OK ladies my husband and are at our last straw with our oldest daughter, she is 3.5. Everynight getting her to stay in her bed is a fight. She is always getting out of bed for any and everything you can think of. The samething for ther nap, which I know she is getting older, and naps are going to be going away. However if she misses the nap then late afternoon and early evenings are not fun.
I am looking for any advise on how we can resolve the issue.
1st I'd say, just bring her right back to bed, but do NOT, under any circumstances, engage her in any conversation. Act like a robot. She is looking for a response from you. Don't give it to her.
2nd, my youngest would get out of bed in the middle of the night, but he wasn't "awake". I couldn't fix it because he wasn't aware he was doing it. So I gated the door. I hated to do it but it was the 1st decent night's sleep in 5 yrs.
Gates are a life saver, and swift and strict punishment for breaking rules.
K. B
mom to 5 including triplets
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Make sure her room is safe and gate the door. If she screams herself to sleep, she screams. She needs to learn to stay in bed. If you are the sticker-system type, you could set up a sticker chart for nights that she does stay in bed. I'm a big fan of Ferber's Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems, if you're a reader.
I saw this on supernanny a year or two ago.... now granted this takes some patience and persistence on your part but it worked amazingly!!!!!!
I think it was the post below me that said something about acting like a robot....which is basically what you should do. Just keep putting her back in the bed - dont be angry or show emotion - just tell her she must go to bed - its bedtime and put her back in the bed. Just keep doing it over and over and over and over as many times as she gets out of bed - you put her back.
The couple on tv had this problem all thru the night and they were exhausted the first few nights but after a few days their persistance paid off and it worked!!!!!!
As for the nap....hate to say this but agree with the others - probably time to drop it - she is most likely not tired when you put her down at night.
We have 3 year old twins... and its TORTURE not having the nap anymore - i miss that time - but they are now in bed every single night - and we are finished and back downstairs by 8pm.
Good Luck to you!!!!
This may not be the answer you want to hear but it worked for us with our now 4 year old. She didn't want to stay in bed either so we got a baby gate that she couldn't open. She got 2 chances to get up and go to the bathroom,her favorite reason to be out of bed because she knew we weren't going to say she can't use the bathroom. After 2 times we put up the gate. The lights had to be off but she didn't actually have to stay in bed. At first she would play in the dark and yes I found her asleep on her bedroom floor a few times but most of the time she got bored and went to bed. We no longer have the problem but we've kept that gate just in case. :) Oh and nap time went out the window once she started refusing to lay down. It just wasn't worth the battle to me and she didn't seem to need it.
I had the same problem with my 2 1/2 year old. Every time he would get out of bed I would put him right back in there. This could go on for hours. We turned the door knob around so it locks from the outside, but he shares a room with his brothers and he would start screaming when we shut the door. Finally, I tried the gate in his doorway. That worked. Now he says don't put the gate up and I give him one try and if he gets up I put the gate back up. Hope that works.
Hi, D.:
Why is your daughter giving you such a fight at bedtime?
Just want to know. D.
Giving up on the naps might help with bed time...I agree with the one poster who mentioned turning nap time to quiet time. I did that with my children too. It also helps them learn to keep themselves amused and stimulates their creativity. I didn't allow any electronics etc..it was truely quiet time, they had to play or read in their rooms.
You may want to try telling her to stay in bed that you will be back in a few minutes to check on her...let her know you are coming back. Then each night make those times a little longer between checking on her. This might help I did this with mine when she thought she couldnt' go to sleep by herself.
Keep it up...you will work it out.
Get the Book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Weissbluth. In it he suggest a SLEEP RULES poster that the child helps decorate and little prizes for following the rules. At Bedtime we 1) stay in bed 2 ) close our eyes ...etc. The child can help decorate the poster and make it very special. You read the rules out loud from the poster before bedtime and naptime. It worked well for us.
Getting up at night is a hard one, but being consistent is the best. It is hard when your tired. I find with the nap that if my child happens to rest on the couch with the tv on, he will fall asleep. If it happens later in the afternoon, I just let him sleep for an hour, no more. You would be surprised, a lot of kids even with a short nap at that time will still go to bed at the normal time at night. Kids over tired have a hard time falling asleep sometimes also. good luck.
D.,
Some days you may lose the nap battle and you can have an earlier bedtime that night--uh---except that bedtimes are a nightmare too! LOL
Does she have a CD player in her room? Would she lie in bed and listen to music or a story CD? What if you tell her she does not have to go to sleep but must stay in her bed with a soft light and look at a few books or play with stuffed animals? Maybe allow O. request per night--make sure she pees, has a snack, etc and if she asks for a drink of water--OK.
We used to have to keep a gate at our son's doorway (his room was at the top of the steps and I was always worried about him walking out and falling!) Do you think a gate would be a little like a "closed door" and encourage her to stay in her room?
Reward for O. weeks worth of good bedtimes?
She just needs to have something that gets her in that groove/routine.....
Good luck!
It may be possible that she is seeking your attention. She gets out of bed, you try to get her back in bed, etc. This could be a continuous cycle that she has come to expect and even want.
Anyway, all three of my kids would get out of bed when I first moved them from crib to bed. At first, with my oldest, I did this battle with her, just like you are. Like you, I was at my wits end with her. So, one day I finally decided that if she wants to get out of bed, fine. But, she will stay in her room. When she was tired enough, she would fall asleep where ever she was in the room, for her it was usually in the closet. After I was sure that she was asleep, I went back in, picked her up and put her back in her bed. She would then stay there the rest of the night. After awhile, probably several months, she started to stay in bed on her own. Luckily for me, when my kids went through this stage, they weren't old enough to be able to open the door on their own so I didn't need to put up a gate. However, since your son is older then my kids were, you may need a gate to keep him in his room if he knows how to open his door.
For my oldest, it was this way for naps too. However, all three of my kids were done with afternoon naps by the time they reached 2 years old. When they got to the point that they didn't want to sleep, the nap time turned into quiet time. They were still put in their rooms just like nap time, but they didn't have to sleep if they didn't want to. The could play with their toys, look at books, etc. Just as long as they stayed in their rooms for the quiet time, which for my kids was one hour. It was usually enough down time to re-energize them for the rest of the day.
I hope this helps. Good Luck!
I too would drop the nap. When I started dropping my 3 yo nap she went to bed soooo much better. She is 4 now and still occasionally has quiet time in her bed, but it was just so much easier to drop the nap and have an easier time in bed. You do need to make bedtime earlier tho. My daughter also started sleeping longer at night after dropping her nap. It took about a week or two before it all fell into place and she started going to bed easily and sleeping better and longer as she was used to the fight, but then it got so much easier it was worth it.
We also used a gate for our kids. With our daughter, she would ask not to put the gate up, we would give her a chance and if she got up, then the gate when up. Believe it or not, we went through a period where we had to put one gate on top of the other in the doorway when she was climbing over the one gate! She got very upset with two gates! It didn't take long to go from two gates to no gate!
