My first child never figured out how to get out of her crib.  Ever.  Either she was risk averse and didn’t fancy a nasty fall to the floor below or she wasn’t as clever as other children.  When my sister in law told me about crib tents, I only half listened.  After all, my child was well behaved and sensible.  She stayed in her crib all night.   And so I had the luxury of dismissing crib tents as being vaguely barbaric, in line with those leashes you sometimes see on children in airports.  “It sounds like a cage,” I remember telling a friend.  Fast forward four years, and I’ve got a set of twins on my hands.  One docile, loving, sweet and cautious.  The other, oh, the other.  The other will leap from countertops, throw herself into swimming pools, run with scissors, pocket knives and, if she could get her hands on them, fireworks.   She has, in the last week, smeared yogurt on a cat, stood on glass shelving, put jello into my shoes and, in a particularly impressive Houdini manouver, managed to free herself from her duct taped diaper (which she takes off when dirty).   The first time she got out of her crib and toddled down the hall into my bedroom, I thought, oh how cute and amusing.  The fifth time, it was less adorable.  And so I remembered the crib tent.

Near as I can tell, crib tents are only made by one manufacturer, Tots In Mind, who make the The Cozy Crib Tent II.  I think they have some kind of monopoly, or patent, because they aren’t terribly well made and yet they don’t seem to improve in quality much.  I’m on my third (broken zips seem to be a common problem along with tears in the nylon during installation.  I’ve installed several, all with some degree of tearing, so I know it’s not a fluke.  Here’s the thing though, in general they work.  The tent is made of netting with a structure very like a real tent, with poles that hold the thing up.  Even a tall child can still stand up fully, but can’t (and here is the wonderful part) get out.  That’s the theory anyway.   Remember I’ve been through three of these.  The first, the zipper broke because she managed to wiggle her fingers in a gap at the end of the tent and use that gap to push the zipper open.  The second, she pulled off all the velcro tabs and slipped underneath.  This doesn’t happen with the latest crib tents - The Cozy Crib Tent II which has webbing all around the insides of the crib (see picture).  The third one, with the new wrap around webbing, is working quite well, and strangely enough, she likes it, even helping to zip herself in at night.  Normally I would give a product that broke this routinely two stars, but the thing is, I can’t live without it.  Even if I’ve bought three crib tents, it’s worth her not getting out of her crib and (as she is liable to do) walking down the stairs, out the front door, and hitching a ride to Canada.