To want to start a "bad behaviour" chart?

[HandMini]

My nearly 4 yo will not stay in bed in the evening. He bounds up multiple times for water/the loo/too hot/too cold/my tummy hurts etc etc etc.

I am getting thoroughly irritated by it.

We did try "you get a sticker if you go to bed properly and dont get up" but it sort of waned because in the morning when I handed out the sticker he'd pretty much forgotten whether or not he'd been a pain the night before. I think he still has a need for instant punishment / instant reward.

So last night, as I got the tenth visit of the evening I wondered if It would be terrible parenting to put a mark on a sheet every time he gets up and say "look, you got out of bed 8 times last night, are you going to do better tonight" sort of thing...

Anyway, any thoughts on this gratefully received.

Thanks ladies (and indeed gents if any of you are). We started a "sticker snake" tonight. Ten stickers fills up the snake = one present. He's been out of bed once so far....I guess that means no sticker in the morning. But it's a massive improvement on 8 times.

We bought dd(4) a small cd player and some story cds, she now stays in bed listening to them and normally falls asleep before the story is finished.

At our home, DCs stay in bed or the nightlight is switched off. I've only rarely carried out this threat, but just mentioning it seems to work (mostly).

When ours started doing this we just picked them up without uttering a word, no eye contact or interaction with them at all, took them upstairs and put them back into bed and went back downstairs.
It took TWO nights and the problem disappeared.
It is VERY important not to even acknowledge them though as they are looking for attention. No speaking to them, looking them in the eye, no stomping or letting on that you are at all irritated despite the fact it's the 33rd time you've returned them to bed in the last hour .... Nothing!
Try it.

Thanks again for more replies. I like having a stack of back up plans!! PinPon - that would be a drastic action in this house but I agree with you that it wild be effective! Marina - I agree, we'd just reached the stage where that wasn't working. We're on day 2 of a 10 day sticker chart....hopefully it will break the habit as a PP suggested.

Our Night 2 went well. When he started playing up I reminded him there would be no marble in the jar and he went to sleep!