bed time battles

meg1974

DD is usually pretty good at bed time. She does get up a lot with excuses to stay out of bed, but she is usually fine when we initially put her down.

For the last few nights, she has been fighting going to bed big time. Our routine includes books and singing. She tells me she doesn't want me to sing, but then when I leave the room she screams for me to come back and sing. Then, she repeats the whole process over again.

I guess I could try changing her routine, but I'm not sure what else to change it to.

Any advice? 

LoveEeyore

I went through this with DD#1.  I made an elaborate picture schedule.  On the poster, #s 1-5 wen down the left.  Then I had 5 pics along the bottom stuck on with Velcro and she would put them in the order she wanted to do them that night, and we followed it and I always kissed her and turned out the lights and left.

At first she balked a little trying to "change her mind" but I would keep going through sweetly and quickly despite protests.  It took 3-4 days for her to get that she has ALL the power, but it's up to her to enjoy.  She enjoyed it, the importance of ordering them, her telling me what we were doing, and likely knowing we were going to do all of her things. 

When she began to show an interest in reading, I switched the pics out one by one to words. 

Her 5 things were read a story, tell a story, dolls (a stacking doll hubby brought back from Russia), potty, and cars (a fine motor thing with little wooden cars she strung on a string- she liked counting them forward, backwards).

She always did well with picture schedules and rarely fought them.  We still use it for chores and sometimes the days activities. 

GOod luck!

Mrs.RockyM

We go through this nightly with DD1, she just doesn't want to go to bed and uses every excuse in the book to stall. She wants Daddy to tuck her in, but then when book is over and it's bedtime she's screaming for Mommy. It's a behavior, and you're playing into her game by letting her manipulate her. Just stand your ground and eventually she'll learn she can't get her way and she'll stop trying.

christinak22

My DD does things like this, too. I anticipate it by saying something like, "Okay, I'm not going to sing a song tonight because you don't want to. I'm going to go now. I love you." When she starts crying for a song after I've gotten up, I say, "You told me you didn't want a song, that's why we didn't sing one. We can sing one tomorrow night. I love you. Good night," and walk out. She doesn't do this often because she knows it doesn't work.