Creativity Required

Clearly there are challenges in parenting a child with developmental delays. Our most recent challenge has taken a lot of creativity on our part to overcome.

Although NoBo is almost 3, developmentally is about 15 months old. Because we are unable to reason with him at this point, keeping him in bed has become quite a chore.

He started climbing out of his crib, so we put him in the Pack 'n Play, because he couldn't climb out of it. Because his adoption is not complete yet, he is still in the custody of DHS, who doesn't approve of a child sleeping in a Pack 'n Play.

So, we borrowed a crib tent from a friend. It worked great for a time, then he put a hole in the netting. I sewed the netting back together, but then he just spent his time in bed trying to put the hole back in it.

So...back to the Pack 'n Play, until I walked in on morning #3 to catch him as he was diving, head-first, out of it. The only thing we could think to do was to cover his Pack 'n Play with the crib mattress. It worked, but Cowboy was a nervous wreck about NoBo somehow having the strength to move the mattress so that it would fall on him.

After much thought, my sweet husband came up with this



I sewed a piece of fabric to fit nicely over the top of the crib. Then, I sewed button holes all around the outside of it. Next, I attached velcro to ribbons. Finally, I put the ribbons through the button holes and looped them around the slats of the crib.

What's so great about it?

1. NoBo would have to remove 6-7 consecutive ribbons in order to free himself from his crib.

2. NoBo can't stand in his crib, which has actually helped him go to sleep faster.

3. The video monitor can get a much better shot of him than it could with the netting from the crib tent.

4. The crib nicely fits under Little I's top bunk. Eventually, when he's developmentally ready for a big bed, we will remove the crib and place the bottom bunk there again.