update: Our night was spent disassembling Alro’s crib, now that it no longer accomplishes the objective of keeping him trapped inside, putting up a gate across the doorway to his room, and trying to convince him, as best that we could, that there’s nothing more awesome than laying peacefully in a “big boy” bed and drifting off quietly to sleep. We accomplished the first two items, but failed miserably when it came to shifting the nighttime sleep paradigm that we’d worked so hard these past 22 months to establish. There were hours on end of gate rattling, screaming, and, ultimately, back rubbing, to no avail. The cycle kept repeating. Until, at about 4:00 AM, when we gave up and brought him to our bed. There were, however, glimmers of hope. Linette had gotten him a tiny pillow, a beautiful new blanket, and a few new stuffed animals, hoping that it would make the transition to the cage-less bed more appealing, and, by all indications, it worked beautifully. He was super happy about it. (He helped me take apart the crib, and was smiling like crazy the whole time.) But, without the sides of the crib to contain him, he just couldn’t resist the temptation to run around his room, screaming like a maniac, as the rest of us tried to sleep. I imagine it’ll get better at some point, but I’m not hopeful that his mother and I will survive long enough to see it.
update: About his getting out of his crib. He did it the first time on Saturday, during his nap. Linette heard a thud, and then the sound of scrambling feet. We couldn’t figure out how he’d done it without breaking his neck. I was tempted to set up a camera, and see if we might be able to strike YouTube gold, like the guy who posted footage the other day of his dog scaling the wall of his kitchen and escaping through a small hole in a window that, for some reason, had been boarded up. Instead, I laid on the floor, next to his crib, and pretended to sleep. It took a while, but eventually he made his move, as I watched through squinted eyes. He grabbed onto the top rail, pulled himself up as far as he could, and, then, after about five minutes of work, furiously pumping his fat, little legs, trying to run up the vertical slats on the side of his crib, he was eventually able to throw a leg over and scoot his butt up, so that he was straddling the beam… at which point I jumped up, grabbed him, and started to plan our response. (Linette had been convinced that he could levitate. I thought that he’s likely worked a board loose, which he’d promptly replace upon escape.)
update: And, for what it’s worth, I don’t know that it was influenced at all by Houdini. We did, however, just watch his film The Man From Beyond a few weeks ago… One more thing. And I just learned this today. Apparently, you cannot buy locking crib lids. (Thanks a lot, Barack “Nanny State” Obama.)
7 Comments
I’m not a parent, but I’ve seen Look Who’s Talking, so I can sympathize.
does he slurp?
Getting out of the crib is just the first step. It gets worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzow5wUp7hY
Babies should be kept under the city, like in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It could have been worse. You could have showed him a Whodini video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLYC7ltxOrk
How can he walk? He was just born a month ago.
Well, Whodini did warn us that the “freaks come out at night.”