Well, the title and picture speak for themselves. This picture was taken as Blake was playing in his Pack 'N Play though this is not where the "crib climbing" actually happened. This picture was just evidence to show my husband after the "incident."
I laid Blake down for his 1:00 nap. Let it be known that my child doesn't take naps, and when he does they are often between 20 and 30 minutes long, normally. I keep the baby monitor close by and put the screen in sleep mode, so just the sound is going, as the video portion runs down the battery. At 1:30 I turned the screen back on to check on him because the fact that his nap had gone over 20 minutes was surprising. I wanted to view for myself that he was still there. HA. You moms know what I'm talking about. I can't be the only one who checks the video just to be sure my kid hasn't suddenly disappeared.
Picture the panic that struck me when I turned on the monitor and saw nothing but feet dangling in the corner of my 3 inch screen. I took a second look, threw down the monitor on the sofa (not just dropped, THREW, as if that was going to get me to move any faster), raced across the living room and kitchen, started up the stairs nearly ripping the baby gate off the wall, stomped my way through the loft and flew into Blake's room to find his stomach draped over the rails, feet dancing parallel to the crib, and his face staring at the floor, just moments away from falling over. Was he scared? Was he crying? No. He was laughing! I scooped him up and rocked him in my arms as my heart was still racing from a mixture of adrenalin and breathlessness. I can't tell you the time that passed between me throwing down the baby monitor and me holding Blake, but I feel like I couldn't reach him fast enough. Like a nightmare in slow motion, many thoughts went through my head during my sprint. I braced myself for the thud I was sure I was about to hear. So many thoughts ran through me "What do I do if I go in and he's fallen over? Call 911 right away? Wait to see if he's okay? Oh, I left my phone downstairs. Dear God, please let him be okay." [barge into his room] "AGH! He's about to fa……..why is my kid laughing?" Commence sighs of relief, lots of baby cuddling, pure confusion over the whole situation, baby lecture (yes, to my 10 month old), bed inspection (how did he manage this?), and my final words as Blake stared at me and slapped his hands on my face (his favorite thing to do now) "Oh, you're going to be just like your daddy." Translation: Troublemaker. Mischievous. Adventurer. (Thank you to my in-laws for all the young Michael stories. We are in for it!)
Unsure of what to do about this and afraid it may happen again, I phoned some mommy friends for advice. Naturally I think the next step from this is toddler bed but at 10 months he's no where near being a toddler. Hence my uncertainty on how to handle this when his mattress is already on the lowest setting. All were a little surprised that he was trying to (almost successfully) climb out of his crib at 10 months old. Here's some advice I received from friends and Google.
- Take the bumpers out, in case he used those as stairs.
- Take any toys out of the crib so he can't climb on them to gain height.
- Put him in a toddler bed.
- Put a mattress on the floor.
- Try to keep an eye on him and lightly discipline him when he tries to climb over by telling him no.
- Crib tent.
For now I decided to try taking the bumpers out. I'm a little uncomfortable with doing this simply because he thrashes around at night and I'm nervous he's going to hit his head. Though, as a friend pointed out, hitting his head on the rail is better than him falling out of the crib and hitting it on the floor. We will see how things go tonight and in the morning. Not sure I'm going to get much sleep tonight though! I did some research on the crib tents and saw a lot of safety hazards. Safety Research & Strategies , INC.
I'm hoping this was just an isolated incident, however, judging by increased mobility these past few days I feel as if he's interested in feeling out the gravitational pull from crib to floor…more than once!
After this crib incident, we spent some time playing together in the living room and he decided to try his hand at pushing around a box across the floor….WALKING. Ay-yi-yi.
It's all happening too fast!
I will GLADLY take suggestions from anyone who can help me out. Unfortunately when I googled "10 month old crawling out of crib" there just wasn't a lot available. I guess this is most common in children over 12 months? I don't know.
I feel so lost on how to keep him safe!
