More Questions about Transitioning from Cribs...

I read on the forum yesterday about parents "baby proofing the heck out of the twins room" and then replacing cribs with toddler beds/twin beds. My husband and I are thinking we need to do this soon since I have seen both at varying stages of trying to climb out of their cribs. The girls are 19.5 months old.

So how do you or did you baby proof the closet doors? We have mirrored sliders in their room (and different style in our room, so I can't just switch them around- or course...).

Also, we have a pocket door to the bathroom in their room. How have you handled pocket doors? My husband and I thought about locking it with a screw driver when before we lay them down at night, but the locks are not that great.

How do you handle the night light and baby monitor situation? I think I can plug the baby montior under their dresser, but not the night light.

Oh, and do anyone else's kids know how to pull out the safety plugs in the wall sockets? mine do which worries me about leaving them to roam...

Thank you in advance for your input!

 

We took down the closet doors and put up a lightweight tension rod with a curtain. They pretty much leave it alone. We have the monitor plugged in on the side of the crib and then it goes around the back of A's crib and is underneath. We don't have a traditional nightlight. We have these two glowing men looking things that have smooth surfaces and sit in a base to charge. The base is plugged in behind the bookshelf. We have heavy duty plug covers that go over the entire outlet (covering the plugged in plugs as well). I can barely get it off it requires so much strength to squeeze. No advice on the pocket door. Would a gate work?

 

I'm not sure what pocket doors are :blush:, so I have no advice there.
With the night light, we have plug in night lights and drilled it into DD's head not to touch it and for all the things she doesn't listen to, for some reason, she does listen to that. The lamp & the tot clock are plugged in behind her dresser where she cannot reach. When we first transitioned her, we took a bungee cord around the knobs of the closet door so she wouldn't open it. Now she really doesn't bother it, so the bungee cord is off.
Good luck with the transition!

 

Mine never really opened the closet door but loved to climb and sit on the dresser I like the gate idea for both places. For mine it was just mostly having nothing out that they could see and get into. GOod luck

 

A pocket door is a door that slides into the wall and you pull it out to close the room. All of our bathrooms have it

Come to think of the closet, the girls only get into it when the doors are open, and leave it alone when the doors are closed. I am hesitant about using a gate because if they can crawl over their crib couldn't they just crawl over the gate? Or are they supposed to not be that smart :huh:

What about the dresser? Theirs will not tip over, but they do open those and go through them. Maybe I just have to deal with clothes everywhere for awhile?

 

I have one crafty who I don't trust at all! The other I don't have to worry about...so if my post seems very type-A to some it is because I am type-A and I think my daughter is too! She can figure out everything - I do not trust her!

Dressers - Mine can grip the top and pull themselves far enough up to reach across the whole thing and grab whatever is on top - standing flat-footed they can barely touch the top so this is quite a feat and I have to assume Jude is not far from scaling it so it had to be moved. But what you really have to watch for is pulling out the drawers even slightly to use as steps to get up onto the dresser, or, them figuring out how to use each other's backs!

Outlets. For covers, there is a kind that is diagonal when unplugged so the holes are not exposed..they are at Home Depot. So if something is plugged in and they unplug it the covers snap into the diagonal position immediately. Or there are the box outlet covers that cover up the entire outlet. We had the same problem with nightlights/monitor. DH replaced the light switches with the outlet/switch combo so we could plug in something up high where they could not reach. This is easy to do but you need to turn the power off briefly...and if you have never done it take a look at an electrical book or look online. Make sure to turn the power/circuits off first to your house! As for the closet and pocket doors. Besides gates (which yes Jude can get over so your worry would be warranted if you suspect it of your climbers) you could put latches near the top - so the latch on the door and the hook on the wall. I know it means drilling into walls. To me it was worth puttying later and touching up because the girls rooms are upstairs and our stairs are really scary. We have a gate, closed door, and the latch! I know, crazy.

Good luck!

 

I feel so silly- duh, latches up high! Thank you 5280 babies!

 

We have pocket doors in the master bedroom and the girls play in there a lot and to be honest, they never mess with them. They have a bookshelf, in their room, which is secured to the wall so it can't tip over. On the very top we have their sound machine and monitor. It's not a very tall shelf as they can reach the top now, but they never mess with the stuff on top. Also, we have several plug-in night lights and they don't mess with those either. They never really had a problem with staying in bed at night time, so I didn't worry there. I have to say that when we moved them into toddler beds we invested in a video monitor, which gave us the peace of mind when they made that transition. We have the knob covers, so they can't get into the closet, but they haven't tried that yet. We started implementing time-outs around 20 months and they got it quick. They really hate time-outs, so as soon as they think about doing something they aren't supposed to, I mention time-out and they stop. Good luck.