Q&A: toddler climbing out of crib

Ally, who's been in the middle of sleep battles for, well, ever, writes:

"As you know, we've been working on getting Jamie, who is 17 months, back to his crib full-time. Last night was one of those where I'd lay him down drowsy and almost asleep and he'd pop up, "HI!" the minute his head hit the pillow. I decided to let him blow off some steam and sat in the glider, pretending to sleep, while he cruised around his crib, turning his music box on full blast and playing with his aquarium. Then, quiet, which is never good, so I opened my eyes, and there he was, hanging on for dear life, his entire body balanced on the crib rail. He's been throwing one leg up trying to figure out how to escape for a little while now, and I'll be damned but Houdini somehow figured out how to get both of them up there.

So now what do we do? I figure our options are to a) hope like hell that he doesn't do it again, and to not let him hang out in his crib anymore, or b) ditch the crib for either a toddler bed or a twin mattress on the floor. While we've been working on moving him back to his crib the biggest challenge has been getting him to actually fall asleep there, and I've wondered if a bed would be a better option at this point because he will fall asleep if I'm just laying next to him. I'm not worried about him getting in and out because he hops off our pillow-top, king-sized mattress just fine by himself.

But a bed for a 17-month-old could open up a whole 'nother kettle of fish - keeping him in it, for the most part - and I don't know if it's a challenge I'm prepared to take on. Of course, keeping his limbs intact and attached to his body are the top priority, so if that's what it takes, that's what we'll do.

Help!"

The first thing I thought when I read this email was "She has a pillow-top king-sized mattress. I'm so jealous." But then I moved on to focus on the problem, which is a real classic of the toddler years--kid who climbs out of the crib. I think a bunch of us have had brushes with it in one form or another. One night when El Chico was around the same age as Jamie is now, I heard him calling for me from his room. It took me a minute or two to get out of bed, and as I walked through the kitchen to his room I ran into him walking toward me! That was the only time for us. But I've heard of kids climbing out and falling and breaking limbs, and I knew a girl who climbed out and fractured her skull(!). (She was completely fine, although she had a really nasty bruise around one eye for a few weeks.)

When my son climbed out that time we figured out that it was because his dresser was too close to his crib. Once we moved the dresser we knew he couldn't get out again, and we got another few months out of the crib. But if there's nothing helping a kid climb out that can be easily removed, you can't just hope the kid will stay in the crib. You have to move the child to a bed of some sort.

I just read Ally's most recent entry on her blog, and it seems she's implementing the exact strategy I would have suggested to her. (Should I be proud or nervous that she's taking my advice before I knew I was going to give it? Am I obsolete?) She's buying a twin-sized mattress and putting it on the floor in his room.

Before I discovered that she'd figured it out herself, I was going to tell Ally that there are two ways  you could go with this problem. You could try to force your kid to stay in the crib by putting one of those lids on top (they're really supposed to keep cats out of the crib, aren't they?), or you could put the kid in a bed (toddler or twin, or even adult-sized).

If you try to force the kid to stay in the crib you might win on this one issue for awhile, but in the long run you're setting up a dynamic of control that you're not going to win. You may win it when your kid's 18 months or 2 years or 5 or 10 or even 15, but at some point your kid is going to get the best of you, because you set up a win-lose situation. Is it worth it? Not to me, but I really don't like to use a control model of parenting anyway. I think it's my job to help my kids learn to be independent, and the best way to do that is to help them feel secure and to teach them skills. Setting up a fight doesn't do either of those things. I'd rather lose a little sleep right now than end up with serious rebellion later on.

If you go with a bed, you're trusting that you're going to be able to help your child solve his or her current sleep problem and stay in that bed, even if it doesn't happen right away. It's going to be more work for you at the beginning, but it's going to release tension in your relationship with your kid instead of creating it, and it will help your kid be able to sleep more soundly because there won't be stress associated with bedtime.

Ally has identified that Jamie falls asleep with no problem with her lying next to him. So the twin mattress is the perfect solution to bedtime because she can just get up and leave when he falls asleep. As he gets older he'll get better at going to sleep by himself, and she won't be stuck lying down with him forever.

The middle of the night is a crapshoot. He could wake up and start roaming around. (If it's in his own room it's not a big deal since it's all childproof, but Ally might want to consider gating off any other areas of the house so he can't wander freely around.) He could wake up and start screaming for Mama (or Daddy, if you get lucky). He could walk into their room and hop into bed with them for the rest of the night. He could sleep longer and longer and eventually stop waking up in the middle of the night.

What happens after moving to a "big boy" bed will depend on your child's personality. I think many "spirited" children really chafe at being stuck in a crib, and sleep better once they have more freedom. El Chico went from waking every morning at 4 screaming for me (I'd have to haul my carcass out of bed, go into his room, and either get him back to sleep or give up adn hoist him out of the crib and back into my room) to waking every morning at 5:30 and walking into our room and sneaking into bed with us (half the time I didn't even wake up). Jamie fits the profile of the spirited child, but he's a little on the young side, so I guess we'll have to see what happens. If nothing else, bedtime is going to be less stressful for all involved. My hunch is that that's going to make the entire night easier, but I'm not willing to bet actual cash money on it.

What happened when you moved your kid to a big boy/girl bed? Did it go more or less smoothly than you'd hoped?

 

Comments

[Kate]

We got very little use out of our crib, in part because of moving, delays, etc., it did not come into our apartment until Miss M was 7 months old. (She is now 21 months.) At that point she was used to sleeping in a pack and play for the first part of the night and with us for the rest.

We couldn't figure out why she objected to the crib so much, but she did; we got to be full-time co-sleepers for a while, but then she got very rambunctious in her sleep and it was like a wrestling grudge match every night. So we moved her to the floor of our room (just on a comforter on the carpet). Finally we inherited a toddler bed and when we trusted that she was big enough to get in & out without hurting herself (14 months or so), we set it up in our room. For a very long time she wouldn't get out of it at night--she was treating it like a crib--and would wait for us to come to her. Now it's about half and half, sometimes she comes to us, sometimes she waits (usually once we pass her personal witching hour of 3:30 am, she climbs out and comes to us to get her midnight snuggles...4 am was the last middle-of-the-night nursing we eliminated).

Last week we moved the toddler bed to a different room in anticipation of a new baby (within a month), and her sleeping has been pretty much the same. The one exception is that when she wakes around 4, she screams bloody murder as she is getting out of bed and coming to find us, instead of just quietly getting out of bed and demanding "UP!"

That being said...I think a lot of this is "know your toddler." Our daughter has never been the type who wants to get up and play at night. When she's up it's because something woke her or her stomach/teeth hurt and she is looking for relief. (Or she wants a drink of water, which we do leave in the corner of her bed, but somehow it's only good enough when WE give it to her.) So we're not worried about her wandering the house; when she gets out of her bed it's only to come find us, whether in the living room or in bed ourselves.

Moxie, I totally agree with your idea that bedtime should not have associated stress with it. There are plenty of nights when one of us has to stay in her room and ignore her for 20 minutes to avoid multiple trips "back to bed," but she has never fought going to bed or resisted the nighttime routine. After Goodnight Moon and nursing, she happily trots to bed and gets in. Sometimes she lies there reciting the alphabet, tosses and turns, and generally tries to entertain her audience, but it's not a battle.

My mom can't figure out why we don't put a baby gate at the entrance of her room so she can't get out (!!!); that's what she did for my brother, who also climbed out of his crib quite early. But a) we don't play that way(!)--she got it from Ferber, and b) we live in an apartment. With neighbors. Sheesh.

[Ally]

Well, it took us all weekend to shop for and buy the mattress and a dresser to replace the changing table (and to put the dresser together, but that's another story) so last night was the first night in the new bed. And of course, either the damn molars or another ear infection had him waking, screaming, almost hourly. But I did get to test my theory that I could just sleep next to him on a bad night! And went down just fine, which, I have to tell you, your advice about betime not being stressful is right on. It's always been my philosphy as well, and that's why we've coslept off and on, because I just don't have the patience or the energy to mess around. If it's bedtime, I want the kid asleep and in bed so I can move on with the evening. I've been feeling an enormous sense of relief about not having to deal with the crib at bedtime, and I've actually been putting him down in our bed from the start since the crib-climbing incident and he's been sleeping straight through until 5 or so.

"Our daughter has never been the type who wants to get up and play at night."

That's Jamie exactly, which is why I've dealt with his nightwakings the way I have. Even our pediatrician, who raisesd an eyebrow when at his 15 month checkup found out he was waking again at night, dismissed it when I told her they were brief, less than a minute or so, wakings.

Even if we continue to cosleep off and on, I think, Moxie, you're exactly right about the power struggle. This takes the power issue out of the equation, which means I'm not second-guessing myself anymore and can respond to the situation at hand, rather than wondering how my respons is going to impact things down the road.

[Lisa C.]

We never got much use out of the crib with the Moosh. He hated it, I hated it, and as you said, we don't like to associate sleep with stress. He still sleeps with me and I'm fine with it... I may be writing to you for some advice in the next year or so about transitioning, however. :P

[Diane]

Kate(and Moxie), could you clear up for me the negative aspects of gating off a toddler's room, so he can't get out at night? I'm a first-time mother, sortakinda AP by instinct; my boy is 14 months. He's an active wandering sort, and his room is the safest place in the house. Wouldn't having the run of it be freedom enough, in the middle of the night? Incidentally he's just down the hall from our bedroom, amd we've never had a monitor... we hear him just fine!

[Moxie]

Diane, the negative aspect of gating would be if a kid wanted to get to you in the middle fo the night and couldn't because s/he was gated into her/his room. Like being locked in. If your son just calls for you in the night and doesn't feel trapped by not being able to go get you physically himself (a personality thing, for sure, because some kids will sit there and yell for a parent for hours while otherds want to get up and go into the parents' room) then it's no big deal. I don't think kids need "freedom" in the middle of the night, but they do need to be able to get a parent's attention and be responded to. Gating for safety is one thing, but there are people who gate so their kids can't come out period. They don't think about how scary and demeaning it would be to be locked in for the night. It's like giving morphine to someone with a broken leg instead of setting the leg. I also wonder about potty training a kid who's not allowed to leave his/her room at night, but that's another issue entirely.

[Ally]

Diane, I'm glad you asked that question, because I've been feeling slightly guilty about shutting Jamie's door now that he can get out of bed. In our case it's because the dogs sleep in our room, one on the floor and one on the bed, and the one on the bed can be touchy if woken suddenly. Not biting touchy, but loud and snarly. We don't want to either risk Jamie being scared out of his mind nor do we want to take the chance that that one time she does snap will be at the baby. Plus, the kid, he wakes up like his mama, which is to say, not easily or quickly, and I really do fear that he'd end up wandering around the house half-awake and fall or hurt himself somehow.

That being said, we do go to him as soon as we hear him at his door. Here's the funny thing, he doesn't cry anymore when he wakes up in the middle of the night unless he's hurting. He just gets up and goes to the door.