The sheer lunacy of this is making me laugh/cry alternately...

[IndulgeMePlease]

DS (8m) has a virus from hell and has been ill since last Friday. He's (of course) worst at night so at best, DH and I are getting about 2 hours of broken sleep. DD1 (2 and a half) has chosen this week to decide that getting out of bed 38000 times a night at bedtime is a great idea.

I'm following Supernanny's advice - return to bed, no eye contact, no talking, as many times at it takes...but she sleeps in a bottom bunk, with a bed guard, so I am literally 'posting' her giggling, wriggling body through the narrow gap, about 45 times per night! I'm knackered, any suggestions about how to keep her in her bed? I've contemplated a staple gun...

Go for it.

No jury would convict.

Wedge planks of wood between the top and bottom bunks, like a cage!

She's now sitting on the landing, singing 'Old McDonald had a duck' and picking up bits off the carpet and bringing them into me to throw away. I'm trying to ignore her in the hope she'll find her way back to bed. Being grateful for small mercies...at least I won't have to hoover for a while...

littel madam

Leave her to fall asleep on the landing/ bedroom floor with any luck she'll get bored & crawl back into bed herself. TBH if she fell asleep you could throw a duvet over her & leave her there as long as you have a stairgate!!

God can't spell tonight LITTLE!!

She's in bed! And asleep! Just inched quietly downstairs to pour a celebratory vino when DS woke up...and so it continues.

Bless, my thoughts are with you, hope things look up for you,

That's called the law of sod that is!!!

Poor IMP!

Hope tonight is calmer.

Sorry but ROFLOL at dd

I really sympathise about the whole situation but Old Macdonald and bits of carpet just made me chuckle!

Awww, thanks. Now all is quiet I really should get off MN and GO TO BED.

But I'm still here.

Quieter night IMP?

I lost track of how many times me and DH put DS1 back into bed between 2 and 5.30 this morning DS2 woke up in between then too.

Really hope you had a good night!

Keep saying the mantra...............

" it's only a phase it will pass....it's only a phase etc etc"

Well done IMP.

with my dd (2.11) she was a madam for a while and we decided to give her a book to read in bed, she 'reads' for a while then falls asleep.

the last time she decided to have one of these 'phases' i said id take a teddy away everytime she got out of bed (she has about 20 teddies in bed) and after 2 nights of having no teddies left, me taking her nightlight and her book, she finally got it and stopped getting out of bed. whatever works as far as im concerned!

hope tonight is good too!

Put a stairgate on her bedroom door.

Put her in a grobag.

oh i also did the grobag thing when dd first went into bed, it was great, she couldnt go anywhere!

DS1 mastered the grobag and walked without a problem in it

Stairgate on the door. allow her to 'read' in bed. Ignore her if she gets out of the bed. This works for my little madam!

I love grobags! My dd 15months old, was proudly sans-grobag of a morning, I watched her once, lift her little legs up and reach the zipper, zipppp, and it's gone!!!Clever bugger!

[whispers] medised, medised

Don't get a grobag with poppers on the shoulders - dd is out of that one in minutes: she undoes the poppers by pulling up her feet inside the bag, wedging them against the bars of the cot and pushing, then wriggles out.

how about a cat net attached to the top and bottom bunks ?

Great suggestions! Tried the stairgate - the one we have on the landing doesn't fit, but I might well invest in a new one that does, I'm getting desperate.

Having said that, she wasn't too bad last night and DS appears to be on the mend, so I think life will soon settle (she prays, crosses fingers, crosses self etc). I hope so, we are starting a new youth group at my house tomorrow...could be interesting...