The two-year-old boy found wandering barefoot around Warilla on Tuesday was "on an adventure" after hatching an escape plan to break out from his Lake Illawarra home.
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The boy, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, was spotted by a member of the public walking alone on Woolworths Avenue around 7.15am.
He was wearing a blue t-shirt with a white dinosaur print and blue pyjama shorts with bulldogs and surfboards when a woman saw him walking near busy Shellharbour Road.
Lake Illawarra police Senior Constable Mark Scott said the boy was picked up and cared for as police door-knocked nearby homes looking for his family.
The boy had actually wandered more than a kilometre from his Lake Illawarra home, after putting a chair against the front door, climbing up, unlocking the door and stepping outside.
"He was full of beans when we found him. He was fine, happy as Larry," Snr Const Scott said.
"He was on an adventure. There was nothing sinister about it."
The boy was unable to tell police his name or address, only repeating "nanna" over and over, Snr Const Scott said.
The boy's grandmother was the one who noticed the boy's disappearance over two hours after he was found, calling police to report the boy as missing at 9.45am.
"We were door-knocking around where the boy was found, but he lived a kilometre away, so nobody in the area knew him," Snr Const Scott said.
The boy was reunited with his grandmother later on Tuesday morning.
