20mo can now climb out of his cot. How to get him to sleep?!!

[marzipananimal]

We knew it might be happening soon as DS is big for his age and a good climber, but last night the dreaded event finally occurred.

He was very pleased with himself and far too hyper to stay in his cot so eventually I breastfed him to sleep.

He won't bf to sleep every night though, and I don't want to have to anyway. On the nights he doesn't fall asleep bfing, he normally plays in his cot for a little while before falling asleep or sometimes cries very briefly. This is now not going to work.

I feel like he's too little to understand (and obey) that he's got to stay in bed.

What do we do???

I have no practical solutions as mine is only 9mo so not reached this stage yet! However, perhaps this is a good time ot transfer him to his 'big boys bed'?? If you are having this problem now and obvioulsy it's really quite unsafe (high drop!!) then maybe kill 2 birds with one stone. This will save having to do it all over again whenever you were going to make the switch anyway. If this is an option moneywise or if it's a cot bed? What do you think? Too young? Just an idea.

I think there's not much you can do once climbing starts except transfer to a bed. My DD is 2.5 and still in her cotbed which she loves, no sign of climbing, thank god.

I do know of children this age who have been put in a junior bed and all was well. Is he currently in a cotbed which you can convert? If not a junior bed is a better replacement for his cot than a standard single.

He's in a cotbed at the moment so we can just take the side off, although DH watched him climbing out and he did it very safely without hurting himself, so I don't think taking the side off straight away is an absolute necessity.

I don't think he's old enough that the idea of a big boy bed would be any motivation to him staying in it sadly

I'd agree that moving him to a bed sounds sensible - but I'd also recommend putting a stairgate across his bedroom door.

rasputin, how did you get him to go to bed when he was 18m? I could cope with him coming into our bed in the night (just about!) but he's got to go to sleep in his cot/bed in the evening.

Is he in a grobag? Pretty hard for them to climb out when they're in one of those things :-)

DD went into a bed at 23mo, so not much older than your DS.

We put a stair gate in her doorway, if she didn't stay in her bed we left her to it. We've never found her asleep anywhere other than her bed!

Both our youngst 2 outgrew the cot when they were about 19 months (small cot) so we put them in a bed. (They are 5 years apart btw, not at the same time!).

We put them in a standard single bed with head/footboard which was pushed against the wall so only had one side to fall out of. We then put folded duvets/sleeping bags/pillows on the floor next to the bed to land on and left them to it.

They both fell out for about a week, at least once a night. We got used to hearing a muffled thump and usually got there before they even woke up!
Then they got the hang of it and stopped.

We also put a stairgate over the door for DS1 but that was because our room was right at the top of the stairs and we were worried he would fall down if he got out at night. DS2 is such a deep sleeper we didn't need to. I suspect DS3 will need to be tied to the bed! (joke - well, probably).

fromhere he does sleep in a sleeping bag but he can get out of it very easily so it's no help - it has a popper on each shoulder which he undoes and then wriggles out. I've had trouble finding sleeping bags in 18m+, is there a kind they can't get out of?

Flisspaps I think we may try that, though we'll have to lock his wardrobe somehow or we'll end up with a lot of tidying to do!

Kirsty did yours stay there when put to bed then?

He is asleep now but it took an hour of repeatedly putting him back in his sleeping bag and cot with a stern 'No', him giggling hysterically the whole time, until he got too tired to be able to climb out so he cried a little bit then gave up and lay down. This was despite him being quite tired and calm after a 10 minute bf. Oh dear...

Our DS climbed out of his cot bed at 18 months. We turned it into a bed and spent a nightmare month trying to get him to stay in it. We then gave up and put him in the travel cot which he couldn't get out of. He slept properly again for 5 months until he learnt how to climb out. Now at 2 y 3 mo He sleeps happily in his bed with a stair gate at the door although it took several weeks to get him to stay in his room... So just to reassure you that the phase will pass and with persistence hopefully you'll get your DS to stay in their bed.... There will always be bad phases though, we are trying to get through the early waking one right now .

How long does he nap during the day? There may not be a link but my DD started faffing about going to bed when her nap needed cutting; she just wasn't tired enough to settle.

marzipan - yes grobag do sleeping bags in 18-36 months, we have one for DS. It has a zip down the front & zips from top down so he doesn't have easy access to it for unzipping. We also had problems with shoulder poppers coming undone so we switched to the zipped ones last autumn & he's never escaped since!

I found moving my DS to a bed the best thing we ever did when he was approx 20 months. I got a second hand car bed (shape of a car) and put in garage and cleaned it up and painted it. DS was involved with cleaning etc. He was so pleased when he finally got in it that he slept really well and never got out!

thanks omama, I think we might get one of them. We've had trouble anyway with him getting cold in the night cos he's gone to sleep without his sleeping bag