Autistic Toddler Escape Artist

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My son can escape his crib and our back door. This terrifies me. Clearly he's ready for a big boy bed now that he can escape the crib, but I hesitate because it at least slows him down! Anyone else have a little escape artist? How do I discourage this? At what age did you do a big kid bed with your spectrum child, and do you have any safety suggestions? Right now I put a safety gate at the back door.

When I was two years old, my Father came home and asked my aunt (who was supposed to be watching me) where I was.

My aunt replied, "Taking a nap."

Well, dad goes and looks in the crib, and lo and behold, I was not there. They do a search of the house. Not in the house.

I was found outside, up a ladder, hanging onto the edge of the above ground swimming pool, in the water, with my face down in the water, blowing bubbles. He tells me I looked up at him and grinned.

So yes, we are escape artists when we want something. Is there anyway to babyproof the house? locks out of reach on doors you don't want him opening? like the basement, front and back doors, because if he can climb the crib, he can climb the safety gate

When my son was about 2 he was playing in our secured backyard, at the time my husband was minding him and went inside just to grab a clean nappy only to discover on return our son had managed to escape.

My husband had a quick look around the backyard and then thought that maybe he had gone inside again. A quick look around inside the house turned up nothing. My husband started running up and down the street with only his boxer shorts on and no shoes.

Then suddenly he found our little dog near the side of the street, and he knew he was close. My husband then told me he then asked the dog. "Where's ds?" Asking a shitsu, he was asking a lot.

The dog ran straight to a house, where a family was living, and my son was found. Later we discovered that our side gate had been busted not to our knowledge and thats how he managed to escape.

You can try and do the right thing, but somehow, and sometimes they can surprise you.

locks, latches............we took the railing off of our son's crib early-it was way better than worrying about him getting hurt trying to jump out

put the child locks high up on the doors, high enough that if your child stood on a chair he/she would still have problems reaching it, also, add bells to the doors, so that if by chance your child does open a door you might hear something,
if necessary add bells to the child him/her self, it helps, safety first, but first and foremost, never make a game out of hunting or chasing the child down, and always let them know its a no-no to go some places without an adult with them.
I am a single parent with one child, so what works for me may not always work for others, but what helps me the most is keeping my child interested and involved in whatever I am doing if at all possible.

I know a family with an autistic toddler who has figured out how to quickly unlock the front door to their apartment. Then he runs around the building, and his mother catches him. I haven't seen this happen recently so maybe they have solved the problem.

Maybe there is some kind of lock you could install that would be safe yet virtually impossible to get through . . . like a digital combination lock? Maybe coupled with a monitor system set up so that you can see when he tries to open the door? Of course I don't know how expensive that would be. Just brainstorming.

Maybe I'll ask that other mother how she handles her son's lock-decoding abilities. OTOH, I don't know her that well so it might seem like a weird question.

Gave up on the crib when my son turned one...I was afraid he was either going to hurt himself trying to climb out, or hurt himself on the rails...he would repeatedly smack his head against them some nights. Moved him into a full size bed and it worked out great, in fact he had never slept through the entire night until the first night in his big bed...and the head banging also stopped.

"Houdini" here mastered the "child-proof" doorknob covers and cabinet latches in about a day. Those cabinet latches for inside the doors of the cabinets? What a joke those were. We switched to the old hook and eye at the top of the interior doors and slide bolts at the top of the exterior doors...any cabinets or drawers low enough to reach I cleaned out and stored only the stuff he couldn't get hurt on or couldn't destroy...another solution is the covered chain combination bike locks if you have two handles you can loop it through.

Depends how old he is. Our son was a climber, so we actually tied the safety gate over the top of the cot (! !!) for awhile. That helped quite a bit .

My Allaura was climbing out of hr crib at 11 months. I kid you not! She was a climber extraordinaire! She was so small and that crib was so high up that it scared the Bejeebus out of me, so we put her in a toddler bed at 11 months old.

My suggestions:

-Toddler bed now. Better safe than risk injury. Be sure to baby-proof the room REALLY well.
-High latches on the doors- all the doors. We have chain latches on all ours that only Hubby and I can reach.
-Safety gate in his doorway should at least slow him down if it doesn't stop him.
-Keep some favorite toys on the floor he can play with when he wakes up. My kids all would play for 1/2 hour to one hour after getting up in the morning. That alone play time is good for them.
-Use a baby monitor still.

My Xander- 5 with MR, was also a climber. He was out of the crib at 13 months old and in a toddler bed. Desi was also early to do this at 18 months. I never understood mothers who complained that their older toddlers- 2 to 2 1/2 were climbing out of their cribs. Aren't babies supposed to do this? Isn't this an important part of development? Escaping the confines, testing the limits, etc. are all important developmental milestones.