Getting 3.5yr DS to stay in his own bed?!

[ladypop]

Out DS goes to bed well and we generally have no problems settling him, however he has developed a habit of coming into our room anytime from 11 pm onwards and just getting into bed. For the first few weeks we were consistently getting him up and back into his own bed, even if it was a few times each night. I now have a 5 week old baby and for the past few weeks we have just let him stay in bed as I simply didn't have the energy to be getting up etc in between the night feeds as they were, of course out of sync with each other!! Anyway, we made the decision to get back on track last night, but he went ballistic and woke baby up etc..... He did eventually settle back in his own room, only to get up and come in at 5am, ready for the day :/......again, totally out of sync with babies feeding/sleeping. We bought a Gro clock a few months back to tackle the early morning waking which did have an effect for a while but now it makes no difference at all! Just looking for any suggestions really as night times with newborn are hard enough without this as well! X

Sounds like he is a bit unsettled with the new baby. Whatever you had done prior to dc2 birth will have been disrupted by that. Give him a bit of time to adjust then start again. Decide what you are going to do and see it through. Friends have used the sleep fairy method (or sleep pirate or whatever works for a boy) where you tell the kid if they stay in bed all night the sleep fairy will leave a small reward in the morning - you get the idea. Or you could do a sticker chart to earn a reward after a week or however long you think is appropriate.
What you need to remember though is that this behaviour may just be about him wanting to be close to you because the baby is. 3.5 is still very little.
Dd1 gets in my bed still sometimes. She is mostly a brilliant sleeper and goes months sometimes without ever leaving her bed at night but every now and then she turns up if she's feeling ill/had a nightmare/can't get back to sleep. It's v normal IMO

Though if it helps if dd1 does get in bed with me I'm super strict that she either a goes to sleep imediately or she's back in her room. I need my sleep too

No tips I'm afraid but you have my sympathies-Our 4.5 yr DD is the same, goes off to sleep well and always climbs into bed with us sometime during the night. Interestingly we were on holiday last week, she shared a room with Granny and didn't get out of bed once in the night, she said it was having a grown up in the room that helped. We also tried a similar clock but she worked out how to make it "wake up" on the second night. We've even resorted to bribery but that hasn't helped either. I'm hoping that when she starts school she might sleep through the night, apparently that's what worked for DH.

Mmm, when DS stayed at my moms last week he slept solidly all night in his own bed in his own room! Although I was happy he had a settled night there for their sake, I was bloody miffed he can't do it at home!.... Rant over