Dean and his Crib

Dean's room is our master closet.  It is up a set of narrow and steep stairs in what should have been an attic but the people who built our house made it into a master closet.  Our clothes are up there, we store photos up there, the legos live up there and Dean's crib is up there.  He loves it!  Dean has been able to climb out of his crib for several months.  At first he only did it a couple times when he was really worked up in the middle of the night because I was returning him to his own bed and kicking him out of ours.  Or because I was making him take a nap and he didn't want to.  A month later it was happening more than I would like so I waited for him to attempt to climb out and yelled at him for trying to escape from his crib.  That lasted for nap time but after a month or so he started letting himself out of his crib in the morning.  He wouldn't even yell for us to get him, I would be in the shower and suddenly Dean would appear outside the shower door and start talking to me.  It really didn't bother me because he was waiting until morning.

When my other kids did this I just put them in a regular bed, but a baby gate in front of the door and solved my problem.  The other 3 kids don't fall asleep right away and there is usually some shenanigans after I put them to bed for the night.  While Dean can sleep through anything he can't fall asleep if he knows his siblings could be doing something fun.  He just doesn't want to miss out on the fun.  With school and busy schedules I really can't move Dean into a big bed downstairs with the kids, so when he refused to sleep in his bed a month ago I panicked.  I finally agreed to let him sleep on his crib mattress on the floor in his room.  He went right to sleep and was a good boy.  The problem is I don't want him to stumble and fall down the stairs and the way they are built I could put up a baby gate but he could still get down the stairs because of where the wall is vs where the stairs start.  When he climbs out of his crib he has to be fairly awake to be able to pull it off, awake enough that he can also maneuver the stairs.  That night I convinced Brad to help me move Dean back into the crib before we went to bed.  Dean's room has a motion activated light, so we had to crawl across the room, scoot the mattress close to the crib, carefully life sound asleep Dean and the mattress into the crib and lower it down evenly so Dean didn't roll off and our fingers didn't get pinched.  It was successful and we looked ridiculous.

A couple weeks ago Dean decided he was no longer sleeping in his brown bed (crib).  He wanted to sleep in his white bed.  We had no idea what that was.  After a lot of tears from a very frustrated Dean I figured out the white bed was his grey and green pack 'n play.  He tells me it is more comfortable than his brown bed.  So he now sleeps in there right next to the crib with his little pillow and his favorite blanket while his head touches one side and his feet touch the other.  He can climb out of there too, but he is happy to sleep in there and rarely climbs out during nap time or bed time unless it is morning and the sun is up.  As soon as school is out he is going in a bed and moving downstairs with the big kids.  Until then we are hoping he just keeps cooperating at bedtime and nap time.