CMs help! 20 month old child now climbs out of travel cot.

[Alliwantisaroomsomewhere]

A 20 month old child I have cared for for nearly a year climbed out of his travel cot twice yesterday. He is extremely capable physically and will climb onto anything and everything given half the chance.

How do I keep him in his cot to have his sleep? Mum says they drive around to get him to sleep when he is at home but I cannot do this. I have other children when he is with me.

He is too young to go without sleep for the 10 hour days that I have him.

Any suggestions please?

Normally when a child is old enough to climb out of the travel cot I put them on a mattress on the floor. If the child won't settle down to sleep then I rock them for about 20 minutes in a buggy. This seems to work for most children. If they haven't fallen asleep in this amount of time then im my opinion they don't really need the nap.

Thanks, mamamaisie. I will try the buggy rocking technique. He DEFINITELY will not cope comfortably til 6pm with no sleep and I suspect he may struggle to settle. Ah well, these things are sent to try us!

A child this age almost definitely still needs to nap in the day. I'd tackle this by treating the climbing out of the cot as an unwanted behaviour. Use whatever discipline techniques you usually use with this child to teach him that he's not allowed to climb out of cot. I'd simply keep returning him to cot as many times as it takes for him to learn that he must stay there. If you think it's not safe for him to be climbing out, then I'd replace cot with mattress or bed. I'd never start rocking, driving, pushchair to get a child to sleep, it just isn't practical for me. Being able to fall asleep alone and self sooth is such an important skill for a child to learn, and staying in bed and not climbing out is about the child learning self control and is basically a behaviour issue. If you are consistent he will soon learn that you mean business lol. Good luck

If you put them in a gro bag, they can't climb out as it restricts how wide they can open their little legs

Thanks, Seb and Wicked. The problem is having other children as well that are either sleeping or are downstairs while I put the little one to sleep. I will try the growbag idea. That sounds good.

You are right, Seb101. It is unwanted behaviour and should be approached as such. I had not thought about it that way. I had this previously with another child, and I returned him to the travel cot 4 or 5 times one day. May have to take the same approach with this little on.

Not sure he would manage a bed or mattress yet at all. He is just too little and too energetic.

As a mum I would also probably keep putting my own child back in the cot to try to get their naps into a routine. On a recent training course I was told that as a childminder I should not do this as it would be considered bad practice. Children are not supposed to be forced to sleep when they don't want to. Instead they should sleep when it suits them. I'm not too sure whoever came up with this fully understands the practicalities of looking after several children at a time and having school runs, etc. at fixed times, but hey ho that's what we were told. So if you treat it as unwanted behaviour you could be seen as punishing the child for not wanting to sleep when it is convenient for you.

Sometimes my head feels like it will explode trying to work out what we should and shouldn't be doing.

Have you tried asking mum what she does at home?

Mamamaisie, I will join you with my exploding head!!

I would argue til I was blue in the face about having a child sleep when they apparently did not want to, NOT being bad practice! Did no one in the training talk this through with the trainer? About the needs of the child to get rest? The need for the child to develop healthy habits? How awful it would be for the poor kid to be climbing the wall with exhaustion at 3pm when you HAD to go on the school run to collect the others? Then preparing tea for 4, 5. 6 children with a screaming baby because they have not slept?

No, I disagree 100% that encouraging a child to sleep when they are tired is bad practice. It could be argued that if a 3 year old does not want to sleep at 7 or 8pm then leave them ... let them fall asleep when they are tired. You will get an overtired child who does not eat properly, play enthusiastically, learn quickly, develop adequately or be very likeable!

ARGH!!!!! Poo to "Bad practice" when these lecturers speak out their bums!

DD dropped her nap at about 20 months, so it's entirely possible that he might drop his

Sorry - forgot to answer your question, Mama! Mum drives the little one around in her car til he falls asleep.

Also, about letting the child sleep when he or she wants to - what about the needs of the other children? to be able to play and enjoy being with me in my setting without having a child screaming due to being overtired.

I am not having a go at you. Mama!! I am just really annoyed at the crap you and your colleagues were spouted at that training you went on. What LA are in you?

Flisspaps, the little one sleeps for about 90 minutes and then a full 12 hours at night, so in this case I doubt he is ready to drop his sleep but I appreciate that it can happen.

We were given a long lecture about this along with 101 other things we should be doing. Quite a few did query how we are supposed to manage nap times. The answers given were that we could either put a big dog basket thingy in a quiet corner and children could climb in when they are tired or that children might choose to take cat naps in the buggy on school runs.

I'm sure you know how it is, every time you go on a training course you get told yet more things that you have to change. Then the next time you go you get told something completely different again. Nothing is ever good enough ...

Yep, DD went from 2hrs napping to no sleep in the day, almost overnight. Nighttime sleep remained 7-7. I was gutted - I was heavily pregnant and enjoyed the rest!