Right, the constant door opening at bedtime what do ye wise ones do?

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DD is two now in her big girl bed and was doing grand. Last few days at bedtime she keeps getting out of bed opening door and crying or calling me or DH. We keep popping her back in, asking her not to open the door and go to sleep. Toninght this took two hours.

The main reason we don't want her opening the door is she caught her toe under the door and scraped it very badly and tonight she reopened the cut.

I have no idea what to do Dh is close to losing the plot at the moment so any advice, put it down to a phase and keep calmy returning her to bed.

Any advice?

Socks for bed and don't talk when returning her to bed.

What's she worried about? Is the bed new? Has she started to have nightmares? Quite often after viral illnesses my DD gets nightmares for a few weeks and is reluctant to settle.

We put a few toys on her bed and said she was free to do whatever she liked and play as late as she liked (with her nightlight on) so long as she stayed on the bed.

Keep doing the return to bed thing with minimal interaction.Say very firmly "It is bedtime,X" Repeat ad infinitum.

Am going through this with dd who has ld but is intellectualy at 2 yo level.Very wearing.

We had this for a few nights when dd1 was about 2.5 and first went into a bed. The only way I coped was to sit on the landing with a glass of wine squash and my book/laptop, and make sure that we had dinner earlier.

It is far too stressful to trek up and downstairs constantly whilst juggling your normal evening jobs/meal/tv watching etc.

We just kept calmly putting her back to bed and it did work by about night 3/4. Hang in there.

Been in bed for about 2 months now, we leave a book with her she can read etc, socks are on in bed now!

Don't think she is worried about anything just enjoying the fact she can do it. If its me putting her to bed she calls for DH and vice versa.

Thank you for the suggestions.

Sit on the landing - it will make her jump the first couple of times when she is about to play you up and squawk downstairs for mummy/daddy!

If you get desperate take turns with your dh, half an hour turn about, like shifts. You and your dh will have more stamina than her.

You could try the old 'tie the door shut so she can open it, but not enough to escape' routine as described in Toddler Training.

DD will not get out of her bed now we have put a 'princess fairy' (crap nylon voile) bed canopy from Ikea fairyland above her bed

We tried a disney princess canopy type thing over dd1's bed. She loved it but dd2 kept squawking because she couldn't see dd1 and wanted to chatter to her!

Love the ideas people but am damn sure she has more stamina than me!

Hopefully she will tire of what I imagine she now sees as a game.

Am enjoying wine now

With a 2 yo I would do the following

Door open if she is in bed
If she is wandering about, talking or otherwise messing about - door shut

Mine have a low wattage night light and doors open

You could try giving her the wine

We do the 'oh god, you're doing that again, how boring . Right let's take you back. Hurry up, there's some paint I need to watch dry downstairs. Yes, yes, you are very irritating, off you go now'

Seems to work on a near-three year old.

Door open here too.

I tried everything with ds1 but he definitely had more stamina than me. I would put him back in bed 20+ times following the advice not to speak etc and the time he would eventually go to sleep would be when I eventually got caved in and spoke to him. In the end I tied his bedroom door closed as recommended in Toddler Taming. It sounds a bit drastic but I am fairly sure he wasn't traumatised by it. I would let him cry for a couple of minutes and then tell him that if he stayed in bed I would tie it shut again. As he's got older he's still a bit of a pain but there are now a variety of bribes and threats that work but until he was 3 tying the door shut was the only thing that had an effect.

I think that the approach you take depends very much on the child, I would never do something so drastic with ds2 who is a much more sensitive flower.