Scary - 6/14/08

Layne is quite insane. He has now flipped himself out of his crib 3 times in 3 days, twice tonight. He in Marshall are sharing a room, and he has been keeping up Marshall either by laughing and playing, or just crying. We’ve felt bad for Marshall, so we decided that we will let Marshall fall asleep in our room, then move him back to his room once Layne is asleep.

Layne didn’t take to kindly to this plan, and in fact has been very distraught that his brother is not where he should be at bedtime. He will cry uncontrollably, pointing at either Marshall’s bed or the door. We try to reason with him, telling him Marshall will return once he is quiet, but reasoning with an emotional 19 month old is often about as effective as reasoning with a rock. He fell out of his crib after about an hour of crying Wednesday night. Last night he went to sleep, but they had a very active day so he didn’t put up much of a fight.

Tonight, however, he put up quite the fight. He was quiet for a few minutes, then started to get worked up. Not wanting things to get out of hand, I decided to go in after he had been pretty vocal for about 10 minutes. I think this just made things worse. His screams grew much louder. I put him back down several times, then went back into the kitchen to finish washing dishes (Sarah was out at the grocery store this whole time). I barely get back to the sink when I hear a “thud”, I run to his room and there he is, on the floor again. I comfort him and make sure he is ok. Once I see he is alright, I decide the crib mattress needs to be lowered, we of course should have done this after the first occurrence. So I grab the tools, and make him sit quietly on Marshall’s bed while I adjust the crib. Once done, I go through the whole bedtime routine again, and put him down. The rail is now at his shoulders, so I feel somewhat confident he can’t get out.

Given that I have been locked in his room for some time, I decide I better go check on Marshall. We have a monitor in Susie’s room of course, but none in our room where Marshall is. I don’t get halfway to our room when I hear a thud again. He found a way out again. He almost did it a third time, as I was trying to close the door a little later and saw how he was getting out. Basically, he was just hoisting himself up and flipping out head first. That can’t end well. He will be graduating to the “big boy” bed sooner than expected.