1.5 yr old climbs out of crib!?

[msmslau]

Hi - my 1.5 yr old daughter scared and surprised me by climbing out of her crib today! She did that b/c she was angry and did not want to nap. Fortunately, she did not get hurt.

(The crib is sturdy and of good quality. She must have used alot of arm strength to get herself out!)

Did any mom experience such surprise in their kids? If so, how do you manage to prevent future injury? Do you change to a toddler bed?

[carang]

i changed my son to a toddler bed when he was 13 months old. in a way it was good, he only fell out of bed once, then we put the old cot matress on the floor so at least he'd have a soft landing.

the bad thing was that he learned very quickly that this meant that he could get out of bed ANYTIME he wanted.

one of the reasons that i changed so early was that he was already trying to climb out of hte cot.

[Wai-Mei Ho]

I bought my son a v. thin cotton sleepying bag to wear Just like the grobags you buy at Mothercare to stop his legs from climbing over the cot. And that seemed to work during the summer. Winter time, you just buy the normal grobags from Mothercare or elsewhere.

Hope that helps.

[carang]

Yeah, that will work... for a few months, until your little one figures out how to work zips/buttons...mine's been undoing zips/snaps/buttons for about 5 months already...

[kellyst]

Cara, first congrats on the new addition!
my 17 mth has started climbing out of her crib, we had one of those cribs which has adjustable height, so lowered the bed for another notch to the lowest level. but i'm tiny so basically when i put her to bed, i'm almost throwing her down coz the mattress is so far down and it's killing my back.
i'm dying to remove the bars (also possible) and wanted to convert the crib to a bed. question is how do you baby proof the room? we've never left her in her room alone to roam around, so many drawers to lock up, and open cupboard to clean out. i have things like CD players, bedside table lamps, all at her level as well.. sigh... any ideas?

[TingTing]

I have remove the left side bars of the crib, and my DH just sleep beside the crib, so when my 12 mths get rolling in the night, he just roll beside DH. But he has his nap in the playpen during daytime.

I plan to change to toddler bed few months later when my baby can walk steadily.

[carang]

thanks for the good wishes!

my boy started walking at 10.5 months, so was climbeing by 12 months! we don't really have anything that he can get into except his bookshelf in his room. he's only recently figured out how to open the large wardrobe doors. (in the last 3-4 months).

his room has the drawers inside the wardrobe, so there's no worries there.

we do have a chest of drawers in the dining room. we tried to childproof stuff but it only took Liam about 2 weeks to figure out how to open the locks! anyway, with the chest of drawers in the dining room, we just showed him how to close the drawers by putting his hands, wide open low down on the drawer. we always say, "watch your fingers!" when he opens the drawers. we allow him to open the drawers as it's where we keep the shoes and he always likes to help everyone get ready by giving each of us the proper shoes.

anyway, good luck! there's no easy answer.