Removing cot sides for 1 year old.

[Olivia199]

Hi!

My daughter who has recently turned 1 is a lethal climber. She's quite tall and despite the cot being on the lowest setting and her being in a sleeping bag, she is trying to climb out.
This has been happening a while but last night she got quite close to succeeding and I'm worried she's going to hurt herself falling out.
I've considered a floor bed but wondering whether to just take the side of the cot off and add a rail (her cot is one that does transform into a cot bed).
Any advice for removing the sides this early on?!
I had visions of transitioning around the 2 year old mark so this has come as a bit of a shock.

Not sure how else I can make it safe for my little monkey baby but equally envisaging looooots of getting up and playing in her room. (Which will be baby proofed in every respect of course).

And words of wisdom?

Thank you!

Second question... do I swap to a sleeping bag with legs or just go for a duvet? Worried she'll be chilly coming into winter!

This is probably not a popular stance, but when our DD was 14m she started trying to climb out of her cot. We let her, she fell, hurt herself, had a big sob, and then didn't try to climb out again til she was nearly 3.

Watching with interest as thinking of doing the same soon (although my daughter is 18months)

we moved her to bag with legs a long time ago as I was afraid she’d Trip when she was walking up and down the cot ! Find the bag with legs great she’s always lovely and warm

DS2 climbed out about 16 months, and went into a toddler bed - just taking the side off made it unstable, it needed to be converted properly.

I'd either leave her in the current sleeping bag, or go for a duvet.

Baby proof her room, and consider a safety gate at the door - if you don't think she'll climb it!

I believe bed guards are only suitable from 18 months. We did floor beds until about 20/22 months.

You can buy long triangle shape foam pads which go under the sheet as a soft ish barrier. It means they wouldn't roll over it in the night accidentally. But could climb over it on purpose for playing/ getting into and out of bed.
EBay have them.

We moved to a single bed with an extra long guard and duvet at 15 months for exactly this reason. No issues whatsoever, only gets up in the morning, knows to pull the duvet up if cold, can kick it off if hot.

Oh and when he’s up he neatly crawls to the end of the bed and reverses off through the gap at the end of the guard. He doesn’t try to throw himself over the guard or anything daft like that!

Thank you everyone!!
So we had an interesting nap time, she's trying to climb out by pulling herself over using the other side of the bars, so she's going to fall directly on her head. So I decided something needed doing and sorted her room out. I've taken the side off (my cot is one that has this option as part of the set up so really stable) and pushed a second mattress underneath so if she rolls off she'll just roll straight onto that. She's brilliant at reversing off things so hopefully this will just save her any nasty bumps by accidentally rolling out.
I did try a rail, more for stopping her accidentally rolling in her sleep but she climbed straight over it so ditched that.
She went to bed really well, obviously loved her new freedom and played for a while but eventually got into bed and settled down.
She did so on top of her covers though so not ideal. Think a sleeping bag with legs (especially coming into winter) will help with this and just put the duvet away for now.
She played in her room with me watching for ages so I'm confident everything is entirely baby proofed.
I guess we will see what night time shenanigans she gets up to!
I did consider a floor bed instead but I figured keeping her cot as similar as possible may help the transition and seeing as eventually she'll move into the cot bed anyway I'd save us a transition!
It just feels so early!

Oh and door is currently shut rather than a baby gate - though that's only because she's always had her door shut thanks to the very very overly child adoring cats.

I had exactly the same. We switched her to a cot bed but stuck with keeping her in grobag. She was adept at waddling around in it so it wasn't an issue.

And as an ex medic who has seen plenty of freak accidents I had no appetite for letting her fall from the top of her cot.

I'm a medical practitioner too and my time in A&E taught me that sometimes it's just bad luck on how people fall or where they knock themselves. Glad I've changed her over as she seems to be doing really well so far (touch wood) and I'm not absolutely terrified of her falling! Hopefully this is a good solution even though I do feel like she's trying to rush me through these early years...I wasn't prepared for this yet!