Help! my nearly 2-year old can now climb out of his cot!

[Tigermoth]

We have a large cot bed. My older son never mananged to scale its heights - the bars were up till he was 3 years old.

So I just do not know how to deal with my escaping 2 year old. He's pretty nimble and surefooted - good at climbing the stairs - and he can open most doors in the house, too. If I put stairgates up, won't he climb over them too?

I hate the thought of him running around the house at night - or even playing in his bedroom alone for great lengths of time - he's so young.

Also, he's prone to wake up once at night once for some milk. Last night I heard his cries as normal, opened the bedroom door and found him standing very distressed on the other side!

Any tips gratfully recieved.

I'd love to hear any suggestions too, because we're about to face the same problem. My son climbed out of his cot at almost 2, so we put him into a bed - he got out twice, I was stern the second time and we've never had any problems since. However, his younger sister is now approaching 2, and is going to be far more difficult, because she doesn't seem to take a blind bit of notice of anything I say (or maybe I'm just a lot less frightening these days??).She's still quite small, luckily, so can't get out of the cot bed yet, but it's only a matter of time until her brother shows her how, and then we're in for it. We can't put a stairgate across her bedroom door because she shares with her brother and that would upset him greatly. Any ideas?

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Tigermoth don't worry. Put your son in a bed - 2 is just right for this transition. You may find a few nights he'll come out, but if you are strict and put him back and tell him its time to sleep he'll soon get the idea. Many people have had success in putting stair gates over bedroom doors to stop escaping toddlers - we put ours on the landing so he only had access to our room and not the stairs or bathroom. Its not a nightmare, honestly. Our child went in a bed just before 2 and it was fine. We had a period of a few early mornings where he would appear at the side of our bed, but a 'its too early' and putting him back to bed again soon put pay to that. I also found that our son wasn't keen to play in his room, despite putting toys in there. All he wanted to do was come in to us and say 'Morning'!

The advice I was given about putting a child into a big bed was either that they were able to climb out of their cots or were 3ft or taller! A bed is a better option than tumbling out of a cot surely.

Our little lad is 2 and 4 months and has been in a bed since January. I didn't treat the bedtime routine any differently when he went in to a bed and I think that helped. I can honestly say that we had about 3 rough nights the first week, a few early mornings later on, but with perseverance he goes to bed lovely and happy and doesn't get out, run around, come downstairs, or venture anywhere else in the house. He still comes in to our room at 6.30 am - but what a lovely way to wake up - to a beautiful toddler who is pleased to see you, is very happy and climbs in bed to give you a big hug and kiss!

In fact, we've removed all stair gates in the house now. We put a bolt on our bedroom door so he can't mess around in there during the day. I've also got a bolt on the bathroom door currently. Although he's potty trained, unaccompanied visits to the bathroom are a no-no as he has an obsession with putting all the toilet roll down the loo! But saying that, he doesn't spend long periods alone in his room at all - he only seems to want to come up when someone else is up there.

Go for the bed!

I go along with Emmam and suggest you put him in a bed. If nothing else they have further to fall from a cot side than a bed. I've just been through all this with my 2 1/2 yr old and unfortunately he didn't catch on as quickly as Emmam's son. However he does now stay in at night and usually only wanders as far as our room first thing in the morning. He does have a gate at his bedroom door which he proved he could scale so I moved it up. I must've miscalculated though 'cos now he squeezes underneath it! Now I can't be bothered to move it again and just keep hoping that he'll get too big to fit soon. Putting toilet rolls down the loo must be a boy thing as he had a thing about that as well. Thankfully that little novelty has worn off.

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Tigermoth, I moved our son to a bed when he was 23 months as we need the cotbed for the 3mth old, he loved it immediately, but after a week discovered that it was fun coming out and shouting over the safety gate for us to go running up and put him back to bed, but they do change this habit after a while, I would recommend one of the bed side rails, we have a portable one and it has worked well. And it stopped us putting off the inevitable!

My now 26 month old son started to climb out of his cot at about 19 months and would roam the house (he is tall and could open doors at that age as well). We tried the stairgate at his bedroom door and that worked for a while but then he started climbing over this. We seem to have solved (for now!) the problem by putting a star chart on the wall opposite his door so he sees it as he starts to scale the stairgate and next to the chart is a picture of a toy he wants and which he gets if he stays in his room, until we get him in the morning, for a certain number of nights. We made the rewards small to start with and gave them after one or two nights and now we are up to 3 weeks before a reward. Having the picture near the star chart seems to reinforce the message of the reward and so far it is working!

Hi.My daughter started waking in the night every 10 minutes and I decided that then was the time to put her in a bed even though she was only 17 months old.After a couple of battles of trying to get her to stay in the bed at bedtime she got the message. She even started to sleep through the night immediately. It was the best thing that I ever did.....so give it a try....stick with it. They've only got to make the transition from cot to bed once.

Thanks for all your messages. So you all vote 'bed' - very consistent and reassuring. No horror stories of escaping toddlers, last seen disappearing through the garden hedge!

As Emmam and others have said, a stairgate over the bedroom door could work and also, of course, once in a bed my son will not fall as far. I will also look into bed rails.

However, there is a further cot-related problem to cloud the horizon: our holiday.

In a few weeks we will be staying in a very simple villa. No swimming pool, but it is situated right on the beach. I am having nightmares about my toddler scaling the hired cot or nipping out of bed, opening the doors or windows and heading straight for the big blue yonder. He loves the sea and walks right into the waves unless restrained.

I have left a message with the tour operator, of course. I still want the cot, but I desperately need to know about the layout of the villa, and how the doors and windows are locked, if they have bolts and how high the handles are etc etc.

I am intending to keep my son in his cot bed at home for the few weeks till we go away ... I think. Though we went youth hostelling this weekend and toddler refused the hired cot point blank and ended up sleeping on the lower bed in a bunk bed. However at home he's still just about happy in his big cot bed, so I feel it could be a good idea to keep him in it for now, so he doesn't lose the knack of sleeping in a cot.

But, any tips on securing an unknown beach villa against a night-wandering toddler would be very appreciated.

I had loads of questions as my dd has just learned to climb out of her cot but most have been answered by reading this thread and I'm going to go for the bed now. I'm only left with whether its OK to put her under a normal duvet at 2 years old. She grew out of her sleeping bag a few months ago (a great invention which solved sleep problems at 6 months until now) and anyway she could undo it so the benefit had gone. We bought a cot duvet envisaging she would be in the cot much longer. I'm sure she will wriggle out from under such a small thing if I use it on the bed so I need the go ahead for the big duvet please!

Its fine for them to have a duvet at 2.

Thanks. Tonight is her fourth night in the bed. The first night was dreadful, the next not much better and last night she slept through to more or less her normal time. So its seems to work. She does get out straight after I put her in but she comes to the gate across her door then goes and gets back in. Fingers crossed it'll stay this way. Now I've just got to adjust to the fact that she seems to be giving up her afternoon sleep at the same time!

Hi Fionascassidy, glad its going OK. We are at the same stage of son starting to drop his afternoon sleep. It is hard going for a while, I remember it from son 1.

Hi! I agree, the bed is the way to go once they start to climb out of the cot. We made the swap at around 2 I think...dd had to leave the cot to make room for ds, and then he ended up in a bed while we were on holiday, seemed to settle fine so we made the change when we got home and ran with it! We gave both of them trundle beds, so that if they rolled out they would only land on the mattress below, rather than the floor. It also makes a handy "step" so they can get in by themselves.

My only suggestion would be to make sure you actually dismantle the cot, and remove it from their room so they know it is no longer an option. Also make it clear that they have their own big bed now, and so do you! Once you let them come into your bed, you will find it very difficult to get them back to their own again! RESIST AT ALL COSTS! Even if you are exhausted and so sick of putting them back in their own bed AGAIN! They will get the message eventually, some quicker than others! We were very lucky, both ds and dd took to their new beds with ease.

Good luck and keep perservering - it's worth it!

Fiona I forgot to add - at 2 your daughter really does still need her afternoon nap...it is quite normal to resist this once in a bed, just to see if it will work! Maybe try making it a little later? Maybe a new routine before the afternoon nap would help...a darkened room, a quiet story in bed...even just some quiet time is better than nothing. Otherwise you might have to settle for an earlier bedtime at night. Ds (2 and a half) is a night owl, stays up til 8-8.30pm (his 5yo sister is asleep by 7.30pm), but he still has his 2 hours in the afternoon. I don't mind the later bedtime though as he goes quite willingly most of the time - and if he doesn't get his nap he is impossible by about 4pm and makes everyone miserable! Keep us posted!

(I've changed my name from FionaCassidy)
Thanks for all the advice. I did post a message a few days ago but it seems to have disappeared. anyway thought I'd let you know that dd slept from about 8-8 the last two nights which was her normal pattern. She had been resisting the afternoon sleep but would go off in the car or pushchair. This afternoon she went into her room shortly after lunch and got into bed without any prompting and was fast asleep in seconds!! Couldn't believe it! Lets hope it lasts.