Our DD currently sleeps in a peapod tent - she is about 26m old. She is very happy in the tent, and I feel confident that it isn't a crib that she can climb out of and fall down, and that she can't get out and roam around the house at night.
She has been potty trained for around 6-8m now, and has been extremely reliable for many months whenever she is up, but since she can't get out of the tent to potty on her own, we still put her in a diaper at night (I let her nap in underpants as long as she uses the potty just before going down). She is often able to go dry all night at night, but not always, and lately with daylight savings time changes, that seems to have messed with her routine, so that she is really going in her diaper again at night.
I think we have to move her out of the tent soon because: 1) she is soon going to get too big for it, and 2) she is getting really bad rashes on her bottom, and I think the only way to get rid of them is to get her out of the nighttime diapers, which we can only do if she can go to the potty at night. (The rashes on her bottom have been ongoing for probably a year now, and have frequently gotten infected. The ped currently has us using prescription hydrocortisone, which I really don't like, but nothing else has worked. I think fundamentally she is just really reactive to her own urine, and that the only thing that will work is to get her out of diapers completely.)
But I'm worried about putting her in a big kid bed mainly for safety reasons:
She is a climber and an explorer, and I'm concerned for her safety at night. She likes using the heater in her room to climb up on top of a tall dresser, and because the room is small, there is no way to reconfigure the furniture - we can attach the dresser to the wall, but that won't stop her from falling off of it. We have a baby gate that currently separates her bathroom/bedroom from the rest of the apartment, so I'd have to keep that closed (the kitchen is just outside - it's a NYC apartment, so there isn't much separation of space), otherwise she could wander into the kitchen at night (it's open plan, and there is no way to gate that off). But I'm concerned that she will figure out how to climb the baby gate in the middle of the night, and if she does that, she can get to the stove (we've got a cover, but she can climb up to the kitchen counters now, so that isn't really a preventative if she is unattended and determined), she can leave the apartment (she can open the front door on her own), and she can climb up tall bookcases and on to kitchen cabinets. I'm not entirely certain that she couldn't manage to pry off outlet protectors, or to open babysafe drawers. So, for those of you who have already managed this transition, how on earth did you manage to keep your kid from getting into all this stuff? If you have tips or advice, I'd be so grateful to hear them!
While this is my primary concern, if anyone also has any advice about how to have her use the potty at night (she could actually do this herself, but I'm not sure how well she would manage when sleepy, and if we go to help her, I know she will use it as an excuse to get up and play...). Or general advice about how to handle the transition (I have a plan about how we could do it gradually, but I think more ideas are always better!).
Thanks for taking the time to read my post!
Follow Mothering