was closer to the floor, and the crib rail still served as a bed rail as it was a few inches above the top of the mattress. Then we went to the toddler bed, and eventually to a twin bed - in both cases with a bed rail to keep him from rolling out while asleep.

Escaping: There are lots of ways to handle this. A doorknob cover is one, a baby gate is another, and a Dutch door is a third. Dutch doors were in use in houses (not kids' rooms) for centuries but fell out of favor. But they've been rediscovered as a helpful way to keep kids contained or to keep pets/toddlers in the kitchen or other designated room. A doorknob cover keeps the child from waking up everyone else. The other 2 keep him in the room and let the light in as well as household noises.

He's really too old for a baby bed. He's almost too old for a toddler bed too. Go straight up to the bed he's going to be sleeping in for his childhood.

The door alarm is okay, for sure, but you need to put his baby monitor up on a shelf in his room somewhere so you can hear if he's up and moving around.

Make sure all the bathroom doors are closed and have doorknob protectors on them so he cannot open them at all. Then put alarms on the outer doors so he can't get out of the house.

The baby monitor will alert you if he's up and moving then you can go check on him if you need to. As long as his room is baby proof and safe then he can be in there and not at risk. It's the wandering around that worries me. Our boy figured out how to open his bedroom window by the time he was 2 1/2 and he could get outside that way.

well, yes. the door alarm only addresses the possibility of night wandering, not the bed issue.

it also sounds as if your question is more about night wandering, not the bed. and it's only just today the issue arose, and only during the day. i think you're jumping the gun.

since he's already climbing out of the crib, at this point it's just risky to have him climb out instead of just step out, isn't it? and yeah, at some point he'll figure out the door alarm, but you're borrowing trouble. so far it's working just as it's supposed to.

why do you keep putting him back in his crib when he just climbs out again? sounds like an exercise in futility for everyone.

give him a low bed (or just a pile of blankies on the floor while this sorts itself out) so that he's safe when he wakes up, and let the door alarm do its job. deal with what to do next when it happens. it might not ever.

khairete
S.

We installed a crib tent. Kept our older son in it until he was three. Got the newer version for our younger boy. I’d sooner have them contained than wandering around.

if your crib converts to a toddler bed then try that, the alarm is good, but you can install a baby gate as well so that if he opened the door he would have to figure out how to get over the gate and still re-shut the door. ( making room escaping a challenge) i would definitely ditch the crib though, for a toddler bed or a mattress on the floor or a big boy bed with guard rails so he does not fall out while sleeping.