3 Year Old Walks a Mile to the Grocery Store in the Middle of the Night

Not my kids, but my friend sleep walked when we were kids. She went out the front door and wandered the neighborhood, never waking. Her parents heard her and her Dad would follow her, but not wake her. In those days they were afraid that would freak the child out. She outgrew it.

Sounds risky. In todays world a good alarm system would solve that problem.

My husband was a sleepwalker. It terrified his parents because he used to walk into the backyard at night- fortunately not the front yard. They ended up installing a bell on his door so that they could hear him if he left his room and get up. It was a phase and he outgrew it before middle school, but really scary at the time!

So glad that she's ok! It could happen to anyone. Almost did with us when my DD opened our front door at 6am. Thankfully, we had just had our security system installed and the alarm went off. She was standing there in shock and then busted out crying. She hasn't done it since so I'm glad that we had that security!

At two my youngest learned how to unlock doors.
He would get out and get into the cars then "drive"
One time, he gets out, gets in the van and speed dials from my phone which I left in the van. He called my FIL and said Gampa I dwiving.
He had a wonderful conversation with him while my MIL called the house phone to ask where the baby was and what I was doing.
I was in bed!!
My husband had left that morning and the Little Man had awaken before me and escaped.

My neighbor's 2 maybe 3 yo got out and was following the yellow line on the road, the painted curb line. Another neighbor found him, mom was busy and had not even noiced. That same little one would come over to my house and walk in to play with our toys. I would say S does mommy know you are here, and always get an uh huh.
Mommy was very sick and pregnant with her fourth at the time. This little one was number 3 for her.

After my friend's son walked out the front door (for about 60 seconds, in the middle of the afternoon, fortunately) at age 3, we did what they immediately did: Put chain locks on the doors up very high where our kid couldn't reach them.

No need for the expensive alarm system but problem solved anyway.

I'm amazed at how people think young kids can't get out a locked door when the kids have seen mom or dad unlatch it many times.

Yes, my 12 yo decided a few weeks ago to go hang out in our greenbelt in the middle of the night. She told the teacher the next day. We had NO idea. So we ran over to Lowe's and bought door chime/alarms for both the front and back door. Totally annoying to hear that every time we open the doors...BUT worth it for peace of mind and SHE knows she can't do that again. BEYOND scary!!!

No but my kids were escape artists during the day so our alarm would chirp if it was off and someone left and blare if it was on and someone left. I don't even think they tried at night.

My son was just about to turn 3 when this happened. He was sleep walking and it was about 1 something in the morning in September/October. He went out the apartment and was found sitting but the very busy road crying. He was found by a friends friend that was leaving the apartment building. They brought him to my friends house and of course my friend knew who my son was so she brought him down to me. She thought something happened because the door was open. I thought something happened to her because she was in my apartment at 1 something in the morning.
My son was just tall enough to push the chain off the lock. The next day more locks went up and he still sleep walks every now and then. He did try to leave again a few months ago but I was awake and got him to go back to bed. But now I wake up to every move one of my kids make so I'm pretty sure I'd catch him if it happened again.
Scary stuff

I was really lucky with my kids. One daughter sleepwalked but never left the house. I do have a granddaughter who is a runner. She will sneak out of the house and simply take off.
I picked up those brass bells they sell during the holidays and hung them on my doors. There is no way you can open my doors and not have the bells ringing. If it doesn't wake me it will wake the dogs.

I am glad to know the child is okay, I hope the parents don't have any trouble because of this.

it "almost" happened to me once when i was about 10. i used to sleep walk. i came out of my room and tried to open the front door (apparently i thought it was my parents room) i was banging on the door crying why won't you let me in? thank god the door was locked. my dad ran out and i remember waking up crying and so upset. he put me back to bed.

Our daughter, around 8 years old, would sleep walk. We didn't know this. We only knew she talked in her sleep. Our front door knob was the kind that you could open it without having to turn the lock. She went outside! We lived on a busy street and she could have crossed the street to her friend's house that would have been a habit. Though I wonder if she would have just waited on the curb for us to say the "coast was clear"...

Anyway, she woke up once she got outside but the front door locked behind her! She didn't want to ring the doorbell because there was a recent break-in at a friend's house where someone rang the doorbell and when the elderly gentleman went to answer, another person snuck in the back door. So she quietly tapped on the front door until someone finally woke up!

It was the most horrifying experience we ever had with our daughter. We had to install different locks on all the doors! Thank God she was kept safe.

No not at night but during the day. He wanted to play outside. I didn't even know he could reach the locks. He was 3 at the time and that scared the mess out of me. We had a good talking too that day and never did it since.

I didn't hear him leave either. I was on the 3rd floor putting away laundry while he was snacking in the kitchen. He didn't leave through the back door but through the front door. He was around the back in the yard playing when I found him.

I'm almost certain that shaved at least 5 years off the back end of my life. He was just fine but I really wasn't.

When we lived in Iowa, in the middle of winter, that happened to us.. (sort of..)

I think hubby was outside smoking a cigarette and saw a little girl wandering around in the snow.... about 8-9 pm at night? We didn't recognize her (it was a VERY small town... we knew all the neighbors, or so we thought)..... we took her inside, got our neighbor that DID know everyone, and she didn't recognize her, either..... we couldn't figure out WHO she was...... well, rather than calling the sheriff, hubby started re-tracing her footprints in the snow... (maybe another neighbor was helping... I don't remember)....

Anyway, they traced back to a house a couple of blocks away, to the sliding door.... they banged on the door and woke up a guy.

It turned out two guys lived in the house, and one of the guy's girlfriends came over, and they went out, leaving the OTHER guy babysitting the little girl! He fell asleep on the couch, and she walked out, trying to find her mommy!

I hate to think what could have happened if my hubby hadn't been outside at that very time she came walking down the street.......

That also happened here in Georgetown a few years ago... someone found a toddler walking along the sidewalk over a bridge on a VERY busy frontage road..... had no idea who's child it was, and called the police. Apparently the toddler woke up, opened the door, and walked out without the parents even realizing the child was gone!

A similar thing happened to me when I was a toddler. Apparently I was sleep walking up and down my street and was lucky my next door neighbor heard me crying. I don't remember it at all but my parents say it was the scariest thing ever. I never woke up even when my neighbor brought me home.

No, but I was a sleepwalker as a kid. My parents tell stories of me walking into the family room and just sitting down with them when I was fully asleep.

Yes. When I was almost 18 I had left to do a babysitting job, my Dad and younger siblings were at home, Mom was in the hospital having just given birth. My youngest sister was 2 years, 8 months and saw me leave in a green car (the woman I was sitting for picked me up.)

When I arrived home at 12:30 a.m. one of my little brothers heard me and came to me as he had wet the bed and needed dry pj's and underwear. I said, "Let's get ______ and the two of you can go to bed with me." I looked in her bed and she wasn't there. I searched the house and she wasn't anywhere, I asked my 2 teenage brothers who were up and they hadn't seen her, I woke my Dad and he said she was asleep in her bed. When I told him she wasn't he jumped out of bed and we thoroughly searched the house again and outside (we lived next to a huge open field that dropped off to a dangerous cliff) and when we didn't find her he called the police. They told him there was a little girl there and asked if we could come to see if it was her?

Yes, it was her, sound asleep on a cot mattress of the floor. A couple driving home from dinner and dancing had found her walking along the side of the road around 12:00 a.m., about 3/4 of a mile away from our home, she had stayed on the same street. They had asked her where she lived and all she would say was "blue car," which she thought was the color of the car I'd left in. The police had gone out to pick her up and driven her up and down our street and asked at each house if that was her home and she shook her head "no" at each one. One officer told my Dad (he knew him personally) that had he known she was his daughter he would have gone to the door, but she had vehemently shook her head and said "No, blue car!" when he asked if our home was where she lived.

Apparently she was upset that Mom was gone, and felt I had left her and set out to find me, SHE knew what she was doing!! I don't think my Dad slept for 6 months after that at night, and he would double check the locks on the doors and installed new ones high up.

Oh, and she did it a few months later in the daytime, and took our dog and the neighbor's dog with her, they'd been happily playing in the back yard when last seen before my Mom checked on clothes washing. She went the same direction on the same street and got about 1 1/4 mile away, the dogs warded off people who tried to help her, and the police were finally able to entice the three of them into a cruiser and they were brought home...after about 3.5 hours of worry.

And there was the time my 3 year old cousin walked to Tastee Freeze by himself at the age of 3, he crossed an extremely busy intersection at lunch time (and no one tried to stop him,) because he remembered his sisters taking him there for an ice cream cone.

Scary when it happens to you, and it does happen. Praise God the little girl in Maine if fine!

I THOUGHT it happened to me last Sunday (during the afternoon though!) -- I was doing dishes and I THOUGHT Isaac was engrossed with Dinosaur train. Got done and could NOT find him-- it's a small 1 bedroom apartment-- I was flipping out, Checked the doors and widows, all locked I FINALLY found him, curled up on a piles of clothes on the closet floor, SOUND asleep-- I'm surprised the neighbors didn't call the cops I was screaming for him until I found him.....I swear I looked in that closet 3 times-- he coughed and I heard him

Apparently this happened when my mom was a toddler. She woke up early in the morning before anyone else in the family was awake, climbed out her window, and wandered next door, where the neighbors had a large pasture and several horses. She tried to go pet one of the horses, who freaked out and trampled her. Thankfully it had rained recently, so the ground was soft and she wasn't injured. Anyway, the neighbor heard the commotion and woke up, found a toddler trampled in his pasture, and brought her home. The story goes that my mom was not bothered by the incident, but the neighbor was so scared that my mom's parents would be angry with him (like he could control a horse and an unsupervised child!). My grandparents hadn't even known she had escaped from the house; they thought she was still sleeping! Needless to say, there were always locks on my windows growing up! Haha

My bro used to sleep walk when he was younger. One occasion he walked to our grandparent's house. Another he was just outside. He was never hurt, thank God and outgrew it. Luckily, I've never experienced that with my children.

No. Because the doors to my house were locked and, although my daughter is/was extremely independent, we have a communication structure and boundaries in our house that she would never have done this.

I haven't read the story, but that is just crazy.