Traveling Man (with crib issues)

Spunky Baby will never be the same.

He's mobile. Truly mobile.

Crawling forward and backward. Falling down, rolling over, sitting up, and pulling himself into a standing position. He's trying to "furniture cruise" but having a difficult time walking sideways. He's mastered forward-walking-holding-Mommy/Daddy's-hands. He's getting faster every day.

And we are tired. So tired. I know we were lucky and never experienced sleep deprivation. Now that he's so active, we never stop moving as we are literally following him around as he attempts to terrorize our house.

Nothing is safe. Baby-proofing (an ongoing process) has begun in earnest.

Sigh.

But here's my delima: Spunky Baby is having trouble going to bed now. If he's extremely tired, he fusses for a bit and falls asleep. But if he's just tired and it's time for bed, forget it. We've always put him in his crib awake so he's learned to put himself to sleep. Now that he's so active, I put him down on his back and he rolls over, sits up, pulls up on the crib bars and looks like a prisoner in jail as he yells at us "GET ME OUTTA HERE! I WANT TO MOVE AROUND!!!"

I always thought that if we got to this point that we would just "wait it out" and he would eventually fall asleep. I believed that children are "safe" in their cribs. I didn't realize the dangers...

So, try to picture this: Spunky Baby is standing on the edge of his crib mattress looking out through the bars. One foot slips under the breathable bumper and out between two bars and he falls. Now his one thigh is caught between two bars and one entire leg is outside the crib. But, because it wasn't both legs, his other leg is inside the crib (doing the splits) and his poor little face bangs the crib bars and he's squished up against the bars and immobile. So he SCREAMS and I run to help - it's actually quite a challenge to dislodge this little leg with a hysterical child flailing around. That's why I don't have a photo to show you what actually happened.

A view of the slats on his crib...with the breathable bumper. See the problem?

And it didn't happen once. Twice. No - three times in ONE DAY.

I've moved the bumper down to try to stop this problem and now, because it's lower in the front, he is stepping on it to try and push it down or, if he's lying down, he gets his leg up over it and out of the crib: stuck again.

Do any baby product companies have a product that will remedy this problem? I'll try to get some photos next time he does it - because I know he will - but when he screams I rush in to help and think about photos after the fact.

Double sigh.

He's at the stage now where he's falling asleep in funny positions. His latest was sitting up (the photo doesn't do it justice - he's sitting up, slumped over onto blankets on his lap, sound asleep. Awww....

My sleepy little boy gives in and falls asleep sitting up, slumped over.