Nickel Bed Tent makes our family’s short list of special needs gear that’s actually worth buying

If you’re anti behavior blocking and die hard teaching the behavior you want to see instead…

then you’ll probably wanna stop reading this post.  Right about now.

Seriously.

Just click away from the page.

Because I’m about to drive you bonkers!  And if you keep reading, and then feel compelled to correct educate me in the comments section…you’ll drive ME bonkers!  That’s my fair warning that this entire post will be singing the “block the behavior” praises of my newest special needs mommy gear love – The Nickel Bed Tent!

Hear my pom poms flapping?!  I just LOVE this thing!

See, after our last Topomax decrease, it was like Trevy stepped out of the fog.  With each decrease prior, we’d seen speech growth.  But suddenly he was discovering and trying (way too many) new things!

Life with Trevy is a unique balance and when the balance tips everything goes to pot until we regain our footing.

A couple of the most…um…classic tricks he learned include…

flushing random junk down the toilet.  The bigger the better.  And that’s totally not sarcasm.  The bigger the object the less likely it’ll actually make it down our pipes!  We only have one bathroom, people.  You’d better believe I’m blockin’ that behavior!  Thank God I still had some door safety thingamabobs in the closet.

Then he figured out how to unlock the front gate.  It took some imagination on our part to out smart him on that one.  I’ll have to write a post about that soon too.  I thought it might be time to trade in the pooch for a real service dog upgrade!

And suddenly he was Houdini at night.  The baby gate that had held him captive in his bed for the last two years lost it’s magic power overnight.  Once he learned how to climb over the gate…he literally could not relax in his bed.  It was a HUGE battle.  And while I’m actually a fan of teaching appropriate behavior…I’m also a fan of SLEEP!  I’m a much better behavior teacher when I’m well rested.  I couldn’t sleep (not a wink) knowing that Trevor could and would climb out of his bed in the middle of the night.  And he couldn’t sleep (for long) knowing that there was so much to explore.  It really doesn’t take a wild imagination to visualize all sorts of havoc Trevy on the loose in the middle of the night could wreak! 

It was all about blocking that behavior, baby!

Which is why we finally bought a special bed. 

I’ve had my eye on the Nickel Bed Tent for the last year and a half. 

We hesitated because the gate was working and also…I just wasn’t sure.  I mean, it looked cute in the pictures and all.  But would it be too small?  Could he figure out how to unzip himself?  I bet it’s stifling inside there?

I had lots of wasi wasi, as we say in Swahili.

Trevy learning how to climb outta his bed disrupted our balance in a big way.  And it was time to set aside the questions and just buy the thing!

I love how cute the colors are.  Very boyish.  They also have a girl’s color palette as well.

It fits a twin sized bed.  He was on a crib mattress before, which means it’s much easier to climb into bed and read stories with him now!  He loooooves reading books with mommy!  Especially in bed.  There’s just something about being all snugged up in bed with a book.

It is totally NOT stifling! 

There are three zippered screen openings.  One on each side and one on an end.  Plus a non-zippered screen on the back side and across the top.  Lots of airflow.

To prevent clever little adventure seekers from escaping, you can use book rings on the zippers.  We learned quickly to clip the small inner circles (see picture below for example) together rather than the big outer ones.  When we clipped the big circles, Trevy was able to separate the two zippers enough to then pull the zippers into the tent.  He even figured out how to open the book ring! 

Trevy immediately loved the tent!  Honestly, so did his sister.  She’s begging us to buy her one too!

Because he loved it, I didn’t really need to try and cozy it up.  But I wanted to anyway.  We bought new dinosaur sheets from Target.  His favorite book right now is Sammy and the Dinosaurs and we needed twin sheets for him anyways.  I put some favorite books at the end and a few safe soft toys to play with.  Although Trevy being the funny guy he is, will often evict toys for no reason at all.  He’s currently holding a grudge against sock monkey and kicks him out whenever he finds him in there! 

Trevy is a social creature.  A monkey, by nature.  So he doesn’t spend lots of time alone in his bed.  But if one of his family members wants to snuggle up with the iPad or books to read…he’ll stay there for a good 15 minutes without getting bored!

We haven’t purchased many adaptive things.  Mostly, because I’m a cynic.  I think people create stuff and then label it special needs so they can jack the price!  The Nickel Bed Tent (btw…they have no idea I’m writing this review!) is on our short list of things we recommend other SN families consider purchasing.  At just $159.99, it’s affordable AND everybody’s sleeping at night again!

Most importantly, Trevy gives his big boy bed two thumbs up too!

…danielle