Please help! Toddler not staying in bed

[IAteTheCake]

DD aged 2 is not staying in her bed at night. She has a toddler bed, a good bedtime routine, blackout blinds, loves having a pillow and duvet now, but will not stay in bed. First week was fine. Second week she woke up and got up to find me hourly, last 2 weeks = 4 x a night. I have tried bribery, a glo clock (too young maybe?), if I use a stairgate on the room she just screams and shouts and no-one gets any sleep. I have been consistent with taking her back to bed and she does go back to sleep, but won't stay there for more than 2-3 hours. She is happy, chatty and fine normally. I am at my wits end, lack of sleep is making me and DH bicker, I'm still working full time, i am 25 weeks pregnant, and I just want DD to settle. Any tips please?

No tips but I feel your pain. DD1 went into a bed about 20 months because she broke her arm climbing out of the cot and she did this for weeks. We did have a stairgate but she just cried and screamed and then worked out how to open it. I think the advice we found was just to do what you're doing, not engage, take her back to bed over and over again, say the same each time so she's not getting much reward from the situation etc. It sounds very hard though because of the work and being pg. Can you alternate nights with your DP, or do 'shifts' so you each take a specified part of the night?

What worked for me was taking straight back to bed, no talking, no eye contact (not easy, but I used to look at their hair instead!). Rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat. The most important bit is not engaging, just calmly taking back to bed, tucking in and kiss goodnight. You know what toddlers are like for engaging, once you start you find yourself drawn into a conversation about why the sky is blue...

We ended up sleeping in DS's room while he did this. He settled down in the end.

We put ours in a bed last week and he's come out just once so I'm hoping for the best. I empathise with you! Not fun at all when you're half way through pregnancy. I remember watching Jo Frost's technique which pretty much reflects what SingingSands says: keep putting back in bed, not talk, not eye contact etc. Even if yoy have to do it 100 times. You'll crack it in a couple of days at most. Suggestion is that it's attention-seeking/cause and effect stuff so if you don't give an interesting reaction she'll stop doing it!

Took me a (tiring) month of no talking returning to bed up to 30 times a night with stairgate on room but was well worth persisting with

DS is exactly the same! He is 2.7
Since he went into a toddler bed he is up all hours of the night

I've been returning him to bed for the past 3 months and he is still up (last night 3 times) but it has been upto 8 times a night

It's such a shock to the system as in his cot he would sleep 7-7 without fail

Couple this with having a 15wk old baby = no sleep at all