RAPID RETURN to bed technique

[BendandBreak]

Hello. My dd1 is 3.4 and has only recently got a big girl's bed . Before that, she woke up every night since 13 months at about 1am and cried till she got in our bed (where she slept peacefully all night).You see how my problem has been created.
Before 13 months, she was the best baby ever, sleeping 12 hours from about 6 weeks, and never -even as a newborn- less than 5 hours. I THOUGHT SHE MIGHT BE TEETHING AND IT WOULD BE A TEMPORARY BLIP IN THE BLISS.
Now, I have to sit beside her on the carpet until she falls asleep, including 4 times during the night last night. I'm shatterred. I don't want her to make a fuss in the night in case she wakes her sister (6) who needs her rest.
I've decided to do the rapid return technique tonight (a la Dr.Tanya Byron) as dh and I are both fed up of trying to reason with her.
I was wondering what other's experience of it is ie. how many times to rapid return did your dc take and how many nights?
Does anybody have any bad experiences of it?
Also, dd2 has nursery Mon-Thur when I work and dh works Mon-Fri.

bend, I hope you'll get someone who has done this successfully to advise you; I haven't done this myself as my ds would simply look on rapid return as a red rag to a bull, and a great game! He also I think would be angered and freaked out if we followed the 'don't talk, just put them back in' approach.

What we did (and still do) is read him stories, then say goodnight, but we agreed with him that we'll be back to check on him in 1 minute. Then we (dh or I) go in, blow a kiss, and say "see you in two minutes" and then go in, etc etc etc until he's asleep. DS loves this and it's not onerous for us, he's usually asleep by the time we've checked on him two or three times! Some nights for whatever reason, we're checking on him 20 times, but it's not a problem as such, he still stays in bed happily. He knows the agreement is we'll check on him as long as he's in bed. If he was to get out and be pesky we wouldn't come up till he was in bed....that doesn't happen though, he's so keen for us to check on him.

I have found this a good alternative to the more 'confrontational' approach of rapid return; not saying it would be confrontational for everyone, just that for us I know ds would not respond at all well to it. He's happier because we have agreed between us what will happen and he knows that he controls it in a way; if he stays in bed, every two minutes a smiling adoring parent will come and blow him a kiss - not a bad deal!

Good luck.

Thanks Sunny.
Your comments did make me think perhaps we could try your method first as it sounded less harsh.
So at bed time last night, dds 1 and 2 had two stories as usual with their milk downstairs, then everyone was really keen to go to bed (as usual). dd1 went straight to sleep (as usual) and dd2 decided she wanted me to sit on the carpet again, and when I wouldn't she wanted downstairs (as usual).
I suggested I'd check on her in a minute but she either didn't understand (I did explain further) or wasn't having it.
I kissed and cuddled for the first 3 times of her getting out of bed, then started not looking and not talking.
After 107! times, she said to open the door further (so the outside light was actually shining in her eyes) and I said to get back into bed and I'd open it. I did, and that worked a treat.
She didn't wake till morning and isn't angry or anything. We've all had a lovely long sleep and it's as if it was no trauma to her at all.
Tonight I'll do the same, with the reminder about the light brought in much earlier.(They do have other little night lights in the room too). Hopefully it can only get easier for us now, I was breaking a sweat doing it last night and we didn't eat till 10pm (toast and beans!)

Anyway Sunny, thanks for being the only reply (a little dissappointed as I don't often post) and for your helpful suggestions.

oh, well done Bend! I think the medal for parental patience goes to you this week - 107 times!!!!???!!!!

It was obviously worth doing, because it's enabled you to identify that your 'handle' on keeping her in bed is the door being open enough...all kids are different and respond to different things, obviously to her it's important to have a bit of control over her room being light enough...mke that your bargaining chip to keep her in bed and I reckon that should do it, as you say!

Good luck, and well done again
Maybe now it's back in active convos you might get some more thoughts from others, too; though it sounds like you've cracked it really! x

Hi again, Sunnysideup
Just to make sure you realise I wasn't keeping her in a darkened room before, the door was more than 90 degrees open already, just pulled slightly to keep the landing light from shining directly in her eyes.

And last night- 18 times!
Now that's a result.
She was barely even complaining last night, just the odd whinge as she realised that this was it.
I'm more amazed that she doesn't wake up at all.

Anyway, thanks for listening! I hope it all continues like this.

yay!

I had this with DD too when she first went into her own bed. She was in and out at all hours I think a lot of it was the novelty of being able to get in and out her room by herself. I used to take her back to bed and setle her again but I am too soft really I couldn't not talk to her at all but it did pass.

Glad you are having better nights now well done your DD for sleeping through.