Climbing Out of Crib! Help!

jld49 · August 2013

Guess it's time to change to the toddler bed?? How did you all do it? How did it go? Did they climb out of the toddler bed for a while until they adjusted to having so much freedom? Our bedroom doors don't lock, either, and we're not so sure we'd want to do that anyway, but we're terrified about this change! But he looked like tonight he'd climb right out and perhaps break an arm falling out and doing so-- so I guess we have no choice? Thoughts?

DLo13 · August 2013

I'm very interested to see what people say - we're dealing with the same thing!

ELF4321 · August 2013

A lot of people have recommended putting a baby gate across the doorway so he can call for you but not wander around the house while you are sleeping.

ASmallWonder · August 2013

Ditto the baby gate. And make sure to walk around his room with the eye of a toddler. Make sure all furniture is strapped to the wall and that anything he could even possibly get into is something you're ok with him getting into. Don't underestimate him. Take out anything and everything you wouldn't let him have unsupervised. The first few nights might be rough but he'll adjust

Katie829 · August 2013

My 14 month old just climbed out. I don't think she's ready for a toddler bed though. Any suggestions?

JENandJEH · August 2013

Do you have a crib that the front side is lower than the back? If so, turn the crib around so that the front is up against the wall and the taller backside is in front. That may buy you a little time. That's also assuming the sides aren't as short as the front.

smileybabyboy · August 2013

JENandJEH said:

Do you have a crib that the front side is lower than the back? If so, turn the crib around so that the front is up against the wall and the taller backside is in front. That may buy you a little time. That's also assuming the sides aren't as short as the front.

That's a good idea! I'll have to remember that when I have this issue.

Smh619 · August 2013

We don't have this problem (yet)... someone in an earlier post suggested taking out the bottom of the crib & putting the mattress on the floor to buy more time

mlhw NH · September 2013

We had to convert the crib to the toddler bed for this reason. We put the couch cushions on the floor next to it because the 1st night he didn't understand that there was a gap where the crib rail used to be. He fell out :-( Thankfully he was OK.

It took several rounds of us walking him back to his bed and covering him up without saying a word for a few nights/days. 1st naptime it took 4 hours then at bedtime it took 2. Next time around 1.5 hours then it dropped to 15 min. We still have to get up in the middle of the night to bring him back to bed, but he goes down pretty quickly.

Good Luck! It wasn't easy in the beginning!

TeacherVicky · September 2013

I haven't had this problem yet, but I have a friend who's LO climbs out all the time. She ended up removing the bottom of the crib and putting the mattress straight on the floor (but still in the crib), making it impossible for her LO to climb out.

It can buy you time if you feel your LO is not ready to be out of the crib.

blushingbride_08 · September 2013

Crib pants

DLo13 · September 2013

blushingbride_08 said:

Crib pants

I just looked these up......have you really used them? I'd love to hear more - thanks!

blushingbride_08 · September 2013

DLo13 said:

blushingbride_08 said:

Crib pants

I just looked these up......have you really used them? I'd love to hear more - thanks!

I used a sleep sack before I knew about this. The sleep sack didn't work bc the size ran too big. I ended up lowering the crib to buy time. The crib pants are my next alternative.

jnnfrrose6 · September 2013

DLo13 said:

blushingbride_08 said:

Crib pants

I just looked these up......have you really used them? I'd love to hear more - thanks!

I just watched video on this. That's hilarious, but I guess it works...We're not there yet, but we'll probably just move one to the toddler bed and move everything out of reach in his room. Plus side fur us is that he's sleeping on a mat at DC, so he's somewhat used to no crib.

ebp913 · September 2013

I put my DD in a sleepsack. She can't get traction with her feet because they are covered.

blushingbride_08 · September 2013

ebp913 said:

I put my DD in a sleepsack. She can't get traction with her feet because they are covered.

I thought this would work for my LO but he ended jumping out of the crib and hitting his head...scary! His had the feet in them.

aeh72 · September 2013

If OP doesn't mind, I'd like to add a question on to this post. When your LOs first climbed out was it out of the blue, or did you have a few episodes of them looking like they wanted to climb out (e.g., trying to pull themselves up, hiking up a leg) before they could actually do it? I'm worried about this day too and I'm mainly worried that we won't be expecting it and it will first happen overnight when we're all alseep.

ASmallWonder · September 2013

aeh72 said:

If OP doesn't mind, I'd like to add a question on to this post. When your LOs first climbed out was it out of the blue, or did you have a few episodes of them looking like they wanted to climb out (e.g., trying to pull themselves up, hiking up a leg) before they could actually do it? I'm worried about this day too and I'm mainly worried that we won't be expecting it and it will first happen overnight when we're all alseep.

Ours was 100% out of the blue.

aeh72 · September 2013

elmoali said:

aeh72 said:

If OP doesn't mind, I'd like to add a question on to this post. When your LOs first climbed out was it out of the blue, or did you have a few episodes of them looking like they wanted to climb out (e.g., trying to pull themselves up, hiking up a leg) before they could actually do it? I'm worried about this day too and I'm mainly worried that we won't be expecting it and it will first happen overnight when we're all alseep.
Ours was 100% out of the blue.

This totally terrifies me! Thanks for the response!

ASmallWonder · September 2013

aeh72 said:

elmoali said:

aeh72 said:

If OP doesn't mind, I'd like to add a question on to this post. When your LOs first climbed out was it out of the blue, or did you have a few episodes of them looking like they wanted to climb out (e.g., trying to pull themselves up, hiking up a leg) before they could actually do it? I'm worried about this day too and I'm mainly worried that we won't be expecting it and it will first happen overnight when we're all alseep.
Ours was 100% out of the blue.

This totally terrifies me! Thanks for the response!

Yeah I mean, he didn't show any interest and I never saw him put a leg up and was convinced he couldn't do it physically. I thought he'd be in the crib for a looong time. Then one night we hear *thump!* "Um helloooo! I out my crib!"

cdbayes · September 2013

My cousin's 2 yr old started this and they have been using a mesh dome-like thingy that attaches to the top of the crib and only zips from the outside. I'm buying it if DS gets any ideas!

jld49 · September 2013

So our update: we're on day 6 of toddler bed and he's adjusting pretty good, but now only sleeping 10 hrs a night-- waking at 5 am instead of his 6am, sitting by his door and/or laying on the floor on his rug for a good 30 minutes though calmly. We miss the hour of sleep, but he was in a sleep sack up until the point where he fell OUT of his crib in the sleep sack which is terrifying. And this was totally out of the blue. He had a cold and had a hard time falling asleep that one night and that was the night he cried when it was bed time and straddled the crib, in his sleep sack-- and then straddled it every following night until he fell. We had no choice! We didn't try the crib tent... Figured this point would come eventually, so here we are. That said, now I'm looking into buying a tot clock!

Emmit12 · September 2013

I think crib tents were recalled.

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