Back in December Princess Lillie mastered the art of climbing out of the bed. And it was an art. She would push her bed away from the wall and throw her legs over the back of the crib. Then use the wall as some support as she shimmied her way down, eventually making her way to the floor. It got bad. She would come out of her crib 10 times at night before she ever fell asleep. Punishment did not phase her one bit. Elliott I don't think would have ever thought to do this on his own, but once he saw Lillie doing it he had to give it a try. You can see in the picture below how successful he was.
On more than one occasion I heard him crying and came in the room to find this. He never successfully made it to the ground. On a side note... if Jack ever climbs in their beds to play with them, he still calls me to get him out. He won't even climb out.
Anyway, the Sunday night before we went to TN for Christmas I decided for their safety to take the cribs down and let them just sleep on their mattresses. We would put them in "big kid" beds once we returned from traveling. It was a DISASTER. Actually it was worse than that. For 3 hours I was constantly putting them back in the bed. They were clearly not ready for it, but I could not let them keep climbing out or at least trying, in Elliott's case. It was just dangerous. So we put the pack-n-plays up and they slept in those that night. Lillie had to be put back in hers twice before she fell asleep and Elliott was so exhausted that he would not stop screaming. After a long, long time rocking him to calm him down, he fell asleep in our bed. It was BAD!
The next morning I told Freddy T. I was putting the beds back together and searching this city for a crib tent. I didn't care how much it cost or where I had to go to get it, we were getting one. I think he thought I was kind of crazy, but in my mind it was the only option. Thankfully the first store I called had a ton in stock, so that afternoon I purchased two.
The Crib Tent's are by far the best money I've spent on any single baby item ever. They have saved our sanity and our kids safety. The kids are fully enclosed in this mesh tent like thing cover their crib. The mattress actually sits inside the tent. There is no way for them to get out. It has worked like a charm. We even took them down and packed them in our suitcases and hauled them to TN. It was totally worth it.
Speaking of beds. Jack made mine this morning (unprompted by me), while I was drying my hair. It will probably drive me crazy all day, but I'm not touching it. I'm grateful he had it in his heart to help me out.
