Do you lock or child proof your toddler’s bedroom door at night? My DD will be 3 in August. Has been out of the crib for 7 months. She goes to bed fine usually but goes through spells of throwing tantrums when I try to leave the room, and has been sneaking into our bed at all hours of the night the past couple months. Sometimes it’s sweet, sometimes it’s awful. I’ve always been against locking her door in theory. The idea of her feeling/being trapped in there really doesn’t sit well with me. But I know other parents do it, maybe it’s not such a big deal? Her door doesn’t have a lock so we would have to buy something from Amazon. It would solve all of our sleep problems, lol.
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Tonight is evening 3 of putting LO in his room to sleep. The HB moms told me about the Door Monkey product. It leaves the door slightly ajar, but little ones can’t open the door or pinch their fingers. My son can open the door on his own otherwise, so the device is perfect.
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I don’t, but I don’t think it would help for us because I’m pretty sure if he found it locked when he wanted to sneak into our room he would throw a fit and I’d have to get up anyway!
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No. I close the door so light wouldn't bother the kids, but they can open it if they want. And I do get DD coming out of her room to find me at the crack of dawn, and sometimes even at night, but if she was locked in it wouldn't exactly be an improvement. She'd just scream the house down.
I don't really think it makes a difference in case of emergency at this age. Locked door or no locked door, it's not likely they'd keep their head if they had to run out in the middle of the night - either way, we'd have to come get them out. I think about that way too much, I've been in an apartment building fire and am pretty well scared of situations like that.
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@bhbee: same here- I just know locking her in would just lead to more tantrums. I’d have to break her spirit before she gave up which isn’t something I want to do. But that’s her personality. Other kids have different personalities. My girl is 4.5 and still comes out during the night occasionally. Plus she gets up to pee somewhat frequently anyway now.
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I'd rather have him in bed with me than be afraid or trapped. I've heard too many horror stories about house fires.
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When we first moved him to a real bed we had a childproof handle lock on the inside as we were afraid of him roaming around the house at night. We eventually took it off as he doesn’t ever get out of bed or open the door at all. I thought about the emergency thing as well but I knew we would need to get him regardless of lock or not and his window is right at ground level so I felt ok with that.
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@bhbee: yes I think the same thing would happen. If she realized her door was locked she would freak out!
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Nope but we’re an open door household.
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No way, they need to be able to use the bathroom when they have to go at night. Also it doesn't sit well with me when I think about emergency situations like a fire, earthquake or the like...
We also have a ninja baby in our 5 year old. He'll often sneak into our room. When we do notice and it has become more of a habit again, we take him back to his bed. Also since he got his adenoids removed he seems to sleep a lot better (no more snoring) and the coming to our room has significantly reduced. I never considered that there could be a physical cause, so maybe that is something to take into consideration as well?
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@Pumuckl: in my case my son has an adjoining bathroom. The bathroom door is shut at night, but not locked. Keeping him in his room will not prevent him from taking care of his needs once he's potty trained. I can see how if a child had to use a hallway bathroom a lock may not be the best idea. In our old house, baby gates could be used to steer LO to the hallway bathroom and still keep him out of our bedroom. At some point, I imagine little people learn to scale the gates though.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: This is what we do. All our bedrooms are on one floor and when we go up at night we lock the gate. So nobody goes down the stairs in the dark. When DH and I are still downstairs we keep the gate open und make sure there is some light in the stair area that should the kids need to come down the stairs they don't have to do so in the dark.
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We had done this but for a very different reason. Our daughter came out of her room in the morning a couple days after transitioning from her crib to toddler bed and surprised our family dog which resulted in a very traumatic bite, hospital visit, and plastic surgery.
After that, we locked her door from the outside each night (there was already one there from the house being a rental prior to us purchasing it that we never took off). She understood why, and she simply called for us or knocked on her door to tell us she needed something or wanted to get up/out. Even after potty training, she just knocked and we went to get her if she needed the bathroom. We have a smaller home so distance/hearing her/time are not an issue. Locking her door was never used in conjunction with a timeout, or in any form of punishment. It's never been a negative association for her.
Our dog has since passed, and we began leaving her door unlocked. She only recently noticed this and most of the time just continues to shout for us if she needs us. It's actually been a nice surprise that she lets herself out quietly in the morning some days, uses the bathroom, chills on the couch, and plays quietly for a bit before coming to wake us up.
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I responded yes but currently no. We moved DS to a floor bed at 15 months and we had to find a way to let him cry it out. He is our first so it was not disruptive to other children.
Since we moved we do not secure his door, we moved when he was about 23 months, he does get up multiple times but I subscribe to the screaming and banging at his age would be worse than the disruption of putting him back to bed (and I am 38 weeks pregnant and he only wants me to put him back to bed, still easier).
We never used a door monkey as our old house was smaller and we would disrupt him when we went to bed but that is a good option. Whatever is best for everyone at the time!
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@lindseykaye: oh gosh that must have been traumatic for everyone (dog included). Glad your daughter is ok. How is she around dogs now?
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We don't and DS ends up in our bed nightly. If we lock our door so he can't get in, he sits outside it and crys/screams which would wake everyone else up.
I spent 3 nights while 3 months pregnant putting him back in bed each time until DH said to just let him sleep in our bed, and it's been that way since, usually from midnight/1:00 on.
Hopefully eventually he'll just start sleeping through the night! -
@Kemma: same!
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We use the door monkey the first year DD1 was in a toddler bed. She was good about staying in her bed and not trying to come out (sleeping in Mommy & Daddys bed has nevr been a thing in our house), for me it was more about safety. Our stairs are not gate-friendly and DD would have to walk past them to go to the bathroom or our room.
As @Mrs. Lemon-Lime: the door monkey is nice because it leaves the door cracked but secured at about a 1" crack. I also know that in a bind DD could rip the door open if need be...its not THAT secure.
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We have a baby gate in his door frame, we can still pull the door to if we want, but it keeps him in and the cat out.
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I answered yes, but it's not technically locked - we have an older house and K's bedroom has crystal door knobs that are just really hard to open for little hands. He's used to it and just knocks or yells out if he needs us/has to pee in the night. As far as I know, he's never felt trapped in there.
Honestly, I think the way you treat it will really determine how she feels about it - if you're just matter of fact and explain it to her (something along the lines of "We're going to keep the door shut from now on so we can all sleep better... but if you need us at any point or if you have to pee on the potty, just call for us and we'll come"), I think she's at the age where she'll understand you, even if she's not happy about it. You might have a few bumpy nights at the start where she's upset at bedtime or calling for you pretty frequently during the night, but she'll get the hang of it (hopefully before baby #2!)
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We put a doorknob cover on the inside knob when my son was younger. His room was toddler proofed, but the rest of the upstairs wasn't and I didn't want him wandering in the middle of the night. In an emergency the door was still fully functional from the outside. I actually think having him confined to his room was the safer option in an emergency, then we know right where he is and don't need to worry that he ran to hide somewhere else in the house.
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We haven’t had to. I struck gold in one aspect of my son, he doesn’t get out of bed. Ever. He’ll cry, throw tantrums, & call for us, but he won’t step foot out of his bed (even to get his stuffed animal that HE threw on the floor 🤦♀️) he’s still a terrible sleeper though. Can’t win them all!
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@Littlebit7: It was very hard that day and in the days following but she had a very good recovery and you can't even really see her scar anymore (it was on her face, below her eye).
The incident didn't actually seem to affect how she felt/acted around dogs much - both immediately afterward and in the years since. I was kind of hoping it would just so she'd be more cautious, but I am glad it didn't leave her with lasting fear or trauma. She would say "Early Girl bit me" here and there for a bit after it happened and we highly modified/monitored their interactions from then on, but she still loves dogs very much and maybe respects our rules about dogs a bit more with her history. -
We don't lock the door but we have a kid door handle thingy on the inside so he can't open it. We didn't really want to do it but felt like we had to once we converted the crib to a toddler bed because he is wild and would run all over the house and literally never go to sleep or stay in his room. Once he's asleep, it's fine, but otherwise...forget it. I don't *love* it but our bedrooms are RIGHT next door so I feel like I can get to him quickly.
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For a long time we had a door knob cover on DS’s door. We put it on when we switched him to a regular bed. We didn’t really need it right away and took it off after a while. But then DS went through a phase around 2.5 of waking up at 5am and slamming our door open. I was pregnant and exhausted so after a couple days the knob cover went back on and DS didn’t seem to mind. We took it back off once he was old enough to understand staying in his room.
For my 21m DD we haven’t bothered with a cover yet. She’s in a toddler bed but hasn’t figured out door knobs yet. Probably once she does we’ll put the cover on. She’s too little to be wandering by herself. And the staircase is right in front of the door to our room and I don’t want to chance her falling.
I have no problem “locking” my kids when they’re toddlers. Toddlers do not need free reign and it can be dangerous.
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We don't lock because we literally have to lock the bedroom doors with a key. Even if we could, we wouldn't. We keep all of our doors slightly ajar.
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We used a baby gate on DD2’s room for awhile. She was maybe 3 when we did this, and very agile, so I had no doubt she could climb over it or kick it down if needed in an emergency. She shares a jack and Jill bathroom with her sister, so that was never an issue either.
Most of the time the gate was open anyway; the threat of it being closed if she continued to get up was generally enough to deter our nighttime visitor.
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We use a doorknob cover on our 2y4m door. I figure, he spent 2 years not being able to open his own door at night, why not have another year or two? Lots of people have their 2 year olds in cribs so they can't get out either. If there was an emergency, all kids under the age of 4 (or so) would need parental assistance anyway.
Here's another point to consider. Within one week of him learning how to open his own door, one morning he got out of his room and spent 20 minutes unsupervised, wandering the house. I could hear him tinkering around but I stayed laying in bed, thinking DH was with him. NOPE. DH decided to go to work early! So instead of waking up and getting me, LO just decided to explore. I only found it out when LO started banging at the backdoor for "Daddy."
Lastly, if we didn't use doorknob covers, he most likely would come in my room while I was sleeping and hurt my 3m infant sleeping next to me by either poking her eyes, trying to pick her up, slapping her face, or trying to climb into her RnP. So..... some doors HAVE to be childproofed.
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No, we don’t. The idea of locking my kids in a room doesn’t sit well with me. I shut the door most of the way (leave it open a crack) and my 4yo comes into our room when he wakes up in the morning. Our 2yo wakes up later and is still in her crib (they share a room). Neither wake at night, and if for some strange reason they do, I’d rather my son be able to come get me.
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We did, although there wasn’t really a need to since rarely tried to open it. Of course, lately she’s been pooping in her pull-ups for naps, so we stopped doing it. But so far she’s yet to actually leave her room and just yells when she’s awake.
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I thought I read on here that it's actually good in case of fire to have the door closed (not locked.)
That said my kids sleep with doors open at night. I can hear them better and they're more comfortable with it. They just know if they come in my room I will see what's wrong but I always walk them back. They also shared until very recently which I think helped them not be lonely if they woke up.
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We use a door monkey on the kids room door because DS1 who is almost 3.5 will get up in the night "like a busy owl" and get into trouble/make a huge mess without waking us. I am afraid he might leave the appartment.
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No, I would never even consider this.
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We put a gate up for a little while but after me falling over it trying to get to him when he was crying... we don't do anything now. My older son had night terrors when he was younger and now we are dealing with bad dreams. I don't ever want him to think he can't get to us or we don't want him to come to us.
It helps that we have a really small (850sqft) house so I hear whenever he gets up.
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We are an open door household but we do gate the stairs for safety. My oldest knows to go to the baby monitor to ask if she can come downstairs.
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@2littlepumpkins: i think you’re right about doors closed for fire safety - Keeps the smoke out better. But we don’t actually do it either, partially because our house heats/cools unevenly and leaving doors partway open helps.
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@raspberries: We have the exact set-up. But since LO turned 4, we leave it open a bit.
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We used a door monkey for about a year with our 2.5 year old who was a mess at bedtime. I would close her door with it and then take it off when I went to bed.
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@birdofafeather: this is what we do too
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We use a doorknob cover. I see nothing wrong with keeping her in there and I don't see why anyone would. It's just the same as putting a child in a crib. They're just as "trapped" as they were in the crib. And if they throw a tantrum, well, it's just the same as when a toddler discovers any boundary on their behavior. They get used to it eventually when they understand it's not negotiable.
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