I gave my parents a godawful scare as a five year old when I escaped from my grandmother’s house and went to my aunt’s house five blocks away.

I would not want to parent myself. Good kid, generally, so you let your guard down, but when I did go wild it was stuff like that.

Edit: 1970s, no cell phones. Still have a great sense of direction.

Check out a lock like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07DR9CMGZ

Mount it near the top of the door, out of reach of the small escape artist.

I had exactly the same problem and this solved it.

Thanks for the tip. I just ordered some. I'm worried this style won't work for my front door, unless I can mount it above the door. I have a fiberglass double door...

Using two of these between the levers for now: https://www.amazon.com/U-Shaped-Proofing-Cabinets-Adjustable...

Other options involve drilling into the door face which I'm not keen on...

Also, I ordered some of these too https://www.snappower.com/pages/huglock

You could just install one of those chain things so the door won’t open more than inch. The toddler isn’t tall enough to reach it. There’s non chain ones too, you see them in hotels, a little metal thing you flap open.

Thanks. The front door is a wood grain textured fiberglass double door, so I want to avoid drilling into the door face. It's an interesting challenge.

Trying two of these between the levers for now: https://www.amazon.com/U-Shaped-Proofing-Cabinets-Adjustable...

Plus, I found this, hoping it will work for me without too much damage to the door: https://www.snappower.com/pages/huglock

That would certainly be an easy off-the-shelf solution... Although if the door opens a crack, that also means a reckless toddler (is there any other kind?) could slam it on their own fingers.

There are some which are just hinged metal that can lock at a right-angle, one of those would give tighter no-finger-gap tolerances, while also being structurally weaker in case of emergency.

Yep, those thingies. They're also easier to remove afterwards without too much door-scarring, since the contact-portion is on the inside frame.

I have this problem, but I just lock the front door.

You're fortunate! Deadbolts are no match for our 22 month old... He already figured out how to disarm three types of safety latches, and he's halfway to opening the safety gates.

I don't want to show him too much television, but it's the only thing that keeps him in one place