I’m 5’4″. Andy’s 5’8″. Flynn does not come from tall stock. Yet somehow our little guy has been consistently at the top of the growth charts for height.

Because he’s so tall he’s been easily escaping from him crib lately. The problem with this, for all of you without babies and toddlers (this is certainly not an issue I knew or cared about two years ago, believe me), is not that the little guy gets out of the crib and plays with his toys in the middle of the night. The problem is that in order to get out of the crib, he scales to the top of the crib railing, where he could potentially fall four feet or so to the ground in all kind of unfortunate contortions.

Yikes. What to do?

I understand there’s something called a crib tent that can help climby kids stay in the crib a bit longer. I’m sure that’s great, but I’m also sure they don’t sell them here. By the time one got to us we surely would have had either a better solution or a cracked skull.

I also understand that some parents put their climby kids in those sleep sack things so they can’t use their legs to leverage themselves up to the top of the railing. Brilliant move, parents. I commend your ingenuity. We seriously considered this option, but in the end I ruled it too cruel. I imagined Flynn fluttering around desperately like a bird with clipped wings.

So the only option left to us was to change his crib to a toddler bed, even though at 16 months he’s really much too young for this to go well, I’d imagine. But Andy switched the crib to a bed yesterday, and we rearranged his room and removed anything that could prove troublesome with Flynn wandering around at 3 a.m. Then, we braced ourselves.

The first night:

8:15 p.m. Put Flynn in bed. Set up a pile of pillows beneath the opening in the bed to cushion the fall if he rolls out. Because he climbs out of the bed every time I try to leave the room, I sit with him rubbing his back for 45 minutes until he falls asleep.

9:15 p.m. Hear crying. Run into Flynn’s room. He’s on the pile of pillows, still crying, tangled in his mosquito net. Move him back to bed. Add more pillows to the pile of pillows. Roll up a beach towel and set it up to hopefully act a de facto side rail to keep him from falling out. He’s back to sleep momentarily, thank God.

11 p.m. Andy goes downstairs to watch some sporting something or other airing overnight on AFN and assumes Flynn duty. All goes well.

2 a.m. Flynn is fine but I am still awake, anticipating him not being fine.

4 a.m. I finally fall asleep.

6:15 a.m. Flynn cries. I run to his room and he’s banging at the door to get out. I try to put him back to sleep. No luck. We’re up for the day.

In conclusion, Flynn did mostly okay. As for me, I’m tired.