Breakout!

There's plenty going on around here to blog about, but by the time the kids are in bed, I'm EXHAUSTED and have been staring at the tv instead of writing about our adventures.

Last Thursday night, Gavin and Emery climbed/fell out of their cribs. Emery climbed.......Gavin fell. I ran in to find him face down on the carpet. He bit his tongue, but was ok. Emery was crying just as loud because I think it scared her to watch him fall. I had been watching them on the video monitor (after Emery climbed out the first time) and had been in several times to warn them. I just didn't make it back in fast enough to save Gavin from the fall.

This is a still shot that I pulled off of video taken during one of the trips in to their room. This was just one of his practice runs. I didn't video his fall!

So, what now? First, I freaked out and started to do a little research. Our cribs turn into toddler beds, but you have to buy a bed rail (to keep them from rolling out). Since it's smaller than an adult bed, there are only a few bed rails out there that are small enough to fit a toddler bed. The least expensive one that I found......$69.95! I searched through every twin blog that I vaguely remembered having a post about transitioning to toddler beds. Here is what I found:

1. The least expensive bed rail for a conversion bed (crib that converts to a toddler bed) is $69.95, which confirmed what I had found. It's almost cheaper to buy another bed, which includes bed rails!

2. With twins, wait as long as possible to transition to toddler beds. Having a "buddy" in the room to climb out of bed and play with is just too tempting for toddlers. This worries me........

3. If the cribs are higher in the back than the front, turn them around to buy yourself some time.

I looked into crib tents, but I really don't think they will do the job. With Houdini (Emery) and the Bulldozer (Gavin), I don't think those tents would stand a chance. On a side note, a friend of mine puts a swimming noodle under the fitted sheet of her daughters bed to keep her from rolling out. She just cut it to the length of the bed and voila! She said that it works great!

Emery's "technique"

Another concern of ours are the heavy wooden blinds on the window. I have been pulling them up during the day and making sure that the cord is out of reach, but this obviously won't work at night. So.......there are now curtains on the windows, including the small window on another wall which didn't have any window covering before this. The room is now MUCH darker, which has been helping the kids to sleep longer (and fall asleep faster) and will hopefully lead to less "playing around" at bedtime. The dresser has been moved out of the room and all toys have been pushed to one wall. They'll probably be moved out of the room completely in the near future. The cribs have been turned around so that the higher side is on the front and the low side is against the wall. So far, this has done the trick and has bought us some time! Finally, Pete is making bed rails! I must admit that I was skeptical, but they are going to look awesome and should work as well as any store bought bed rail, if not better. I'll post pictures soon. So, here we are, just trying to decide when to make the leap to toddler beds. I'm trying to hold out until after their birthday (this weekend). So, I've got a few more days to psych myself up for this!

The new bedroom.......cribs turned backwards, curtains on the windows, still need to clear out some toys (and the curtains need to be ironed!).

Toddler beds coming soon!

**Also, thanks to Carrie, LauraC, and HDYDI for all of the tips!