Escape Artist

Well, life as I know it is over. Drew has met a major toddler-hood milestone. One that will result in huge changes around here.

You think that I am being dramatic? Well, I'm not.

Homeboy decided to catapult himself out of his crib at 6:15am on Wednesday, December 29th.

It is a moment that I will never forget...

I woke up out of a dead sleep at 6:15 to blood curdling screams from my youngest man-child. I guess that he had a nightmare or something, because he just woke up screaming. I was scared to death, so I went tearing upstairs. When I got halfway up the stairs, the screaming stopped. How odd... So, I went back to my bedroom and looked at the monitor. There was no baby in his bed. Hmmm....

Then I saw that little monkey crawl back into his crib, get his nanny (security blanket), throw it out, and then crawl back out of the crib. He was so fast! He went back in for his nanny, then he was out of there again!

I ran back upstairs and he met me at his door with all of his stuffed animals and his nanny. Of course, Wade was out of town, and I was half asleep. So, I had no idea how to solve this dilemma. I just brought him down to my bed and let him sleep with me for an hour or so. (Don't judge me, people. I was at my wit's end. That is a rare privilege that is reserved for extreme circumstances. We don't make a habit of letting our kids sleep in our beds.)

That afternoon, he climbed out of his bed 3 more times. I punished him every time and then put him back in his bed. He is so sensitive and he cried so much. I felt awful about getting onto him. :( But, after that third chastisement, he went to sleep for a solid 2+ hour nap. On Thursday evening, he went to sleep without getting out of bed, and has done pretty well since.

For some strange reason, my kids seem to reach this less than desirable milestone months before their peers. What in the world??? I blame it on the fact that Wade and I breed children that lack the concept of fear and have a tendency to partake in risk taking behaviors. (Help me, Jesus, if they are still acting this way as teenagers! Dive bombing out of the crib is one thing, but once cars are involved... Oh, my!) Or, it may be because I am comparing them to my friends kids that are mostly all girls. Could be a gender thing, I guess...

Either way, Clayton climbed out of his crib a couple of weeks after his birthday and Drew escaped the containment of his crib at 26 months. I know girls that were/are in their cribs well after their 3rd birthday. That is not the case at our house!

With Clayton, we moved him to a toddler bed immediately when he figured out how to get out of his crib. One of the nurses that I worked with at Children's told me that you had to move kids to a toddler bed as soon as they escape out of their crib, or they would never sleep well again. That terrified me, so that is exactly what we did with Clayton. We set up the toddler bed the very day that he crawled out of his crib. He made the transition very well and I was a believer in that method.

But, with Drew, I'm just not as uptight about that kind of thing. I figure that whether he remains in his crib or if we move him to a toddler bed, he will know that he can get out. Either way, he needs to learn to stay in his bed, right? I guess we will just see how he does for the next few days in his crib and then go from there. I am going to go ahead and predict that we will have a rocky few months of sleep with Drew. I'm sure that we will have all of the kinks ironed out just in time to welcome our newborn. In other words, I will not get a full nights sleep for a good, solid year. I hope that I am wrong, but only time will tell. ;)