Dexter's New Trick

Climbing out of his crib!

Last night at about 11:30, I sneaked into his room to put away two measley shirts.  Of course, I got busted. Totally busted.  So then he was upset. I snuggled him for a few minutes, then put him back in his crib and told him it was time to sleep.  He was still upset, but typically just cries for maybe a minute and then goes to sleep.

Not last night.

He cried a little longer than usual, but we were trying to get a lot done and were still giving him a chance to settle down.  Suddenly, the crying was a little less muffled.  Wha?? As I went to investigate, sure enough, here comes our Dexter down the hallway, still crying but obviously quite pleased with himself.

Not wanting him to do it again with less success, we brought him into our bed, where he tossed and turned for about an hour. Then I tried to put him back in his crib, and he climbed out again.  (I watched through a crack in the door. He's actually very skilled at it - brace yourself on the corner, right leg up and over, left leg up, lower yourself down.)

Then we resorted to sleeping on the guest bed (and he only fell off of it twice - 1:45 and 2:15am).  We managed to get some semblance of sleep from about 3:30 until 7, with me waking up every time Dexter moved (roughly every 10-15 minutes) to try to keep him from falling off of the bed again.

(Dennis's take this morning - "I didn't even realize you guys were gone until Desmond woke up at 3:30." How can he sleep through all of this?  I was surprised when he didn't come investigate the giant "THUD" sounds at 1:45 and 2:15. Guess I know why now.)

  So, here we are, just shy of 17 months, and Dexter is getting a big boy bed!  (OK, we're converting the crib to a toddler bed tonight.)  NO clue how we're going to keep him from just getting up and roaming the house all night long.  We may have to seriously consider new doorknobs with reverse locks to keep him in his room (and out of his bathroom and closet).  That'll also mean taking a lot of stuff out of his room and crazy childproofing.  

I'm tempted to just take everything out and pad the walls and floor. Because let's face it, that's what we really need.

So, our quest for more than 2 continuous hours of sleep continues!  Really curious to see what tonight holds.