The Great Houdini

Last Wednesday Luke took me by complete surprise and CLIMBED OUT OF HIS CRIB! We had been out and about and got home about a half an hour later than his usual naptime. Perhaps in part because he was really tired he threw a terrible tantrum when I put him in his crib. I figured he'd cry for five or 10 minutes but then settle down, so I left his room, shut the door, and went upstairs to start a load of laundry. I then heard a loud banging noise that I had assumed Luke was making from his crib. When I went to check on him, he was at his bedroom door, and the banging noise I had heard was his frustated attempts to open the door! I tried to soothe him and put him in his crib again, but he became as upset as he had been before and promptly demonstrated how he managed to climb out of the crib so steathily. Luke stands on tiptoe and then leverages his shoulder and back against the corner of the crib where the headboard meets the side rail. Then he's able to get his legs over the railing and drop down to the floor. It goes without saying that Ken and I were not prepared to move Luke out of his crib at 20 months. A neighbor, Sara Slattery, kindly gave us a toddler bed that uses a crib mattress. Ken assembled the toddler bed this weekend, and Luke successfully slept there last night and the night before. But getting him to sleep in the toddler bed is a real effort. Luke gets out of the bed over and over again, and we're only beginning a bad habit by staying in his room until he falls asleep. The crib, which I realize we need to disassemble and remove from his room, still holds appeal for him, and tonight he pointed to it and insisted that this was where he wanted to sleep tonight. I'm typing this posting outside his room as he has on one occasion since last Wednesday helped himself out of his crib upon waking from a nap, so his escapes are now not always out of desperation.

This situation is all new to us. We moved Bryn out of the crib around 22 months because we needed to use the crib for Luke, who was on the way, but Bryn is a different kid, and we never had problems with her climbing out of the crib or getting out of her big bed. We also had a full-size bed ready for her, with a guard rail on the side, and it's more enclosed than Luke's borrowed toddler bed. Other parents with whom we've spoken have also struggled with this transition, and in part because the decision to move Luke out of the crib -- or at least attempt to do so, before he hurts himself -- was made for us, I'm afraid we're not going about it very well.