BedTime struggles

cdp2221

My daughter is 3 years old and has been struggling at bedtime lately. She complains that she does not like her room or her bed. To try to make her "like" her bed again we bought some new Frozen sheets for her. She was excited about the sheets but she still fought against bedtime.  Previously she had been great at bedtime, even welcomed it. At bedtime we will bring her to her room, tell her her bedtime story and say goodnight. She will then come upstairs a few times and we have to bring her back down. She gets upset and cries and says she doesn't want to be in her room. Once she falls asleep, she will sleep until about 3 am - 4 am then wanders upstairs and crawls into bed with us for the remainder of the night. Has anyone else experienced this I don't want to scold her for crawling into bed with us as I know it will end in a battle or will make her feel bad and she goes right to sleep when she climbs in. However, I want her to be able to stay in her own bed all night as she had previously done.   Thank you!

Bigboobsmcgee

Can you close her door? Put a baby gate in the door way so she can't leave her room?

Do you actually sit down and discuss this with her or tell her that she HAS to stay in her room and in her bed? The more you let her in your bed, the more she will continue to think this is ok. You have to be consistent and you probably will have some tough nights but without consistency, nothing will change.

cdp2221

Her door is always shut when we put her down. She would crawl over the baby gate. Little monkey. Yes - we have had numerous discussions about why sleeping is important and how her bed and her room is special and whatnot. I think you are right, even though it will be tough (we have a 3 month old too), I think I will just have to send her back down to bed when she crawls in. Oh, the joys!

Bigboobsmcgee

cdp2221 said:

Her door is always shut when we put her down. She would crawl over the baby gate. Little monkey. Yes - we have had numerous discussions about why sleeping is important and how her bed and her room is special and whatnot. I think you are right, even though it will be tough (we have a 3 month old too), I think I will just have to send her back down to bed when she crawls in. Oh, the joys!

I have a 3 year old and a 4 month old so I get it. It's hard to have to devote time to "re-train" your toddler when you have your hands full with a baby BUT I think you sort of have to in this case. My son has rebelled in different areas now that the baby is here so we just dedicate ourselves to helping him get back on track and consistency is so very important!