Tame the Savage Beast

Today we made a new purchase. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Crib Tent II:
Now, I know this is making all you attachment parenting types recoil in horror, and since I am generally one of your "type" let me tell you that it's slightly horrifying to me too. But let me tell you the story of my climbing baby, and let me also tell you the story of my climbing cousin, and then you can decide.

Griffin is a restless sleeper to say the least. He usually starts in the crib, and my midnight or so he's woken himself and got himself into such a fit that we bring him into our bed. I'm scared to leave him up there on his own when he gets so worked up, because he tries to climb OUT of the crib. I've seen him do it, he can get his one leg up and over the rail, and it was only a matter of time before he figured how to pull himself up and over, and land none to lightly on some undesirable part of his body.

Even in our bed, he's up and down and flailing all over the place. He sits up in a half sleep, and then THROWS himself back down onto the bed when he realises it's still dark, or there's no milk in the vicinity, or dinner isn't being served without him knowing. Trouble is, when he throws himself back down, he doesn't give a hoot in which direction he lands. We often find him sleeping at the foot of the bed with Dudley, or upside down with his feet in our face. Or, heaven forbid, he THROWS himself right off the bed. It's happened, oh, lets just say more than once. Thus my reluctance to switch him to a toddler bed. We also considered the mattress on the floor trick, but after the 3 am bulldozer play fest last week, I nixed that idea pretty quick. (I tried laying on the floor with Griffin one night last week. He was slightly confused until he realized that he was free, free, FREE!! Free to run, free to play with his toys. At 3am. Greaaaaat.)

And then there's the story of my cousin Austin, who at 2 years of age, successfully made his way out of his crib, only to land on his face. Ow. Seriously ow. He had to have his 2 front teeth pulled out because they were at a 90 degree angle to where they were supposed to be...like as in sticking straight out from his face. Poor kid was missing his front teeth till his adult teeth came in, when he was about EIGHT or so. It makes me want to throw up a bit just thinking about it.

All these factors combined - the climby, the tossy turny throwy, the toothless cousin, leads to where we are today - one toddler, asleep in the safety of his cage crib tent. He certainly was pretty pissed with the whole idea at first, but he's since given in. It makes me feel a little better knowing he can't climb out...maybe we'll all sleep a bit better tonight.