Sleep training a 1 year old that climbs out of her cot!

[Sarah0401]

Hi Everyone

My daughter is 19 months old and has always fallen asleep at bedtime and when she wakes in the night by breastfeeding. But at bedtime, it can take up to an hour and a half for her to fall asleep this way. I've been back at work for a year (I'm a teacher) and it has been the hardest year of my life. It's now the summer holidays and I decided that my daughter has to be falling asleep independently before another school year starts. I decided that now's the time to do it because she's at nursery in the day (where, incidentally, she naps by herself without help!) and I'm on school holidays so if we have a bad night I'm free to catch up on sleep during the day.

I decided to use the controlled crying method as described on this website. I started last night. We did our normal bedtime routine, bath, story, breastfeed. I put her in her cot while she was still awake, said goodnight and left the room. She cried immediately and I went back in at intervals of 2, 5 and 7 minutes. Then in the next interval of 10 minutes, I had to run back into her room after only 5 minutes because I saw on the baby monitor that she was, for the first time, climbing out of her cot!!! By the time I was in her room she was on the floor and walking towards the door. I decided to give up the sleep training at that point and breastfed her to sleep as normal. But after that, she was waking up every 30 minutes and instead of crying/calling for me she was getting straight up and climbing out of her cot.

I feel like she's too young to move into a bed, but it's going to be very difficult to use a controlled crying method and leave her in her cot awake if every time I leave she's climbing out. I also feel like an absolute idiot for not sleep training sooner. I was so stubborn that I didn't want to make her cry or feel like she'd been abandoned. And now that I've decided to sleep train, it turns out I've missed my opportunity.

Any advice would be very much appreciated! Also, my partner works nights, so bedtime and night time wake ups are totally on me.

Can she wear a grobag? It would make climbing much harder and it would also keep her comfortable. I don't think you have missed your opportunity, but it make take a bit longer with a toddler than with a baby. On the upside, you can be really sure that she does not have to eat during the night at her age as opposed to sleep training an infant who may still need the nutrition.

2nd the grobag! Mine is 14 months and no way she could climb out in that. Of course I might eat my words in a few months!

I zipped my son in to his grobag back to front 😬

Just a word of caution - my DD wore a Grobag & I caught her (literally) climbing out of her cotbed at around 17 months. I nearly didn't catch her! She is tall though, & I'm not sure how she got the 1st leg over the bar.

For exactly the same reasons my dd was in a bed by 12 months old, a full size single with a side rail on.

Are you sure she's too young for a bed? My two went straight into full size singles with foam wedge bed guards - DD at 16mo and DS at 18mo. The other option would be a mattress on the floor - by far the safest option! DS was on a double mattress on the floor from 12-18mo.

One advantage of the full size bed is that there's always somewhere comfortable to sit in their rooms!

Please reconsider sleep training, it isn’t so harmful and cruel 😢
Look into gentle night weaning, this will be so much kinder and more effective in the long term.
All the very best.

*Please reconsider sleep training, it is so harmful and cruel.

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!
So last night was eye-opening and helped me make some decisions. I took the bumper out of her cot because I thought she was probably standing on that to give herself a few extra centimetres. And I set up the travel cot as back up. I thought that maybe the fact the travel cot has netting sides instead of bars, it might be harder to climb out of. However, I also measured the cot and travel cot and the travel cot sides are about 5cm lower.
I thought I'd keep going with the controlled crying in case removing the bumper worked and she couldn't climb out. However, during the 7-minute walk out she managed to get a leg over the top so I went in. She was inconsolable to I had to lift her up for a cuddle and eventually decided to breastfeed for the comfort. She calmed right down. I put her in the travel cot and sat with her thinking (hoping) she would fall asleep. I think she nearly did, she was very good just lying there and I was able to edge away without her getting upset. Until she decided to scale the side of the travel cot and was over the top in seconds! So, again I gave up, let her latch on and she was asleep within minutes.
I had ordered a 0.5 tog grobag on Amazon yesterday, thinking that she wouldn't be able to climb out in a sleeping bag, but cancelled the order this morning. I think we will go down the toddler bed route and I don't want to spend €60 on something we won't need.
We move house in a few weeks, so probably set her up with a mattress on the floor for now and then buy a toddler bed for the new house.

And as for sleep training, can the controlled crying method work when they're no longer in a cot? But I think probably start by staying with her until she falls asleep and gradually move further away until she's happy for me to leave. It'll take longer but I don't think we have a choice!

Personally CC is not for me so not sure whether it's reliant on a cot or not.

My DS is 2.5yrs and we've gradually moved from cosleeping and feeding to sleep to me now sitting on the end of his bed whilst he falls asleep. It's been very gradual, too slow for some I'm sure but I'm also a teacher and have felt the mum guilt of him being in nursery full time so I've been happy for him to have that contact to go to sleep. I'm sure you could do gradual withdrawal more quickly but I doubt it will be done in a couple of nights. Especially with a house move!

If you're going for a bed, I'd seriously consider a normal single bed rather than a toddler bed. We use foam bed wedges which fit under the sheet so they're nice and soft and make the bed much cosier.

Gro bag doesn’t work! My DS was 20 months when he realised that he could bounce up off the mattress, link his underarms over the rail of his cot and then use the remaining momentum from the bounce to propel head first out.

Put a bed guard on the side of his cot (if it’s a cot bed, move him to a bed if not) and then a gate on his bedroom door to stop him getting out of the room.

CC doesn't work because unless they literally exhaust themselves and collapse they're not trying to sleep! Think about how you drift off - calm and lying down. Stay with her until she's in a fit state for sleep and she won't try to escape!