Bedtime Battles - Every.Night.

gregNamanda

My DS will be 3 at the end of April. We have been having bedtime issues with him for a few months. Is it a coincidence that it happened around the birth of our DD? Probably not. But we need some advice!

DS gets up and out of his toddler bed multiple times. He thinks of it as a game. If you tell him to get in bed he says no. If you take him to his bed he just gets back out. A friend advised us to pick him up and put him back in bed, say good night and leave. We do this and it takes forever - multiples times of this. It ends up escalating until he's screaming and crying - pretty much cries himself to sleep. It feels like CIO every night.

I try rubbing his back and softly singing songs but he gets silly and tries to play. On days that he doesn't nap he does better. Pretty much passes out. But there are days that he still naps (at home or at daycare).

So - can anyone offer some advice? What have you dealt with and what did you do? Thanks!

TiffanyBerry

The "no talking, just return them to their bed" approach will work, but you're right, it takes multiple times per night.  Basically, it *is* a game.  And it's one where your kid is trying to figure out what way they can manage to win.  If they get up 10 times, maybe?  20?  What if when they hear a particular noise?  Or if they get out of bed from the other side?  Or on one foot?  Or who knows what else!  And, by being 100% consistent, you are teaching them that there are NO exceptions to the rule "you have to stay in bed".  It could well end in crying for a while, if nothing else, out of frustration.

If you think he's crying out of something other than "I didn't get my way" frustration (even, imho, it's just him feeling like he needs your company), I might suggest what helped (over many months) with my daughter.  Once she started playing, instead of trying to sleep, when I stayed with her as she fell asleep (long history of co-sleeping here), I told her that if she started playing, I would leave for five minutes.  And if she did, I did.  

I tried to give her some concrete rules about what was ok and what wasn't.  She could talk, but it had to be a "bedtime voice", basically a whisper.  She could move, of course, but she had to stay laying down in some fashion, not sitting or crawling or trying to stand.  She couldn't kick the bed with her feet or with her hands. Sometimes, of course, it's a grey area, but I tried to be as black and white about this sort of thing as was realistic.

Every time she started playing, I left.  If she cried during that five minutes (and boy did she), I would, from outside the door, remind her that she had a certain number of minutes left (literally, "You have X minutes left.  Please try to go to sleep.").  When the time was up, quiet or not, I would go back in and lay with her again, until she started playing.

Over time, I gradually shifted this to being out longer.  Then to only coming back in three times.  Then to only coming back in if she called me after that length of time and only a total of three times.

Long process, but it was something that has been working for us. 

Leap08

We had a similar issue with DD1. It also started shortly after her sister was born and it went on for a long time. I tried the same strategy you mentioned, and it didn't work. I think the whole thing was a big game to her. I was starting to get kind of desperate. A few months before she turned 3 we tried a sticker chart. In order to get a sticker she had to stay in her bed at bedtime. If she got up, we put a black mark on her chart instead of a sticker. Getting a black mark really, really bothered her. After 5 stickers she got a prize and we started a new sheet.  For the next sheet she had to get 5 stickers in a row. After that we increased the number of stickers in a row to 10 and then 20. My daughter is in love with Disney princesses, so we used a princess doll as her prize and she earned princess stickers. I think that helped a lot with motivation. She really wanted that princess doll. If you can think of some kind of prize that would motivate your son, I'd give this a try. My daughter rarely gets out of bed at bedtime now, and it's so nice to have our peaceful evenings back.

twirlyjack73

There's a chapter on this in Healthy Sleep Habits...book, if you still have your baby sleep books read them.  I just re-read mine for LO#2 & was surprised at all the info for older children. 

LoCarb

As a final resort we ended up doing this...bribe/reward. DD was always asking for us to buy her this or that. We decided we would give her an allowance of $1/day to feed the dogs and go to bed at night w/ no issues. It worked very well. And DD wakes up so proud she slept in bed all by herself w/o getting up once. After a few weeks, we let her cash in her money and buy something she wanted. We no longer have to give her money for the bedtime routine. I do remember H saying this is working like a charm and he wouldn' t mind paying her $352/yr to a decent nights sleep.