Staying in Bedroom

My 3 year old HATES it when I threaten with the baby gate...it's a horrible thing in this house. We have always had sleep troubles and troubles with her staying in her own bed. When I was 5 months pg, I had enough. That girl fought us for 3 HOURS! She was relentless! Be glad yours only did 30 minutes! Dh and I were a mess, I was in tears all night. Thankfully though, it was only one night of pure hell. Now she sleep great in her own bed.

Our daughter just turned three and we still put a gate at her door way each night and probably will for awhile. #1 she likes her door open at night when she goes to sleep, but we like to keep the dog out of her room. #2 to keep her from waking and roaming during the night. #3 one of the cats likes to sleep in her room, so he can come and go. #4 if she wakes before us in the AM, she will be confined to her room and call for us.
For us, it's really more of a safety issue. I know your 4 year old will probably not like a gate by her door if she's not used to it, but maybe she's agree to keep the little one. Or get a gate that your 4 year old can open and close.
C.

Hi J., I had the same problem with my now 5 year old. We had started the movie thing, and let her watch movies but that didn't seem to work. So we bought her a cd player and put the cd on repeat,so that if she woke up even the littlest bit, she heard the music and went back to sleep. I think that when she would wake up and come into our bed she heard a noise and that was her excuse to come in. The music drowned out the noise and kept her in her bed. I hope that that helps! Good luck,K.

The gate idea would work, or you can cut the door in half and shut the bottom half at night. That way your older daughter can still get out to the potty if she needs to.
I definitely wouldn't have the tv in their room though because you don't want them to get used to having to be stimulated to go to sleep. They should learn how to go to sleep on their own. My kids have a cd player and a night light that get turned off when they are asleep. They also have an air purifier so that they have that white noise to keep from waking up so much.
I'm sure she'll get used to being in there if you are just persistent and keep putting her back. Don't give in though because just one time of letting her come out and stay out will spoil her and you'll have to start all over. I learned that one the hard way :o)
Good luck,
J.

When we converted our 18 month old into her toddler bed we tried a bunch of stuff and what we went with when she was 20-22 months is shutting her in her room and putting a child door knob cover on the handle so she couldn't open the door. At 24 months we were able to leave the door open. I'm not sure how we got to that point but we say that we'll leave the door open so the cats can visit her and she stayed in her room. She does however, come out and climb in out bed in the am hours but at least the beginning is going well.

Hi J.
I also have the same problem with 2 boys. I have a 2 year old and a 3 1/2 year old with bunk beds and I can not keep my 2 year old in bed for naptime. He is on the bottom. I have tried holding him down lovingly to calm him down and it sometimes works but gets him upset as well as myself. If I stayed in bed with him long enough, he would probably fall asleep but I don't have the time or energy to do that with my other baby. I am almost to the point where I am accepting that naptime is done for him. I don't have a problem at bedtime at night however...just naptime. The only way I can get him to nap is to rock him to sleep and I don't want to get into that habit. I am not ready for naps to be over yet. I also have a 5 month old daughter so anytime I can get a quite break is good. I wish I could offer more help. I am in your same boat.

I use a gate in the doorway of our sons room. We got one at Babies R Us that is a plastic clear front so that he does not feel like he is an animal in a cage and also so that he cannot climb it. It works great!