Little bear is chained up

Little bear has a safety gate across the door to his room. The odd layout of the landing and the house means that it is the only place it can go. He can now open this gate.

Dear heart was very sympathetic coming home to me in a state of complete nervous exhaustion, but on Saturday he witnessed first hand. Little bear would play with the cars upstairs (nice safe room full of toys) for a while but then he would utter 'downstairs' and I would next have him knocking on the door to the living room.

The hard part was the lack of nap. Little bear really still needs an afternoon nap or at least quiet time. From around Thursday he had not had this and he was exhausted! By 6pm he would be ricocheting off the walls because when he is tired he speeds up. The old plan of putting him in his safe, warm bedroom with his toys and letting him wind down for a nap didn't work, because before he reached 'nap' he was downstairs demanding dvds. All attempts to cajole him to nap on the sofa failed with an epic margin. All dvds were banned and classic fm was on. All sugar was banned. However little bear was refusing to sleep and refusing to slow down. If you had seen his pitiful, exhausted face you would have felt for him.

No matter what, no matter how desperate, little bear refused to go to his room for a nap. If placed there little bear would escape.

This is normal. What concerns me is that we have particularly steep stairs with no hand rail. And if there has been a slight lapse in concentration he could find the window on the top story of a four story house open. It is normally kept completely locked. I have moved all the chemicals I can find. I need to move the tools - I have just remembered them. And stash his presents elsewhere.

In short, it isn't safe for him to wander round upstairs. Even with all the precautions, the stairs are steep. We have never re-carpeted the perfectly sound carpet on the stairs but it is navy blue in an area without natural light (whoever chose that must have been insane!). I have dislocated three shoulders on those stairs (well, yes, one of the shoulders has been dislocated twice, but it hurts every time!)

So we bought a lock. It is a long cable which goes around the stair gate and locks into the piece fixed against the wall. But if you don't wrap it enough times round the gate little bear can open the gate, push it out a little way and squeeze through the gap. As he did 6am Sunday morning.

So poor little bear is kept chained in a safe warm room with his toys for over an hour in the afternoon and hopefully some calm will return.