Bedtime with 3 year old is just horrific

[bells987]

Hi all,
long story short, our bedtimes with 3yo are just bloody awful and are getting worse/longer!
so she doesn’t have a daytime nap (if she did she’d be awake until 11pm) and we try to do a bedtime of bath/shower, book, snack, teeth, bed… she defo knows bed time is coming for almost an hour!
she is becoming increasingly demanding about who she has with her, where they sit, where she wants certain things to be and will just stall and stall.
i try to be firm and stay with the “no, it’s bedtime now” but it’s just bloody hard and she keeps getting out of bed, leading to full on tantrums and an even longer bed time. I’m guessing that’s all I can do though and hope consistency pays off?!
bed time charts just added another 20 minutes on to the whole ordeal as that became another ‘thing’ for her to control.
does anyone have any tips/advice on how to deal with this? I’m 36 weeks pregnant and my partner works during these hours most days which tbh is filling me with dread haha. I can’t even pick her up and place her back in bed when she gets out at the moment so I feel pretty helpless.

TIA

What time does she usually fall asleep after all the drama?

She's dicking you around, which is what three year olds do!

I think I'd probably change it up completely so she's not sure whats coming next.

Then choose a space on the fridge and make three large stars. Then she gets a star for 1. Putting her pjs on in less than 60 secs. Put a timer on your phone. 2. Another star for brushing her teeth straight away. 3. Another star for whatever.

All three stars = 15 mins of cat videos and 2 bed time stories, 2 stars = 2 bed time stories, 1 star = 1 bed time story and lots of chat about doing better next time.

If she keeps getting out of bed, you just have to return her. No eye contact, no chat, gray wall. If she's old enough to cope with delayed rewards you could try telling her she can have pancakes for breakfast if she stays in bed but I don't think that's very effective with 3 year olds.

The key is complete consistency and no room for drama. Once she's got the hang of it you can start throwing in more fun stuff like three stars = dance party before bed time or dinner in your pj's or whatever floats her boat but don't do that until bed time is on your terms and not hers.

The three star thing worked so well for us. They still get a nice bedtime with 1 star rather than nothing but a 3 star bedtime was worth getting the stars for.

You need to look up the 3 day nanny on you tube the back to bed routine. Time to stop this nonsense she's having you on.

Agree with pp, she is messing you around, do your usual routine, bath, pjs, supper, teethbrush, book etc but don’t let her give you demands, my youngest son went through a phase of constantly getting out of bed so we put a stairgate on his bedroom door and let him cry it out- kind of like control crying for a baby, took a few nights and he fell asleep on his bedroom floor a few times (had to put him back to bed when i went up) we kept the stair gate on for 2 weeks and that was it, all my kids are pretty good at bedtime, we generally apart from hearing them go to the bathroom to wee/glass of water we don’t hear a peep xx

Bed time is a separation so children need to feel safe at that point. The stalling is because they don't want the separation to happen
Has your child got any neuro diversity going on?
I think consistency, decide in advance when you will leave the room IE reading to your child is over, and tell your child you will check on them in 2 minutes(adjust time to suit)
Then whatever excuses etc are coming your way, say ok I will deal with that when I next check on you.
That gives them practise of seeing you go away and knowing that you will be back soon. Then you can just extend the times a bit over time however suits.
My son is a bit older now and he likes to tell me how many times I need to check on him, although often he is asleep by that time.
I think the key is knowing when you are in control and when they are, but listening to their needs and trying to anticipate them. Not easy but it's worth knowing you're doing a good job even if you have to leave them.