Help!

Ok ... so last night we put the kids to bed like normal. There was a lot of giggling and talking and they just weren't ready for bed I guess. But this is normal so I didn't think much of it ... But my DH wanted to go check on them to see if they were throwin all the stuff out of their beds ... so he walked out of the room ... 2 seconds later he came back and just said "Please come see this right now."

I expected honestly to see missing diapers and a room decoated in poop. What I DID NOT expect to see was both kids in Jake's crib! Hailey had climbed out of her crib and into his (over the top, not going on the floor at all). OMG. I guess they forgot about our NO CLIMBING rule.

So we separated them, again talked about the rules, and left the room, two nervous wrecks. Hailey went to sleep soon after ... and so did Jake. This morning I got a wake up call and found both of them in Hailey's crib! I asked Jake to show me how he got in there ... but when he went to climb, he almost fell! So I have no idea how they are such talented climbers when we aren't watching!

So, what do I do? Being pregnant, I really didn't want to tackle big beds for a while, at least not until after I give birth and recoup. But now I'm thinking it's not worth it to spend the money on crib tents ... because they are running like $75 a piece!

Any advice? And if we do transition to big beds, how the heck do I keep them in their beds?

Thanks!

 

I commented to you on FB before I saw this...so I will just state the same thing again here. I say take the plunge to big kid beds. For us it meant a bit of an adjustment...more playing and a little less sleeping at first...but once they got used to it nighttime sleeping returned to normal. Naps are still hit and miss but I wonder if it's a bit of big kid beds or a bit of it being their age.

Just be prepared for laying down the law in the beginning. This is new to them and like any other change, you need to set your limits with them. It took many stern reminders to keep my girls in bed. I let them play for 15 min. when they first go in, and then I would go in about every 5 min. to firmly remind them it was time to stay in bed.

The only things we kept in their room were their dresser (strapped to the wall), a bucket of stuffed animals and a few books.

 

I agree. Keep trying every day. They are very young, and I remember John getting up and sleeping in his crib a few times when I transitioned him at 2.3. So I think its normal. He eventually stayed in the big bed all night, it just didn't happen that first week. I think it took about 2-3 weeks to get him comfort enough to stay there. Good luck! :good:

 

When we made the switch we gated off their room (because it was upstairs)and pushed the toybox into the closet at night. (I did *not* teach them to open doorknobs or refrigerators.) So all they had in there was their beds. I actually had their dresser downstairs doubling as a changing table, but otherwise I would have bolted it to the wall. Even if they got out of bed they could only get into the other bed or sleep on the floor. Lu did sleep on the floor a lot at first, but then she stopped and it was fine. The gate keeping them in the room was critical to my peace of mind.

 

I second the idea of gating off their room, so they can't wander the house at 3am. We did that with Nadia...and, I also put a video monitor in her room, showed it to her, and put the fear of MOM in her, telling her that I was always watching, and that she needed to STAY IN THE BED.

Heehee, it was very entertaining watching her antics on the monitor. She did listen for the first 6 months or so, and then figured out at 2.5 that she didn't really have to listen to me.

Anyhow. We're about to make this transition with K&K ourselves, probably next month. Definitely need to bolt the furniture to the wall, as I've found Kevan sitting on top of his 38-inch dresser when I've left him in the room for two minutes.

Mine are in separate rooms, though, so I'm less worried about them ganging up on me.

 

I'm a wimp, I say crib tents! Bea broke her wrist climbing out of the crib just after turning 2, and we were NOT ready to make the bed switch. I feel like if they can't stay in a crib, why would they stay in a bed? Getting crib tents can buy you another year with the cribs. It also stops the whole throwing stuff out of the cribs game!

 

Here's my issue ... I was planning on combining moving them each to their own room with big beds ... moving directly to twin beds, not toddler beds.

But honestly, toddler beds are cheap ... and they take the same mattress ... so financially it wouldn't be a heavy hit to do toddler beds ... I think it's going to be a bigger hit to us to get 2 twin beds, plus bed rails ... and because of my pregnancy, I'm not ready to split them up, decorate rooms, and all that jazz.

I know last time I asked this everyone said to go to real beds, not toddlers ... but I don't even know how much a twin bed costs!

Ugh. WHY NOW? Why couldn't they just wait till I give birth! I know why, because that would be easier for me!

 

Get the crib tents! I'm serious, it will delay the whole thing and then you can move to twin beds when you are ready. If you go to toddler beds right now, it's going to be total insanity.

 

How about just putting their crib matresses on the floor for now? Then a little later when you are ready and no longer pregnant with twins, you can get them beds and do up their separate rooms.

 

I'd get the crib tents over buying toddler beds. They are $55 at Walmart.com, site to store free delivery. Plus you should be able to unload them on Craigslist easily (I had a boatload of calls when I listed mine). Or save them for your sister. Mine were in their cribs until age 3 and switching to twin beds was a non-issue. They've never once gotten out of their beds. Even in the morning they call out and wait for someone to come into their room before they get out of bed.

 

For those with crib tents, what were your cribs like? Everything I read says that all four sides must be the same height ... yet we have the cribs with the back that is higher than the front ... can you still rig it so that it works?

 

Mine are climbers (since 13 months) by 18 months they could get out within seconds. So we had to switch to toddler beds, take eveything out of the room and gate it off. I think once they start doing it, it gets worse and worse and I would not want to be constantly putting them back in their cribs being pregnant.



We had a pretty rough time for a little while and I would have to let them just play them selves out, going in there to lay down the law every 5 minutes. Then I started putting them to bed one at a time for about 2 weeks and with out the other to play with they would be out in 10 minutes, then I would put the other in there and since his brother was already sleeping he would go right to sleep. After a little while I could put them both in and they would go right to sleep, sometimes they will sleep on the floor togther and I just put them in bed after they fall asleep. As far as crib tents I couldn't find any that were made for convertible cribs, and I searched high and low. I would have had to rig them up some how and I didn't want to spend $150 on them just to have them be a total mess.

 

Good luck with your decision Erica. :hug: I have no advice but would probably go with the crib tents (if you can find ones to fit your crib) :blush:

 

Erica, I know some people have managed to get the crib tents to work on "unlevel" cribs. I would go and get them, and try it. If it doesn't work, you can return them. We got one for Jon at Jake and Hailey's age--Marcus never climbed out, so he never had one. I think it is much better to try the tents, then to go to beds before YOU are ready.

 

Didn't read the rest of the posts, but my girls were 18 months when my son was born. I wasn't buying a 3rd crib, so I bought these from Wal-Mart on sale for $60 each: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2310460 They work great and hold up to TODDLER weight (read: Mommy and Daddy can't sit on it or it will break! LOL)

We moved the girls at 16 months to give them time to get used to them before Brother arrived, and so they didn't have so many changes at one time (new sibling, new bed, new room...) plus we needed to move them to another room and give their crib to their brother.

They did amazingly well. The first night I fully expected mayhem to commence, but surprisingly they slept well and did not even TRY to get out of the bed! The only problem we had was with one of the girls scooching down, then rolling off the bed in her sleep. We fixed that with pillows surrounding the bed.


We did however put a solid nightstand between the two beds (just for their lamp at first) and I wonder if it didn't help that they really couldn't 'see' each other? After we took the night stand out and re-arranged their beds (a year later) they started climbing into bed with each other.

We're getting ready to transition them to twin beds in about 6 months. A lot of people say the toddler beds aren't worth it, but for $60 a pop we still will have gotten 20 months out of them, which is a lot better then the $200+ we spent on their cribs only to get 16 months use!

 

I just read through and so on of your other posts..

FYI we paid $99 each for twin beds that were on sale 50% off. We haven't bought mattresses yet as we plan to do a big switch for their 3rd b-day in January, new decorations, new beds, new linens (that THEY pick out) etc.... We did buy metal frame canopy beds, just to give you an idea of WHAT we got for the $100 bucks....

 

If you would drop money on toddler beds, why not crib tents instead to save yourself the headache until you've recovered? I think the extra cost of the tents is worth your peace of mind (and sleep/sanity!) until after you've delivered. I also like the idea of saving them for your sister. She probably has no idea that she'll even want them but then be so glad when you just hand them to her instead of her hunting them down! I got ours at BRU because I didn't want to wait for shipping.

 

Honestly, the only reason I was against the crib tents was because they all seem to say they only work on cribs with equal sides. And mine are higher in the back than the front ... So I hated the idea of having to order them or find them, and then try and set them up, but they are unsafe, and not installed right and all that jazz. That's why I was curious to know if anyone used them who didn't have even sided cribs.

As of right now, we rearranged their room so that their cribs are not next to each other ... they only climbed from one crib to the other, never out to the ground. So I'm hoping that maybe they will stay in their cribs. If not, we will convert their cribs to toddler beds (I found out they do convert, but there is no protective barrier on the side, so it's more like a daybed). And we will just have to empty out their room. Then in the fall after the babies come and I've recovered, we will probably just go buy them twin beds. I'm still researching crib tents though, and if anyone has made them work with a sleigh type crib, I would LOVE to hear about it!

 

I thought I had read on here that someone with sleigh beds had put the crib tents on backwards. In other words, put the zipper side of the crib tent on the higher (back) side of the crib.

 

We have convertible cribs with the back higher than the front and we managed to get crib tents on ours easily. We had to rig them with zip ties but they've been on for a year now with no problems. Hands down, crib tents have been my number ONE life-saver item with twin toddlers. I can send you pics of how we made it work if you're interested.


Carrie

 

Erica, I think Debi got hers to work on cribs like that.

 

Crib tents...you can easily get another year out of the crib if you do crib tents. Obviously, if you had to for space reasons but the buns in the oven are your sister's so...We just converted to toddler beds last month and it has been easy as pie *knock on wood* because they understand so much more and I am not up all night putting them back to bed, refereeing or a nervous wreck they will fall down a flight of stairs. Enjoy the gift you are giving your sister and save the stress for later. GL.