So how do you stop them getting out of bed? Toddler...

[SardineQueen]

Hi all

My nearly 2 year old can climb out of any cot and in the last couple of weeks will not go down at night. She just gets up and traipses downstairs. I have done the whole don't make a fuss and put her back thing but after about a squillion goes last night in the end at gone 9 DH went and lay with her until she fell asleep.

She can share a room with her big sis if she wants - so it's not company as such that's an issue IYSWIM.

Difficulty is that she's not talking at all, so I can't ask her what the problem is, or reason with her, or issue threats or bribes or anything.

It's doing our head in so I thought I'd see what MN wisdom was.

This is all a bit new, DD1 does as she's told and when she was put to bed she just stayed there, as long as she had a few books to look at...

She can climb out of her cot?

Okay time for a bed,
then I would stair gate the door and when she gets out of bed leave her 5-10mins and then just go up and put her straight back without much interaction.

She will eventually realise there isn't much to be gained, I don't think it helps having the light evenings!

Also start bedtime a lot earlier say 6pm and then even if you have an hour of her getting out again she will still be going to sleep at a reasonable time iyswim?!

haha i came to post the exact same thing!

ds3 has just turned 2, and has just learned to climb out of his cot.

and we had the exact same thing as you with the 2 older kids... they both just stayed in their beds!!!

I am not sure there is any solution to keeping them in their beds, and i don't mind if he is playing upstairs too much... i just wanna know how long it lasts!!!

Stair gate on the door. A high pet gate if necessary. You can get them in Argos.

She might get out of bed but at least she can't traipse around the house.

I've just had a grim 3 months with DD escaping and keeping me up. I finally managed to get an odd job man to fit a stair gate on her door last week and calm has been restored to the house.

Thanks all.

I was going to ask if it was acceptable to cage her, but held back. However I now see that the answer is, in fact, to cage her

Righto that works for me. Even soppy DH is starting to look a bit like the end of his tether is near...

Bedtime starts at about 6 BTW. DD1 does everything by clockwork, paying close attention to the rules and regulations. DD2 pours bathwater over the side of the bath, escapes without her nappy on and hides, scratches and pinches poor old DD1, won't go to bed, breaks stuff if given half a chance. She is generally a total terror, and after clockwork reliable DD1 we are feeling a tad shell shocked.

Thanks for the stairgate tip I can see it is the way forward!