The first time your toddler climbs out of their cot can be really terrifying. Safety is paramount and it should never be ignored. Before you rush into buying a bed, there are a few things you can try first.
I am not a huge advocate for transferring toddlers immediately to a bed because many children under the age of 2.5years are not ready to understand the rules of being in a bed. There is always a honeymoon period whereby toddlers stay in bed, but before long your toddler has free roam of the house and that can be a bigger safety issue than climbing out of their cot.
If your toddler climbs out of their cot or attempts to climb out, here are a few tips and tricks to try:
1) Find a sleeping bag that has limited legroom. This restricts access to your child being able to lift their leg and climb out.
2) Lower the mattress. Some cots have a variety of height levels for the mattress. Make sure it is at the lowest level making it higher and harder to climb out.
3) Remove any pillows, blankets or toys that can be used as leverage to get out. This may also include a dresser or drawers that butt up to the cot.
4) Some cots are designed to have one side that is higher than the other. This side is usually pushed up against the wall. If you have this style of cot, turn it around so the outer side is higher making it more difficult to climb.
So you have tried all these things and your toddler is still climbing. This is what to try next:
1) If you have a video monitor, every time your toddler attempts to climb out, either say “no” over the monitor or go into the room and say “no”. You may need to do this over and over again. Do not get into a long conversation about why they need to stay there. Simply “no” or “no climbing” and that is it.
2) If you do not have a video monitor, keep the door ajar so you can still see your toddler. Every time they attempt to climb out, go into the room and say “no”. Again you may need to do this over and over again.
3) If you are worried that your toddler may climb out once you are asleep, then make sure they have a safe landing. Many climbers can actually do it very safely. I recommend placing a mattress on the floor so they are not hurt if they do make it out of the cot.
If your toddler does manage to “escape” always walk them back, place them back into the cot and say, “no climbing”. Again you may need to repeat this over and over again. You need to be patient, calm and persevere.
It can be tempting to pack away the cot and buy a bed, but trust me, I have worked with many parents who find themselves with a toddler always hopping out of bed and either crawling into their bed or turning on the television at some crazy hour of the night. It can be even more dangerous if you have stairs or outside doors that can open easily. It is much harder to keep a toddler contained once they are in a bed.
If you have tried all these tips and tricks and you are still finding your toddler is climbing out, contact me here.
Increasing the bond between baby and daddy is so important.
The first few months, when your bundle of joy first arrives home with you, is about establishing the bond between mother and baby. This usually occurs during the breast-feeding process. This can equally happen when your baby is bottle-fed, but again most mothers feed their baby far more than dads do. Often dads feel a little left out and over time don’t really know how to become more involved in the process. Fast forward 12months and still bedtime is about mummy and baby with dad being excluded altogether.
The longer dads are left out of the bedtime and settling process, the harder it can become. First of all, it just becomes habit or the norm for mum to tackle the bedtime routine and night wake ups. Secondly dad just loses confidence and really doesn’t know what to do because he feels he doesn’t have “the right equipment”.
There are lots of ways dads can become highly involved with their baby right from the beginning. Breast-feeding is very important, but other than that, dads are capable of doing everything else from nappies, bath-time, story time and even putting baby to bed.
When I speak with parents, a lot of the discussion is about how to involve dad more. It is not because these dads are against helping, but they feel like they are making things worse because their baby seems to protest more until mum comes in to rescue them. Here is a simple example of how to involve both parents at bedtime:
Bath time and massage (Dad)
Nappy and pyjamas on (Dad)
Breast-feed (Mum) and Story (Dad)
Kisses and cuddles (Mum). Mum leaves.
Kisses and cuddles (Dad)
Into the cot (Dad)
As many dads work, evening is the only time to spend with baby. Quality bonding time is crucial. Being included in the bedtime routine is far more beneficial for baby rather than playing before bed when baby is clearly tired.
When baby wakes in the night, unless it is a “feed time”, dad can help to resettle all other times. As a mum myself, I often took the ‘night-shift’ because my husband worked long hours and I could take a nap during the day to catch up on sleep. I totally understand this way of thinking. What if this is not about who needs sleep more BUT about increasing bond time with your baby? Leaving the settling up to one single person really limits the possibility of your baby bonding equally with both parents.
Just because your baby is breast-fed, this should not determine who does all the settling and who does the bedtime routine. Sleep should not be the sole responsibility of one parent. Share the load and share this amazing bonding experience equally.
Sleep well,
Janelle Jeffery Child Sleep Consultant for Sleepytime
Have you felt like you have tried every method ever invented?
When I speak with frazzled parents about their child’s lack of sleep, I am always asked “I have tried everything and nothing has worked so why are you different?” and, “Do you practice “cry it out?”
I have considered this a lot lately because the “method” you use to help a child become an independent sleeper is engulfed in controversy. Everyone has an opinion and it is a polarising subject.
I want to let you in on a secret – it is not the method that is standing in the way of your child’s sleep success.
It doesn’t matter if you use {insert your method here}, they are all going to eventually fail because of this one thing. You haven’t actually addressed the root of the problem. If you don’t understand WHY your child is having difficulty sleeping through the night or is cat napping during the day, then whatever method you apply will not work because you are focusing on the wrong thing.
You sure are feeling frustrated, because you HAVE tried every method ever invented but you still have a child who cannot sleep. How do you solve this? Simple, hire me!
The first step before I write any sleep program is to perform a full sleep assessment. This enables me to establish the cause of your child’s sleep issue or issues. I make those necessary changes first. Next I look at establishing 5 sleep cues to prepare your child for sleep. The very last thing I decide upon is the method to achieve long-term sleep success.
So if you are tired of being tired and actually want to see the light at the end of the tunnel, contact me here. Change is ready for the taking, you just need reach out for my help.
Janelle Jeffery Child Sleep Consultant for Sleepytime
If I buy shoes that are too small for my daughter or push her into activities that she doesn’t enjoy or keep her away from the things that she excels at because it differs from what her peers wear/do/are good at does this mean I’m a good mother? Of course it doesn’t.
It is so easy to see in this example how expecting something from my daughter that doesn’t fit with her own unique comforts, interests, and abilities can begin to harm her physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I don’t see my role as a loving mother to coerce my daughter into a certain way of being or to tell her what she does and doesn’t need. It is my job to use my mothering instincts to listen very carefully and try all options available to me to create a safe, comforting, loving environment to encourage the optimal development of my little girl.
There is no doubt in my mind that you and all other mothers and fathers out there agree that we would do anything for the best interests of our children.
So why do we throw stones when one parent doesn’t push and force their beautiful baby into the mould that so perfectly fits our own baby – especially when it comes to sleep?
There is so much hate directed towards each other between the Cry-It-Out “dictators” and the Co-Sleeping “hippies”. My problem is not which method is chosen; my problem is why on earth does another baby’s needs bother you so much? (Notice how I said another baby’s needs?)
I’m not a sleep expert but I’ve tried almost all options available to me in order to help my baby girl to have restful sleep. We have all heard the horror sleep stories and I’m at neither extreme of the sleep scale but I suppose you could say my bub was closer to the no-sleep end of the spectrum.
Like some of us, I like a certain level of control in my life, and as diligent pregnant women I casually researched and talked to other mums to get advice and ideas on how to best raise our child. Before she was born, my husband and I compared notes and had a general idea of which direction we would want to take and how we could best implement these ideas.
Then our beautiful baby was born. I cuddled and hugged her, fed her to sleep, I laid down with her, I kept her by my side in a bassinet, I jumped at every murmur to feed, and cuddle and let her know I was with her. My husband stayed awake with us at every feed and every wake-up to let her know that he was there also. I carried her against me as much as I could.
She hated it. She cried and cried. Didn’t sleep in the car, didn’t sleep in the carrier, didn’t sleep in the pram, didn’t sleep in my bed, didn’t sleep in my arms. The only time she did sleep in any of these locations is only after crying until she was exhausted.
I thought I was doing the right thing by holding her close, showing I was there for her and living with her on me. It’s what she was used to after being in my belly for over 9months, it’s what she is supposed to want – right?
As a Registered Nurse and a Kinesiologist, ruling out a medical issue was first on the list. So if not that, then what was it? Why did she not do as the books said she would do? Why did she not like what the ‘experts’ said she would like?
It’s because she isn’t the print within the pages of a book, she isn’t a science experiment, she isn’t your child or your friend’s child, she is my child and she likes what she likes, and doesn’t like what she doesn’t like.
After 4 months of experimenting and trial and error, my husband and I were none-the wiser on what to do. We tried to co-sleep, we tried rocking her to sleep, we tried having her next to us in a bassinet, we tried having her outside our bedroom door, tried her in her own room and then briefly tried the cry-it-out method with friends and family there to monitor it with us – nothing worked and she would just cry herself to sleep.
It was heartbreaking – not to mention exhausting – to see our little girl struggle to get to sleep no matter what we did.
As corny as this may sound I couldn’t believe that I was unable to love-her to sleep like I was yearning to. She was, and still is such a bright, attentive, curious and happy baby by day but at naptime and bedtime it was an hour/s long process.
At this point, as with most 4-month olds, her development reached a new milestone, meaning her already short naps were getting less frequent and she began waking up more at night.
We knew it was time to get professional customised support but I was terrified of calling a sleep consultant.
I thought that I would have to re-live the cry-it-out torture but the thought of continuing to pace and rock my little girl to sleep while she cried and fought sleep for 40 minutes (after an hour-long breastfeed to get her sleepy) and then starting that whole process again after she woke 15minutes later pushed my sleep-deprived mind into making that call, booking that skype chat and listening to what our consultant, Janelle had to say.
Janelle was so thorough and created such a specific and personalised plan for our girl that I felt that maybe she could help us. I was doubtful that such a simple process could work seeing as I felt like I’d tried everything already, however we completed the program and it worked!
I cannot explain how it worked, other than seeing for myself that by rocking her in my arms I was assuming that she needed me to fall asleep, I was trying to make her fit into a mould of what I thought a baby’s sleep time should be like, but it turned out that I was hindering her and not meeting her unique needs.
I didn’t just learn how to help my daughter to sleep; I let go of my guilt and assumptions and let my daughter be her. I accepted her for what she needed from me and for what she didn’t. After changing my approach, she fell asleep within a fraction of the time; she was being put in bed awake and falling asleep on her own.
Nowadays my girl is 18 months old and still whines on falling asleep it’s just her way.
I’ve interrupted her whining-to-sleep process and asked if she was ok and she said “yes” and if she wanted me to leave and she said “yes”.
She now sleeps peacefully in the car, carrier, pram and bed but still doesn’t like the stimulation of physical contact when going to sleep. Luckily she makes sure she gets her fill of kisses and cuddles while she is awake!
Kate Lethbridge – Guest Blogger for Sleepytime
Kate Lethbridge is a Registered Nurse, Holistic Kinesiologist, Mind Body Medicine practitioner and mother who has a passion to facilitate others to achieve their biggest goals one-by-one by helping her clients become their ultimate self physically, mentally and emotionally.
For more about Kate and her services visit the following pages:
All opinions represented within this article relate to the best interests of the author, her family and her child – please make your own health care choices are based on the best interests of your own child/ren and family. Most of all, please respect the needs of other babies and don’t throw stones at their mums.
Some children find separating from parents very difficult.
Do you have a child (2.5years and over) who is having a difficult time separating from you? There can be many different reasons why your child is feeling this way such as:
Change in living arrangements – a new bedroom, a new house or parent’s separating
Death of a loved one
Distance from parents due to the birth of a sibling
Separation due to parent/s work commitments especially fly-in-fly-out or interstate/overseas travel
Starting at a new day-care, kindergarten, or school
Is a sensitive soul or may just be a little more anxious than usual
Even if the reason your child having difficulty separating from you is not listed above, all children young and old need to know that their loved ones are close by. Many children will go through periods of being extra clingy. My daughter who is 5 is finding it really difficult leaving me in the morning at school. She has never been this way before. She attended day-care since she was 8months, and last year at kindergarten, it wasn’t really a problem. Now it is.
For some children separating from parents during the day is fine but when it comes to bedtime, they want you to start sleeping with them and for you not to leave them there alone. This is all normal and typical child behaviour but what I advocate is to try to reduce the stress and anxiety your child feels and for you to explain what is happening using ‘child-friendly’ language.
Though it is important to recognise what is happening with your child and attend to their needs so they feel loved and safe, it is crucial parents do not make the situation worse by making it bigger than it needs to be. Children are sensitive and they can pick up on our own feelings as much as we think we are good at hiding them. If we are tense and worried when it is time to say ‘goodbye’ then our children will sense that too.
If your child has trouble separating at night it is helpful to have a very special cuddly sleepy toy. Care-Bears are “old school” but excellent sleeping companions for older children. When you leave your child at night, come back and check in on them as they are falling asleep. Start with a 2minute check, then a 5minute check, then a 10minute check. By the time you do the final check, they should be asleep.
Care Bears are great companions for children.
Through my many years of teaching children, I find reading picture books a fantastic way to chat to them about what is happening in their world. The best book I have read and completely recommend is, “The Invisible String” written by Patrice Karst. This beautiful book is about helping adults and children understand that we are all connected and we are never truly alone. The aim of this book is to help alleviate your child’s fears from being apart from you and for your child to know they are truly loved no matter where in the world you are.
The Invisible String by Patrice Karst
Another way to help with separation is through distraction. If you are dropping your child off somewhere, it is best to get the ‘goodbyes’ over with pretty quickly. When their teacher or caregiver etc receives your child, they are best to distract your little one by getting them engaged with something fun immediately. This is the best time for you to go. If you hover around, the separation will become worse. Typically most children settle really quickly once you are gone. Know that if there is any further distress, the caregiver will call and let you know. It is important you have a great relationship with all the people in your child’s world.
Allowing your child the opportunity to express how they are feeling is a great way to not only connect with you, but to connect to their own thoughts and feelings. Often the route cause of tantrums is due to feelings they need to express. I have found “Kimochis” toys are a wonderful way to assist children with this. These soft toys come with “feelings characters” and help children identify what they are feeling at the time. Another way is to make a “feelings” chart with ‘feeling faces’ as this can be a reference point for your child.
Kimochis are toys that help children express their feelings.
If you have a child that is having difficulty separating from you, first of all, do not feel alone in this. All children go through this at some stage. If you can identify why they are feeling this way, then try to reduce their worry by implementing the suggestions in this post.
If you find night-time separation a real battle, then book in a chat together here.
