Problems getting toddler to stay in bed

[orangecat]

My 2 year old is being a monkey at bedtime. We quickly learnt that getting cross, or repeatedly putting her back to bed wasn't working. The only thing which did work was giving her no attention. Until she tried a new trick which I cannot ignore - taking her nappy and pyjamas off. Funny at first, but not after weeks of putting the nappy back on over a 1 or 2 hour period every night. Any tips?

We use a night light, she knows if the light is on its sleep time, and when it goes out (its on a timer switch) she is allowed to get up. I think my DD was closer to 3 when we introduced this though.

I found the returning to bed thing only worked if i did it 100% of the time, if i didnt do it one night I would pay for it the next

Get her a sleep suit and put it on back to front so she cant take it off, would that work??
lisa

I did have this briefly with my dd when she was about 2yrs old. We got so fed up with it we just learnt to ignore her. We had a stair gate on her doorway so she couldn't physically leave her room but she would put her lamp on, get some books out and play. I couldn't keep running up and down the stairs to put her back so I tended to just leave her and she'd get so tired she'd put herself to bed (plus bored with us not going up to her) and yes, she'd undress too so we'd wade our way through the books and toys she'd got out and put her nappy and pj's back on.

No tips really - other than don't keep putting her back into bed because she's gaining the attention she wants - she'll soon get bored of keep getting out of bed.

Agree sleepsuit back to front. V good idea and it means you can ignore, which is best course of action as you have already found.

Brilliant, thanks for tips. Definitely right about not putting her back to bed. Will try sleepsuit swap - excellent idea. If she foils that, may well just have to leave her naked for a bit!

There was many a time my dd spent the night in bed naked...it just wasn't worth trying to get a sleepsuit or even a vest on her for fear of waking her up - I'd just cover her over with her covers and leave her. Atleast we're not in the depths of winter to worry about the cold etc! I wish I'd thought of the sleepsuit back to front idea...she'd often undo the poppers at the bottom of her sleepsuit and then stick her hands up inside her nappy and then find she'd done a poo and come downstairs with sticky pooey hands...lovely!