Climbing Out of the Crib

Some people will take the legs off the crib and put it on the floor.
A climber won't have far to fall that way.
Some just put the mattress on the floor and have the kid sleep there.
Or he can sleep in a play pen - they are hard to climb out of.

Twin mattress on the floor. Baby Gate at the door. Twin is big enough for mom/dad to snuggle and easily get out of. And just mattress on floor is not very high. I also put soft foam next to bed in case he rolled out.

We had a twin size mattress on the floor (no box springs) that was our "toddler" bed for all three kids, perfectly safe. Have a baby gate at the bedroom door if you're concerned about him "exploring" in the middle of the night :-)

He's barely old enough to stand up and have any power in his arms. My first thought is that his mattress is too high. Put it down all the way.

If it's all the way down then he must be really tall! Our baby bed had a lot of space above the mattress.

Other than that I guess you can put him in a pack and play. Maybe they have more height.

I do think he'll be fine to move into a toddler bed when he's 14-18 months old though. In child care we start teaching the infants to sleep on a cot around 11 months so when they move up to the toddler room they will be used to the cots. Not so much change all at once.

So I moved the kids onto the toddler bed as soon as I could after they moved up to the toddler room.

It worked great. I had a gate across the door of their bedroom. I had doorknob protectors on every single bathroom door, exit from the house, any extra rooms, and on the closets too. They keep them out of places they don't need to be. Bathrooms are the most dangerous room they can get in. They can drown in the toilet or tub.

All the small shelves were fastened to the walls with L-brackets and there weren't any drawers or anything like that because we put a shelf in their closet with their socks, jammies, and other folding stuff in them. They were about a foot long, 9-10 inches across and about 10-12 inches deep. I labeled them and it was easy to keep them organized. I hung all their clothes.

If they got up in the middle of the night they were safe, absolutely NO overage toys in their rooms. Ever. Nightlight in the hall and a baby monitor on a shelf in the hall where I could hear everything going on in their rooms.

It can be done. He's too young for this now and I think his bed needs adjusting but maybe he's just tall.

My son was climbing out really early as well. We just took the mattress out and put it on the floor and put the crib away. It backfired on us, though, because then he was not contained at all, and it became a real struggle trying to get him to go to sleep each night. He wouldn't stay unless I stayed too. Before long, 30 minutes to fall asleep became a 2 hour battle, during which he'd drift off and I'd try to sneak out, he'd wake, lather, rinse, repeat. It was awful.

So, we got a twin bed and shoved it into the corner so that the bedroom walls formed two side walls. Then got bed rails for the long side of the bed. He got into bed by the foot of the bed. It worked really well. No more climbing out, and yet, if he wanted out, he could get out without climbing. But, interestingly enough, the rail kept him in bed. He had more room to move around without hitting a wall (crib rail), yet still had that confining feeling to it, so it felt safe and secure for him. Once we did that, my bedtime struggles were basically over.
Of course, by then, he was near 18 months old. (We struggled a long time with the crib mattress on the floor.)

Assuming you've tried putting the mattress in the crib as low as it will go and that you don't have stuff in the crib that he stand on to make himself taller, and he still gets out - you just have to try things and see what will work.

My first was a rule follower right from the beginning. When I put him to bed, if he didn't want to go he would start to climb as I was leaving the room. I gave him a stern 'no' and put him back in. He would actually listen, and he stopped trying to climb out. He slept in his crib until he was almost 3.

My second was a climber and not so easy to stop. He started climbing out early. I set up a toddler bed in the room and put him in it - I thought the rails would help make it seem crib-like. And I baby-gated the door of his room. He refused to sleep there. He wanted to be in the crib. I put him back in the crib. He became expert at climbing in and out at will. It made me nervous, but I didn't know what else to do.

I hope your LO is more like my first, and maybe you can get him to stay in the crib. But if he's more like my second, well, good luck. LOL. My second still gives me a run for my money in so many ways.

All four of my monkeys climbed out of their cribs early. I just let them. Figured if they had the ability to climb like that they would figure out how to climb down as well. I was right. Not one bump or bruise from escaping. They got bumps and bruises doing most everything else but not escaping their crib.

when mine started climbing out regularly we went to twin beds. my older preferred the floor with his 'bear bed', a huge pile of stuffed animals he just burrowed into.
khairete
S.

Can he climb out of a Pack-n-Play?

i used sleep sacks to keep my littles in the crib till they were old enough for toddler beds.

We put a twin mattress on the floor. Worked great for us, and made it very easy for us to comfort them at night ... easy to snuggle for a minute and leave without disrupting or waking a sleeping or almost sleeping child.

I thought he was older than that. Put him in a sleep sack. Problem solved

Besides crib tent, other options are a sleeping sack or a baby monitor with movements/sound detector (with alarm when it detects that).

Surround the crib with trees and string ziplines between them. He'll tire himself out that way and go back down to the mattress on his own.

Kidding - good luck!! You have lots of good suggestions here. And, he'll be scaling Everest before you know it.

My answer got deleted somehow.

We had two settings on our crib so we could lower it. I did that around your son's age. We used the sleep sacks so that made it a bit more challenging for them.

Mine were older when it became a real problem. More like a toddler. We did the mattress on floor with a guard rail (we just happened to have one from my brother who had passed it on). They liked feeling like they were surrounded, and I think we had carpet so if they did roll off somehow, no biggie.

Mine didn't start coming into our room (once they were down, they were down all night) until about 3 or so with the night terror phase. We just baby gated the stairs so they couldn't fall - and had baby proofed so no issues. I just made sure the hall way was clear of stuff and we had a little night light.

That's for later though. I did have a friend who used a pack and play for this problem with success.

How about a pack and play? He can't crawl out of that...

Hope you're doing well, B.!