Almost 3 year old wants to sleep on our floor !

[Scatterbrain]

Oh Dear - I fear that I may have allowed a really bad sleep habit to have formed !

My almost 3 yr old DD was a perfect sleeper until we moved her into her bed - about 2 months ago. To persuade her to move to the bed I offered to sit with her until she was asleep - bad error - she now takes at least 45mins to fall asleep and we are really fed up with sitting there when we want our dinner ! So that's the first bad habit !

Secondly - she has been waking in the night and wailing for attention and refusing to go back to bed - one night we ignored her and she curled up on our floor and went to sleep - until 7am, which is a big big lie-in for us ! So the next night we dragged her cot-mattress through and let her sleep on that when she woke up - we figured that at least we were all getting some sleep ! However, now she seems to expect to sleep on our floor and is starting to disturb us by talking through the night ! Obviously we need to stop this now !

I've checked all the other threads - and am thinking controlled crying, cabin locks etc - but before I start that trauma - anyone had the same experience ?

Scatterbrain, I sat down to reply to you 3 hours ago! In my opinion you are going to have to face that trauma! If your dd is as determined as mine at that age you are going to have to go into battle. I tried everything with my dd, reasoning, just "one more song", sitting with her etc but at the end of the day what worked for a few days she soon managed to make last longer and longer.

Every time I see a thread on sleep problems in 2/3 year olds I drone on about a book I read called "The baby and toddler sleep program" Esentially you implement a bedtime routine, stick to it, leave child in room to get on with it. An extreme form of controlled crying really but I have found with my two that controlled crying didn't work after about 18 months.

It really did work. DD threw a blue fit the first night, was sick through temper but after about an hour went to sleep. The next night 20 mins (no vomit) and the next night she was cured! The same principal applies in the night. I put a stair gate on her bedroom door as our doors dont close properly and if she wake up in the night I would go and see what was wrong if necessary and then leave her.

It really does work and it is definately worth going through the angst to get to the results. We all let bed sleep habits form, when they are ill, when we are exhausted, when we just CAN NOT be bothered anymore! but she has to do what you want not her! Hope this helps.

I meant, leave child in room to get on with the tears after the bedtime routine.

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Yup ... agree with bloss and runragged ... don your battle gear and advance!
Since my DS was 2 he started taking the p* at bedtime, in the night and early morning ... after a year of being gentle (including letting him come into our bed in the middle of the night every night ... for some reason he liked to sleep at our feet like a puppy ) we cracked down and basically told him how it was going to be.
The thing for our DS is he likes his bedroom door open ... so ... if he stays in bed the door stays open ... if he gets up the door gets shut ... and he hates the door being shut ...
Took about 3 days to sink in but it seems to have worked ...
Sticker charts too .... if he stays in bed all night .... work a treat.
Still have a slight problem with mornings but hey ho ... can't have everything!

I have very vague memories of sleeping on the floor next to my mums side of the bed. There was a fluffy mat there and I used to bring my dressing gown with me. I used to only make the move after waking from a dream and crying out for my mum for what seemed like hours. My parents made no fuss about whether I slept on the floor or not - pretending to sleep through the whole thing and not commenting on it in the morning. I think after I while I decided the lack of comfort wasn't worth it.

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Our 3 y/o wakes up every night when it is still dark and climbs into our bed. I hardly wake up, I just move over to make some room for him and we all go back to sleep. Path of least resistance for me. I suppose if he started chatting it would be a very different story.