My toddler wanders the house at night. H

Tonight's job is not to stop him wandering — it's to make everywhere he can reach safe, and to make your response identical every single time. Locking a toddler in a room with no plan is the one move to retire tonight; everything below replaces it.

Also worth naming up front: night waking is normal in toddlers, and the goal is not "never comes out" — it's "he can settle again, and he's safe while he tries". (Age band for 1–2 y: 11–14 h/24 h including naps, AASM 2016 consensus via `references/hygiene.md`; night waking is common in the first years — `references/child-sleep.md` #3–4.)

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1) What you tried vs. the better alternative

Two paths — pick one and run it:

• Path A (he can open the door): Safe house + fixed response. Alarm goes → dim lights, one sentence, back to bed. If he comes out again, sit on a mat in the hallway, silent, up to 15 minutes. Third time out: take him downstairs to a safe shared area with you — no arguing, no picks.
• Path B (he bolts, or the stairs are the worry): Contain instead of lock. Stair gate at the top and bottom, his bedroom plus a bathroom that is safe to enter (cleaners and medicines locked or high), dim nightlight, family on one side of the gate.

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2) Tonight / today — three moves, ~25 minutes total

Move 1 — 15-minute house sweep (one adult, toddler with the other). Screenshot this list:

• Stairs → gate top and bottom
• Kitchen → knives, hot pots/pans, cleaners, medicines, small items, plastic bags, buckets of water, hot drinks, fridge magnets and button batteries (make sure none are in reach — those need urgent care if swallowed)
• Bathroom → medicines and cleaning products locked or high up; toilet lid down if he climbs- Living room → fireplace/hot drinks, cords, heaters, stairs to furniture he climbs
• Windows, balcony, and the door to any stairwell
• Pets fed and shut in their own space

Move 2 — Fix the response so it is word-for-word identical every night. Screenshot script:
> "It's bedtime. Let's go back to bed." (dim lights, hand on his chest, no questions, no negotiating, no second chance)
> If he comes out again: sit on the hallway mat, say nothing, stay within arm's reach.
> If a third time: "Come on, I'll sit with you downstairs." Calm, no scolding.

Move 3 — Give the tired adults a rota. One adult on night duty per night, rotating; the elder or sibling gets one job only: if the alarm sounds, call his name once and come to the hallway — don't scoop him into a bed, sofa or long cuddle (that's how the whole house wakes). Adults: phone out of the bedroom, no screens after lights-out, and don't let anyone fall asleep on the sofa or armchair with him — if a grown-up might drift off, the child goes down in his own safe space first (NHS/Lullaby Trust safe-sleep guidance, `references/child-sleep.md` #9).

The anchor for this week (one sentence, no answers needed): *Same response every night — dim light, one line, back to bed, 15 minutes on the hallway mat — and the school-night adult wake-up time doesn't move, so the night that gets broken isn't repaid with catch-up sleep.*

What success looks like in 24 hours: zero unsupervised trips to the stairs, kitchen or bathroom hazards; no more than two returns to bed handled calmly; the adults still get up on time for school/work Friday. That is the win for tonight — not a quiet house.

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3) Avoid list

• Don't lock, bolt, wedge, or tape a door he can't open from inside, and don't use a lock that needs a key on the outside — fire escape and injury risk.
• Don't use his bedroom as a punishment room; the room should predict sleep, not confinement (`references/wind-down.md` #8).
• Don't try to force sleep by keeping him up late or cancelling naps; overtired toddlers wander more.
• No medicines of any kind for his sleep — no melatonin, no sedating antihistamines, no leftover adult sleep pills, no "herbal" or mystery powders, nothing bought online without a prescription. Dose and fit decisions belong to the doctor or pharmacist.
• No screen in the bedroom, and don't trade cartoons for "staying in bed."
• Don't let a drowsy adult (alcohol, sedating medicine, cigarettes, or simply exhausted) sleep on the sofa or armchair with him, and don't plan a settle there.
• Don't let "escaping" become a game — no treat, no prize for coming out quietly.

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4) Decision tree (screenshot-friendly)

```
He comes out at night — is he fully awake and talking?
├─ YES: awake, remembers the day, wants company
│ → Run Path A or B above. Same response every night.
│ → Track 3 nights (see §6). If no improvement in ~2 weeks, tell his pediatrician.
└─ NO / not sure: glazed eyes, hard to wake, won't answer,
unsteady like sleepwalking, doesn't remember it in the morning
→ TALK TO THE PEDIATRICIAN (possible sleepwalking / arousal disorder)
→ Meanwhile: no late bedtime, no over-tired afternoons, stairs gated,
door alarmed, and the safe room ready — never let a sleepwalker leave stairs alone.
```

Alongside that, day-to-day red flags in §5 override everything in this tree.

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5) Red flags — stop DIY, get clinical/urgent help

Go to urgent/emergency care (call your local emergency number) if:

• He turns blue/grey in sleep, stops breathing, gasps, or snores with pauses (also a stop list item for breathing pauses in sleep — `references/red-flags.md` #1, #4)
• Hard to wake during the day, unsteady walking, repeated vomiting, confusion, or a seizure
• Swallowed a medicine, cleaner, magnet, or button battery — this is an emergency line, not an overnight watch
• A fall from the stairs or a head knock, even if he seems fine

Book a pediatrician's appointment (not urgent) if: the wandering is new or clearly changed over a few weeks, he is unmanageably sleepy or irritable in the daytime, he's unusually clumsy, he seems to be in pain at night (ear pulling, unusual posture), or the pattern has run for weeks with the adults collapsing.

And for you: if you're at the point of "I can't keep going" — say so plainly to me, or to your local emergency department or a family doctor, and get another adult to take a night shift. A carer running on empty is the risk in this house, not the child's night waking.

*One local check I can't do from here: your country's emergency and poison-control numbers. Look them up on your local health authority's site or your phone's emergency settings — I won't guess digits.*

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6) This week: record, then decide

Record, don't diagnose. Three nights is enough to see the pattern. Log: time he came out, time he was back in bed, how many times the caregiver was up, and the daytime nap time. No sleep-efficiency numbers, no shrinking his time in bed, no calculating anything — the whole point is to show the pediatrician the shape of the nights. Say the word and I'll save these into your sleep diary.

Bring to a clinician instead of DIY if he shows the sleepwalking-like signs, or if two weeks of consistent response changes nothing.

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Sources (carried from the cards used):

• Toddler sleep duration 11–14 h/24 h incl. naps — AASM 2016 consensus (Paruthi et al.), `references/hygiene.md`, accessed 2026-09-02
• Night waking normal in early childhood; goal is self-settling — Newcastle Hospitals Children's Sleep Service, accessed 2026-09-02
• Safe sleep, no sofa/armchair sleep with a baby or toddler, and the sofa-with-drowsy-adult risk — NHS SIDS guidance https://www.nhs.uk/baby/caring-for-a-newborn/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-sids/ and Lullaby Trust, accessed 2026-09-02 / 2026-09-09
• Room is for sleep, not punishment; consistent child bedtime chain — `references/wind-down.md`
• Breathing pauses, blue in sleep, daytime collapse = stop coaching — `references/red-flags.md` (MedlinePlus / NHS)

Hand-off: if you ever get a sleep study report or a device readout (AHI, CPAP data), the clinician who set the treatment reads that trace — not this plan, and not me. A reassuring number on a machine is not an answer for you.