She won't stay in the bed!

[Scarlett77]

Hello,
PLEASE HELP! We moved my 2.5 year old DD into her own bed last week and it's been horrendous! Bedtime, which used to be a pretty calm affair, has now become a battle-zone. However calm I am with her she refuses to get into the bed so we have a tantrum before she's even calmed down. She just says she's not tired and pings straight back up again before I've even had time to walk out of the room. I'd be happy to stay in there and calm her down but as I can't even get her into the bed I just sit there feeling completely hopeless. I'm increasingly tempted to put her back in her cot but that feels like admitting defeat.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom before I throw her out of the window?!
Thanks. xx

Not sure if I can give any good advice as we are having the same problem except our issue is DD runs out of bed, sees us, jumps back in and repeat. Ad finitum. And deviation from this 'game' and it's tantrums for up to an hour.

She only once refused to get back in bed, I just popped a blanket over her on the floor. I couldn't really think of an alternative

It's gets better. Right?

We put a stairgate on the door to DS's room, so that even if he gets up he's not going to get very far.

If he gets out of bed I act in exactly the same way as I do when he doesn't - tell him goodnight, love you, see you in the morning, (back into bed now...) and leave him to it. Even if I have to leave him standing at the stairgate. We don't keep toys in his room but he usually takes a couple up with him and I don't mind if he plays for a little while or looks at his books while he settles and he usually just puts himself back to bed and goes to sleep.

Sometimes me or DH do need to go and get him settled again, but it's very rare - if anything he'll just moan for a couple of minutes and then sort himself out.

PS he fell asleep on the floor a few times at the beginning and we'd just pick him up and put him back into bed. He got the hand of it eventually!

*hang

We did the stairgate too, dd slept on the carpet by the gate for about a week before she figured out the bed was more comfortable! We did lift her into bed once she had fallen asleep.

Also did the stair gate on the door thing, I would leave it open as a trust thing but if ds2 got out of bed I would then put him back and shut the gate.

Don't engage, don't talk to them, they are old enough to know that you have said it is bedtime, the first time they get out, you return them saying it is time for bed, the second time do the same after that return them with no words, no eye contact, nothing.

They do get bored of it eventually I kept repeating in my head Tom Petty's "I won't back down" song.

If it helps, ds2 had severe reflux and he slept on me in the day, propped up on me, until he was 1yr old. At night he would be almost asleep when we put him in his cot, once we decided he was well enough to be put into his cot awake he would pop back up and I would lie him back down.

The first night I did this 126 times The next night, 48, the following night 4. It does get better.

I like the stair gate idea, but I do wonder if it would just be another long and noisy tantrum in the making. Our house is not large and DD has very good lungs

Oh, tonight we are having more success by reintroducing a Gro bag.

Can't walk far in one of those

Now if only she would sleep through

Stair gate all the way, we did 2 weeks of hell until putting one up and getting it sorted. It is now a threat that if he gets up oo early it will come back out again

my friend put the handle on the door upside down so she shut the door and said child would battle trying to open the door and not realise you had to lift the handle up to make it work instead of pulling it down! The child never cottoned on and soon gave up trying!

Just a thought, but I don't think the cot is necessarily admitting defeat. When DS was 2.5 we took the cot side off, cue hysterical bedtimes for 3 days and running round the house like a loon. He eventually asked for the cot side back on, so we did and peace at bedtime was instantly restored. He's still sleeping happily in the cot at almost 3yrs and has not asked for a bed. Maybe he finds it comforting?

Rapid return. You take them every time by the hand and lead them back to bed. They may immediately jump up, just do it again and again. First night took an hour and half, second night 40 mins, third night 20 mins, fourth night - zero.
You don't look directly at them and you don't speak, just lead them gently by the hand back to bed.
Honestly it works. (But I had to do it, hubby couldn't take the crying - too soft!).