..kid #1 went smooth..never an issue kid #2 is not going well. Moved my son into captain's bed with the safety rail a week ago. week one went great (he is 19 months old) here is what is happening now. last night he was up and out of the room about 20 times. I was ok with that. Just calmly took him back and laid him back down. after about 20 min he crashed. at nap today he was opening and closing the door for about 40 min, I finally held the door handle shut and after 5 min, he was out. Unfortunately on the floor in front of the door. I did not want to disturb him so I let him be. slept for about 2 hrs but is really crabby now. and he did pull all clothes out of a drawer and make a huge mess. so do I keep working through this or put his crib back up? he will have to switch sometime so not sure how to handle. hoping tonight goes better. Did both kids around same age.
My youngest son was much like that. I transferred him into a toddler bed at one year. I ended up taking all the other stuff out of the room until he learned to leave it alone. Now when he try's to do that I make him clean it all up himself. He has since learned not to do it. Good luck!
He'll just crawl out of the crib. Usually, once they are out of the crib, there's no turning back.
You did the right thing holding the door. If there is a lock on the doorknob, I'd turn the doorknob around so that the lock is on the outside. Use it from the onset. When he is used to the door being locked for naps, you can use it at night and then he won't be coming out of his room before falling asleep. Simply undo the lock before you go to bed.
I would also pack the clothes up and put them in a box and put them in the closet for now. You can buy the kind of child-proof things that keep a closet door from opening, depending on what kind of closet door you have.
I wouldn't worry about him sleeping in the floor. As long as he is in his room, that is what matters. Eventually he will go back to the bed because it's more comfortable than the floor.
How long are his usual naps? Does he usually sleep for 2 hours? If that's a long nap, don't let him sleep so long. He needs a set time for naps during the day so that it doesn't mess up his sleep time at night.
He's not crabby because he slept in the floor. He may be crabby because he slept for so long, but not because he slept in the floor.
Make sure that he doesn't know that you are outside of the door holding it. The sooner you can turn the lock, the easier it will be for you.
Dawn
This is how it goes the first few days. Once he gets over the wonder of it all he'll go in and go to sleep.
Put up a baby gate that he can't get over or push down and that way during the night if he wakes up you'll hear him but he can't get out.
My daughters share a room. They are 1 and 2. The only thing in their room is an air mattress, a doll house (tall canvas one they can sit in), and some stuffed animals. I keep their clothes in my closet. Small children do not need those sort of things in their room. It will help you out tremendously to move the dresser. He'll sleep on the bed when he's ready. It's really no big deal if he sleeps on the floor.
I tried it around that time. We were all crabby from lack of sleep. After 2 days he asked to go back to his crib, and he did. Now he's almost 3 and still in the crib. I've decided to not worry about it. He won't be in the crib forever - at some point he'll want to move, and then we'll do it. And in the meantime, we'll keep reinforcing his good-sleeping habits :).
My older child asked to move to a big-boy bed just after he turned 3, and we never had a problem with getting up, because he was old enough to understand that bedtime meant stay in bed. I'm hoping that's what will happen with this child too, once we get there.
We turned the door handles around so we could lock the doors from the outside. My oldest fell asleep by the door for a few weeks, my youngest would try to turn the knob, see it was locked and go back to bed. It worked really well for us. Good luck!
