Oh. My. Goodness. Bedtime tonight has been a total fiasco. We tucked the kids in at 7:30. They were really rambunctious, and as we did the dishes, we listen to them carrying on on the monitor.
At 7:50, I went in to put the kibosh on the revelry. They both had messy poopy diapers (we have a bit of a stomach bug going on around here), so that took a little while and necessitated a change of pjs. We tucked them back in, and Mr. X went to walk Wonderdog as Nick started jumping in his crib (again! After he bumped his nose so hard we were afraid he had broken it last night). I gave him a stern "No jumping!" and he stopped. Then Sarah started, and before I could even finish saying "No jumping," she hit her chin on the crib rail, and her front teeth cut into her bottom lip. I carried her into the bedroom, cleaned up the blood, and gave her a cold washcloth to suck on. Nick requested the blankets, pillow, and animals he had thrown on the floor, so I told him I'd give them to him if he was lying down. I got the kids tucked back in and left again.
About 30 seconds later, Nick was screaming, and when I went back in, he was crying for the teddy bear he'd thrown on the floor. Once he was lying down, I gave him the bear and left again.
By now it was 8:12. Things quieted down as they started to settle. Mr. X got home at 8:30, and I was just telling him about Sarah's cut lip when we heard Nick start laughing really hard. Then we heard him giggling, "Open door!" and rattling the doorknob! We ran to the bedroom and then waited for a minute, trying to control ourselves so we wouldn't laugh in front of the kids. We opened the door to find not just Nick, but Sarah, too, standing proudly on the other side of the door. They both climbed out of their cribs! Mr. X made a big deal out of checking them for injuries and putting ice on the (mostly imaginary) bumps on their heads to try to reinforce the idea that climbing out of the crib is dangerous. We tucked them back in, moved anything hard or sharp a safe distance away from the cribs, and left. Mr. X went downstairs to catch up on some work, and I started looking up crib tents online.
I was in the middle of writing this post at 9:12 when I heard "Mommy! Mommy!" and the doorknob rattled again! This time it was just Nick, and he was holding his left arm. We checked out the arm (it's fine), threatened loss of major privileges (We won't visit the snowman in the front yard tomorrow! No educational-video-that-supposedly-teaches-babies-to-read tomorrow!) if they do it again, and now they're trying to sleep.
Oops! I spoke too soon. Sarah started crying really hard, and, given that she's chewing on her fingers and bashed her lip pretty well earlier, we gave her some ibuprofen and gave Nick some juice in a medicine cup. (I promise they're usually better behaved and we're not usually such pushovers, but they're both sick right now.) Finally at 10:00 they seem to be asleep.
Oh, help! We just moved them into the same room a week ago, and they've already taught each other how to escape their cribs! The cribs convert to toddler beds really easily, but I'm not so sure we're ready to have them wandering their room at night at 18 months and 30 months old. The crib tent idea sounds good, but from what I've read, they tend to be expensive, poorly made, and dangerous. Does anyone have any advice, please?
2 comments:
My daughter was very young (a little over a year) when we put her in a toddler bed. As soon as they can hike their leg up onto the rail, you need to move them. They can break their neck falling out of a crib, not to mention arms and legs.
:)
I KNOW the thought of a small child wandering the room is daunting, you can childproof a room so they can't hurt themselves AND trust me, the novelty of "wandering around" wears off quickly. We would see my daughter on the video monitor and as soon as her foot hit the floor, we'd yell, "Get back in bed!"
She must have been thinking, "HOW DO THEY KNOW?!"
Haha!
BUT, she would get right back in bed.
As she got older, we didn't mind her getting a quick toy or two but if she dawdled, we'd yell again and she'd scurry back to bed.
She used her toddler bed for a year or so and now she's in my old full sized bed from when I was a kid. (We bought side rails at Target.)
Transitioning to a toddler bed can be a challenge, especially with two, YIKES!, but it's not as bad as you'd think.
But it's just unsafe to keep them in their cribs at this point.
That's a looooong fall for a little guy/gal. (Two times their height - would be like us falling 11 feet or so!)
We bought our toddler beds online because that was the best price we found. Let me know if you need the info and I'll find it.
Best of luck! Your kiddies sound like a riot!
We just tie a sheet over the crib. Easy peasy
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