Escape Artist

Several months ago, Will climbed out of his crib for the first time. For the next week, we were quick to get him up in the morning and after naps and he seemed to forget he had the skill. Last December, he learned to climb out of his pack and play - and did it multiple times. But he was still content in his crib. That is, until a couple days ago. Grandma and Grandpa were watching him while we had a U of M board meeting. When we got home, they told us the news: Will climbed out of his crib after his nap, opened his door, and walked out. That night, he went to bed without any trouble but did get himself out in the morning. Then he escaped twice during his afternoon nap, and again in the morning. We have a toddler bed conversion kit on order (and are probably going to borrow one from our friends with the same crib until ours comes in. Last night, he demonstrated how he gets out, which is actually pretty safe. However, then he showed us that he could topple over back in (head first) which freaked us out a bit.

So we took off the front of his crib for a little experiment. All things considered, it actually went pretty well. At first, we left his door unlocked. He would get into bed saying "nap time" but then would get up, open his door, and walk throughout the house looking for us (we were in our room with the lights out pretending we were sleeping, too). After a few times, we decided we would have to keep the door closed. So we put up a baby gate which also kept him from turning the door knob (a new door knob will be installed this weekend w/ a lock). He cried for a few minutes but then calmed down and just started to play. He played for probably 45 minutes before climbing into bed and falling asleep. At that time, his nightstand light was on so we snuck in and turned it off. He slept soundly until about 3 am. Then he got up, played with his musical truck for 2 minutes, before going back to bed. As of 5:30 this morning, he's still asleep.

I think once we have the toddler bed set up he will feel more enclosed and may sleep better. We are also going to remove his nightstand light for a bit while he's getting used to it. We'll keep you posted...