[Mountain~Mama]

I've seen this as advise on several different boards when kids wont stay in thier rooms at night - "just turn the doorknob around so it locks on the outside".

I just don't get it. I realize that you don't want your 2 year old escaping out of your house and running the streets in the middle of the night but wouldn't locking your child in thier room with no way out, at the very least, be a fire danger???????

My girls still sleep with me so I don't have experiencewith having to keep them in their own rooms but I just can't imagine locking them in there all night long. It doesn't seem safe in anyway way I think of it.

So what do you think of locking kids in thier room? If your child wont stay in thier room what other options would work???

I think it is horriable...I would never, could never do that!!!!!

I mean it is like locking them in a cage to me.

What if they needed you in the middle of the night?????????

My sister did that with her 3 year old (because she was tired of him coming to get her in the middle of the night) and it broke my heart. He would cry and scream so hard that he would throw up.

[ItalySarah]

I have turned my kids door nobs around but not to lock them in their rooms, the opposite. To keep them from locking themselves in. We broke one door when my oldest locked herself in once. Scared me so bad.

So to answer the question, locking them in their room is NOT something I would do.

[mom2myJo's]

uh...NO !!!! The thought of that is totally repulsive to me. I actually knew this mom who would tie the kid's rooms door knobs together with telephone wires and wouldn't get them for over 18 hours. The kids were eating their own feces and were starving mentally and physically. I called CPS on them and never spoke to them again when they found out it was me who called CPS. That pretty much scarred me from that for the rest of my life.

My DS still sleeps with us and if I had to get him to his own room, I would have a bedtime routine that would end in his room and say "time for bed, I love you" and place him in his bed. When he gets up, I would just say "time for bed" and place him back in his bed. If he gets up again, place him in bed without saying anything and repeat if need be. I would be sitting in the room beside the bed making sure not to make eye contact and making the room very boring. I would then be able to be there if I am really needed, he knows I would be there if he needs me, he then would fall asleep in his own accord and as the days go by, he would then learn to sleep in his bed on his own. I plan on trying this when he can open the door all by himself.

[mgm78]

that is just wrong. why do parents think parenting ends at bedtime?

[hurricaneranch]

We had a turned-around knob at our old house after my then two-year-old DD locked herself in her room and couldn't unlock it, and I suddenly realized the knob was actually an exterior knob that used a key, which we didn't have! Thankfully she finally was able to open the door and I had hubby turn it around that night.

That same DD is mildly autistic, and used to get into all kinds of mischief in the early morning hours (spraying the water faucet sprayer all over the living room, getting knives out from the butcher block, it was horrible!) so we eventually childproofed EVERY single thing in the house. We wound up buying locks for all the closets and pantry, the fridge, all exterior doors, and we also had to tie the kitchen chairs to the table on a tether so she couldn't use them to get into trouble. People who came over probably thought we were loonies! But she was safe even if she was sneaky and did something while we were sleeping, and she never felt like she was trapped in her room. Her room was right across the hall from ours and she liked having her own space but I would frequently wake at 2am to find her wrapped around my head and upper body like an octopus!

[sodagirl]

My friends daughter sleep walks - so there was some discussion of how to make sure she couldn't hurt herself at night. The main idea was to barricade the stairs - so she couldn't fall down them or get outside at night. (it can be -40 in the winter here - kids die sometimes that way) She stopped sleep walking - so now it's not a problem - but in that case I wouldn't have found it cruel. - as long as mom would go in if she heard her cry or anything. As far as safety - well it's about the same as using a crib in a separate room. I'm not going to do it - but plenty of people do.

[mommydiva]

All the parents who I have heard do this are very hands on parents. And there reasons were for safety reasons. But it wasn't out of laziness in kids are in bed I am done being a parent.

It was for fire safety that its better to keep then confined till you can get to them type thing. Now granted that won't help if the fire would be in there room but I guess its a chance people are willing to take ect.

Now if its out of a I just don't want to be bothered type thing then yeah thats cruel.

[~Nik*Re~]

Not something I would or could do. And instead of turning the doorknobs around I took the little pushy thing out of the kids doors so they couldn't lock themselves in/me out, lol.

If they won't stay in their room the ONLY other option (for me) would be to let them come in with me.

[mgm78]

I do not understand how it would be for safety? especially if you could not get to them and unlock them? We always slept with our doors partially open as kids. What if they have to go to the bathroom?

This is pretty common in the autism community, when the children get too advanced for baby-proofing. However, most have a monitor in the room so the parents can hear if the child needs anything.

[mgm78]

Originally Posted by Frugal Abundance

This is pretty common in the autism community, when the children get too advanced for baby-proofing. However, most have a monitor in the room so the parents can hear if the child needs anything.

that makes sense to me.

[HappyHippy]

I think it's horrible. We don't have any locks on the doors except for the front and back door. Hunter still sleeps with us, and his room is the toy room, and I wouldn't want him locked in their anyways.

[*Bobbie*]

I could never in a million years imagine locking a child in their room. Parenting is hard.... but it's what I signed up for when I got pregnant.

[MomtoAnnaLise]

My daughter cosleeps part of the time now, but I have a baby gate in her doorway for when she sleeps in her own room. I go get her the second I hear her awake, and it is right kitty corner to my bedroom. Am I a lazy parent? Maybe, but she is a climber and would fall 2 stories if she got over the landing before I heard her. She can get over the gate too,but it slows her down and makes enough noise that I feel much safer with it up.

[MommaNator]

DD sleeps with us most of the night, but we use a monitor and can hear when she wakes up in her own room. Her door is never fully closed -- just pulled to -- and she can get out if she needs to. However, we have a tall gate at the top of the stairs so she can't go downstairs in the middle of the night.

[My3Boys64]

I feel the same way you do about it. I also co-sleep but even if I didn't I would NEVER lock the door on my child in any room! I had a friend and when I was at her house to sleep over one night when my husband was out of town she locked her kids in their room at about 7 at night and left them there all night! I could hear them running around and she never went to check on them or anything and they where both under 3! I left at 11pm because I was sick to my stomach with it and I never called her again. I did not want to start anything with her but I was appalled, I just think its terrible, I mean even if the room is childproofed (hers wasn't) all sorts of things can happen! Not to mention its inhumane in my opinion. I am sorry if anyone does this, but I do not agree with locking children in any room at any time.

[ThatGirl]

in my 4 1/2 months of being a parent (lol) i have learned to never say never. however i can't foresee myself following this practice. it seems to me that in most situations there would be an alternative available.

[beck12]

It just seems to me that parents that do this are either really lazy or just haven't researched all of their options. There are alarms you can place on an interior door to alert you if a child is up, their are pressure pads to alert you if they get out of bed, there are even little laser things like your garage door has that can trip an alarm if the laser is broken (this is set up at foot level next to the bed, etc. All these same things are things used in nursing homes to monitor movement of patients with dementia, etc. There ARE other options besides locking a door.

Other than in rare cases where a child has a medical issue/disorder & where other measures have been tried & failed I don't think there is a good reason for doing this. For the average high spirited child this is just an added danger to them to be locked in like that & if CPS found out it WOULD be an issue for those parents. If a child died in a house fire because they could not get out - the parents would be charged.