If you had a toddler who would not stop getting out of their cot...

[Terramirabilis]

...How long did it take before you were able to have them sleep in a normal bed without getting out of bed 10,000,000 times per night? Our DS (3 soon) is the kind of child who becomes hyperactive and loses control of himself when he's tired, being more tired doesn't make him sleepy.

We've had to remove the base from his cot and have him sleep on the mattress on the floor inside the cot to stop him escaping. Yes, we've tried the returning him to bed method. For a month. No, it doesn't work for us. When he gets out, he immediately comes out of the room to find us.

My question is, if you had a child like this, how old were they before they would stay in bed when you told them to and therefore you could put them in a normal bed rather than a cot?

My DD2 is just starting to attempt climbing out of cot. I will definetly be putting a stair gate on her door. She's a wild one.

From 18 months my ds has been in a bottom bunk. I sit on the floor until he's asleep. There are times where I've popped to the loo & he's just fallen asleep by the time I've gone back. I don't talk to him & ignore any attempts of him trying to engage or move. So far so good for the last two months. He's now normally asleep within 20 mins & he doesn't get out until he wakes up at 6ish. I've started leaving the room briefly & then coming back but not talking to him but just so he sees me sit back down etc so he thinks I'm going to stay there. Honestly it's the best he's slept ever & I think the big bed helps. Really hope you figure something out. It's awful when your little ones don't sleep!

Gaffer tape?

In all seriousness I used to cuddle dd until she fell asleep then gradually began leaving just before she was asleep etc. It's time consuming but for me it was far better than trapping a screaming dc in their room. Rapid return did not work despite what super nanny claimed, dd is the second most stubborn person I know (second to me)!

Aren't stairgates and cot sides about the same height?

Surely if the child wants to climb out of a cot, if the same child wanted to climb over a stair gate, she/he would?

Personally, my take on this is to teach not to climb out of the cot (by use of most of the methods already mentioned here, Rapid Return being most likely), rather than attempting to side-step the is due by removing the cot sides... and just creating more of the same kind of behaviour issues.

Mine couldn't get out of a stairgate at 18 months but could get out of the cot - but it was a cot rather than a big cotbed. However at 3 they would just open a stair gate!

stair gate, or let them fall asleep with you, then put to bed.

With some children a mattress just inside the stair gate, where they can lie and still see and hear the family has worked well

DS2 started this at 17m, so bed and child gate. I'm not sure why a childgate is any crueller than a cot in terms of trapping a child

Following with interest!

Dd moved to a bed after her first climb out of the cot. She didn't even attempt to get out of her bed for the first couple of months!
Now she gets out constantly but there's a stair gate at the door.

Just tried to put Ds down for his nap; the last few days he has either fallen asleep in the car or just not napped at all so today I was determined to get him down. 45 minutes of screaming and cot escaping! I have ended up sat on the rocking chair and cuddling him to sleep.
We would definitely be getting a bed for hi and gruelling through this, but we go away on Friday and I really hoped we might keep him in his cot until then. I don't think I can cope with every night of my holiday being a battle, especially when literally 2 weeks ago he was an angel at bedtime.

DS was giving up on naps and climbing out of his cot at about 18mo. We bought the lowest single bed we could, put a stair gate at the top of the stairs and put latches at the top of the other upstairs doors so even if he did get out of bed everything was boring and there was nothing else to do upstairs I think it took a couple of weeks of having to go and return him to bed repeatedly but once he realised he could get up but there was no point, he learned to settle. Especially when allowed to take a toy car or similar to bed to fiddle around with til he dozed off.

Last night Ds was awful, I went out tutoring at 6.55 and got back at 8.05 and he had screamed the whole time! I eventually resorted to holding him and cuddling him to sleep because I was exhausted and so was he. In the night he woke at 3.30, I gave him milk and then very firmly told him he was going to bed- he went in quietly and as soon as my head touched the pillow he screamed. I ended up telling him he had to go to bed but that i would sit in his room, which I did. For 90 minutes. Tbf he didn't scream or call out, but every time I tried to leave he simpered until he was properly deeply asleep.

Today during the day he had been very very sick, out with gp's and he was so covered they had to buy him new clothes!

This evening- gone to bed, literally without a peep. Perhaps he's been suffering for something? Or just a fluke?