Tell us your bedtime battles for a chance to win a copy of the sleep-inducing Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep plus £100 worth of Ladybird books

[UrsulaMumsnet]

Do you struggle with getting your child to fall asleep? Parents all over the world have embraced a new, ground-breaking book – The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep. This No.1 bestseller turns nightly bedtime battles into a calm and affectionate end-of-day ritual, using unique and distinct language patterns and relaxation techniques that will help your child relax and fall asleep at bedtime or naptime.

Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin is a Swedish teacher of communications, a life coach and a leadership trainer. He has combined all of these skills and experiences in developing the techniques in this book.

Share your bedtime battles for a chance to win a copy of The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep plus £100 worth of children’s bedtime books. You can also enter the competition if you’ve tried the book; let us know if it worked for you and if you would recommend it to other parents.

1 lucky Mumsnetter will win a copy of the book, plus £100 worth of bedtime books by Ladybird and 9 runners up will win a copy of the book

Our bloggers test and review the book:

If you don't manage to get a free copy, don't worry, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep is available now in eBook and will be available in paperback and audio on 2nd October. The audio version will allow you to choose between a male and female narrator. Find out more and buy

This giveaway is sponsored by Penguin

[WowOoo]

My son used to get back out of bed and say he needed the toilet, a cuddly toy, wanted some water, another cuddle etc etc....

Now, I go through a list of things to make sure he is entirely happy. It usually works until he thinks of a new one.

When he went through a phase of fretting before bed I bought him a worry doll to out under his pillow. He still uses it. Great things!

A lovely book and cuddles before all this also of course.

[InAndOfMyself]

My battle is that my DC share a room and boy do they egg each other on! They are great friends and rarely want to go to sleep at bedtime. We have our bath/read story routine but they just want to play.

[pennwood]

Amelia has a set bedtime routine but has a list of excuses for not settling down. Need the toilet, another story, too hot, too cold, not tired & the list goes on so would love to try this book & see what effect it would have.

[cathisherwood]

When I was little I used to keep my dad by my bed explaining complicated questions like 'how they make glass clear when they use sand to make it' My mother would be repeatedly calling for dad to go downstairs but I had an endless list of questions and she would eventually be forced to come and drag him away!

[lottietiger]

Ours is similar.. He is happy to go to bed but once there it will be..can I have a drink of water..no not in that cup..or that one, the green one. Or will ask for milk that he know he can't have at bedtime..or another story..or Elmo or IgglePiggle or Snowdog.. The list goes on :)

[Hygellig]

We tried the Rabbit book, but found it of no help whatsoever. DD did like it, but it didn't help her sleep, even though it was (for me) deathly boring.
Maybe it would work if a professional actor read it in a very somnolent voice.

DD is a real pain at bedtime! She always wants something to put off going to bed - warm milk, more food or a particular toy that I can't find. DS, on the other hand, is much easier; he'll have a chat in bed and then fall asleep.

[AGrinWithoutACat]

DD1 had the routine of story, hugs/kisses good night etc which I would then repeat with DS, to then have to go back to DD and choose her a teddy (not that one, you chose that one yesterday!) and tuck teddy into bed with a goodnight kiss too. The if DH had the mid timing to come in from work during this routine he had to repeat as well before she would settle down. I kept myself sane by repeating to myself constantly that I would miss it when it stopped - and I do!

[nannyt]

Could do with this when I babysit my grandchildren lol. They are little monkeys so I need all the help I can get. Love them to bits though .

[Emrob86]

My daughter is nearly two and has only recently started going to bed before 9 most nights. She used to be up until 11 so that's an improvement. She still takes a long time to settle though and always needs me with her and preferably wants to fall asleep ON me. She never falls asleep on her own in her own bed.

She wakes in the middle of the night/early hours in the morning and wants to come in to our bed where she continues to sleep.

She's got no idea how to settle herself and we are very tired. :P Would love to see if this book could help her.

[leanneth]

From a very young age (less than a week old!) we used a routine for both of my children. It helped them and us know where we were up to, when we could expect them to need a sleep etc. the routine definitely made bedtimes easier than it could have been- although dd1 has had a few nights recently where he has been unhappy going to bed- teeth have got a lot to answer for!!
Also, dd1 likes a lot of soft toys in her bed, which I didn't think I'd ever let her do but I have given in!

[IStoleATimeLordAndIRanAway]

I'm constantly getting told off by DH for making 21 month old DD laugh and "get too excited" whilst reading her bedtime story.
We've read Say Hello To The Snowy Animals every single night since 6 weeks old and I still get far too carried away swish swashing like a whale or thump thumping like an arctic hare.
Maybe it's time for a calmer book?

[midi1975]

We have cuddles, a story and SONGS! The songs really seem to calm them down and when I leave the room I can hear them singing to each other, unless they have already fallen asleep! It's worth trying the singing.

[Lent1l]

I have the issue that our 3.5 yr old and 16 month old now share a room. We manage to get the youngest queit and settled and suddenly our oldest needs a wee/some water/ahug/a kiss/can you make my sister quiet and go to sleep? Well that would be easier if eldest wasn't asking for so many things after she's had a story and is in bed.

[MrsRedWhite214]

It worked for me the first night and it was amazing. He never falls aslee when I'm reading a book. I tried it again when he was in a bit of a hyper mood and it had no effect at all. I guess they still need to be ready for it.

[Clawdy]

DD found it difficult to sleep when she was about three,mainly because she was anxious and uneasy about being on her own in her bedroom. What worked for us was pretending she was inside a "circle of love", and drawing an imaginary circle around her when she was tucked up in bed. She's quite grown-up now! but says she remembers that made her feel safe.

[Valski]

Hi,

I have yet to try the book on my 3 and 6 year olds, but I did download the audio version of this on Audible.co.uk for my sister who is 36, has OCD and depression and often has problems sleeping. It has transformed her sleep patterns. The audio narration of this is superb, low, peaceful tones, a calm full voice, getting slower in parts. She has since passed the audio onto another friend of hers who also has similar problems with panic attacks and they both find it calming and sleep inducing with your muscles relaxing, laid down, now cramped in a chair, in the dark.. Only a couple of occasions when my sister has stayed awake for the whole 30 min narration.

When I introduce this with my two girls, I am going to do partly through the book and partly through the audio, so that they can appreciate both.

Love Rachel xx

[daimbardiva]

I always ask my 3 year old if she has a joke to tell me once she's tucked up - invariably her jokes are so convoluted and rambling that she's almost asleep before she's even got to the end!!!

[katiewalters]

My daughter sometimes won't go to sleep unless I stay with her in her room. She will try and get you to read lots of books, and if I leave the room she cries and shouts for me. She shares a room with her sibling who goes to school, so it's hard to just let her cry it out

[lolapops1]

Bedtime nightmare,Won't go to sleep unless I am there. Getting a bit better but trying to get kids to sleep all night aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhh!!!

[sealight123]

When we put my daughter to bed we have to be silent in the house until she is fully asleep. Any noise, a whisper, a creak of the floorboard...ANYTHING!?! She thunders out of her room exclaiming that we are keeping her awake ad we then have to do the bed tucking, kisses and cuddles all over again.

When we had the baby gate on her door she used to get toys and rattle them against it like a prisoner rattling a cup against the bars lol

She is normally OK for bedtime now...until you get to night where mummy and daddy are especially exhausted.. then she doesn't want to sleep lol

[blogmumjd]

Any excuse possible at bedtime. Son2 usually comes back down asking for warm milk half an hour later

[starlight36]

We have finally trained our 4 year old to have stories from either Mummy or Daddy tucked up in her bed and she goes to sleep with relatively little fuss - once we've successfully navigated various delays into getting her pyjamas on and a proper teeth clean. Our two year old is much trickier. He has always taken a long time to calm down in the evenings and needs at least four stories to aid the transition - grudgingly he will allow Daddy to read one or two of these but he won't go to sleep unless Mummy hugs him to sleep. On the rare occasions I'm not there at bedtime he will be distraught and ends up sobbing himself to sleep. Once asleep he is generally good but we'd love him to be less reliant on needing my help to get to sleep.

[CheeseEMouse]

Recently my 2 year old daughter has taken to singing VERY loudly and chucking all her toys, her duvet and her pyjama bottoms out the bed. It's very hard not to laugh at how silly she is being - especially when she is so tired. My husband and I have resorted to some poor quality parent acting and tell her toy sheep off for causing the chaos. She normally finds this amusing and then settles down. We do try a calming bed time, but she somehow gets a second wind!

[HitsAndMrs]

Cuddles, teddies and baby lullabies. When it works it's heaven.. When it doesn't my heart breaks a tiny little bit.

[Trinpy]

Same as pp, my ds will wake up if an ant happens to creep past his bedroom window (but will sleep through the smoke alarm?!) so dh and I spend our evenings tiptoeing around the house silently resenting each other for breathing too loudly.