Baby gate & toddler’s sleep being disturbed

[TraitorsSandwich]

Hi ladies - last month I had to transition my 22 month old into a bed (much earlier than I’d intended but he was climbing out!!).

When he slept in the cot we used to keep his bedroom door shut which seemed to work but since moving into the bed we have had to put a gate over his door as he was just constantly coming out his room and I was finding bedtime was out of control.

This has massively improved him settling down but the issue we now have is that upstairs is basically a no go zone when he is asleep and even is creeping up into with all the nights off is disturbing him !! He’s also waking up early as his room is no longer pitch black. Overall it seems like he just isn’t getting into as deep a sleep as he used to.

My husband is usually out 2-3 nights a week with work and it’s really not good for any of us that he is waking up crying when I go to bed and then a couple of hours later when my husband gets in.

Does anyone have any genius ideas on how we can keep the baby gate but stop him being disturbed ? I already use white noise for him.

Can't you attach the gate to the opposite side of the doorway to the door, so you can shut the gate and also shut the door?

Black out blind over window and, another one outside his door??

I was going to say this, but if you currently have a pressure mounted one that you have to fit in the middle of the door frame, replace it with one where you can screw the fittings onto the outside of the frame. The retractable ones normally work like that.

Would one of the fabric retractable baby gates you can get work for enabling you to open and close the door maybe?

You must have low door handles! We went to a floor bed at 12 months, we stay til shes asleep anyway then shut the door but luckily she can’t reach the handle. Does he sleep through once asleep? If so can you stay til asleep then shut the door? It’s hes waking so easily then I’d say he needs a later bedtime or less nap so hes tireder

We had this exact issue and I couldn’t work out how everyone didn’t have the same issue! In the end we got this - I didn’t feel great about it because of fire risk, but I reasoned that she wouldn’t let herself out in the event of a fire at that age anyway, and they’re very easy to open. She learnt pretty quickly that the door doesn’t open when she’s inside, she never tried again so we removed it and she hasn’t tried it.
https://amzn.eu/d/0jeRr9M0

@AnnieAtAskAlex yes please !

Thanks for all the comments everyone, much appreciated!

To answer a few questions, annoyingly there is another door immediately to the left of his room so the tiny bit of wall between the door frames wouldn’t work.

He will go off to sleep without me being there but it’s just when we go upstairs that it disturbs him. Thankfully at the moment he does go down quite quickly but it’s still annoying for all of us !

He’s just coming out a sleep regression and I’ve just chopped his nap down and pushed bedtime later so I don’t reallr want to change his sleep again but maybe I will have to as he just seems to be in a very light sleep at the moment.

Will research the door lock / fabric gate. Thank you

I second a retractable fabric gate. We have a dreambaby one for an awkward spot in our house and it’s great.

Or turn his door handle upside down? He’ll work it out eventually but it’s safer than locking him in and should at least stop him long enough that he starts settling better

A white noise machine by the door might help drown out noise from the test of the house too.

annoyingly there is another door immediately to the left of his room so the tiny bit of wall between the door frames wouldn’t work

I don't understand what you mean by this? I've attached a couple of pics of the fixings where we used to have a gate attached. Can you not do this?

Trying again...