escape artists

[Anonymous]

This morning for the first time, my DD got out of her crib by herself. DH and I were in the kitchen, heard a door squeak and in she walked, looking proud as can be. She is just shy of two years old -- a twin, sharing a room.

We are on one level, no stairs or steps.

Can anyone share the strategies they used once this happened?

[Anonymous]

maybe put a safety gate in front of her door? one of the smooth plastic ones that she can't climb up on like she could with the lattice ones? and baby-proof the rest of the house really thoroughly?

i was an escape artist as a baby, though my devious career apparently started at 8 months, which you wouldn't think was possible.

it may be time to retire the crib and put her in a regular twin bed, with safety railings so she can't fall out. then she'd at least be escaping from a lower height. my friend's daughter is two and they stopped using her crib a few months ago.

good luck!

[Anonymous]

It might not be worth investing in this at this point, given her age, but we used a crib tent when our son started climbing out at ~18 months.

[Anonymous]

Crib tent. My kids were not ready to be moved out of their cribs until 2.5-3. If yours are similar, you'd get a lot of use out of it.

[Anonymous]

My DS just started doing this at 26 months - every morning and on weekends when we put him down for naps (sometimes evenings, too, if he doesn't want to go to sleep). We ordered a toddler bed, figuring that the safest thing would be to take away his climbing wall (he likes to climb back up, too). I want to put a gate at his door but haven't go DH on board yet, so we'll see how it goes.

[Anonymous]

Our son started climbing out before age 2 also (we freaked of course). We bought a regular twin bed the next weekend. He fell out a couple times, but now that he's a few months older, he loves it - actually he was always excited about being in a big boy bed. We have a stool at the end and he loves to get in bed all by himself. We had also moved my older one to a twin right about 2 years, although he hadn't climbed out yet. We love the twin beds - we can lie down with them at night now instead of having to haul them over the crib sides.