How do I get my 4yo to go to bed at 7pm and STAY IN BED?

[Islandgirllk]

We've reached crisis point tonight. Bribery, shouting, talking calmly, time out - NOT WORKING. How can we get our son to sleep? Tonight he's been down 15 times - poo, wee, hungry, covers twisted, has a question to ask, has lost panda, spilt his drink, sore knee, wants a torch and so on.

Once he's asleep he won't wake til 7/8am but why does this happen every night at the moment. He has pretty much the same routine every night. He is a very active child, doesn't stop moving and talking, very thin, runs off everything he eats, eats to live if you see what I mean.

He went up at 7am and it's now 9.15 and he's still awake.

Please anyone out there - help?!

I feel your pain, I've got two of that description as well (and two is a bad combo, they egg each other on)

velcro sheets and super-sticky pj's?

PS if some smart a* has the answer, I wanna hear it as well

I haven't experienced this as DD is still in a gro bag and hasn't realised she can actually get out of bed, yet!!
However, I have seen it on super nanny where she tells parents to put the child back in bed every time they get out. First time you say 'time for sleep, Night night', second time 'time for sleep' and third time 'time for sleep' or something like that. Basically the idea is that each time you say less and then from the fourth time onwards you say nothing, just take them back and put tem in bed. It always seems to take a long time the first night but the children seem to get it pretty quickly because they are not getting the reward of any attention from their parents and learn to stay in bed. They key is to be consistent and not talk to them at all after the third return.

The other thing could be a reward chart where he starts off the week with 7 footballers or cars stickers and then loses one every night he gets out of bed. He could then earn a reward if he finishes the week with say 5 stickers to make it achievable and build it up to 7 stickers. The reward would have to be something he reallywants!
However, like I said not experienced it myself so not sure if these ideas would work, good luck!

Just had another thought, is it worth trial running a slightly later bed time to see of hat makes a difference? He may settle and fall asleep more quickly / easily if he is more tired?

Lock the door .

I think all you can do is floow Teleaddict's very good advice - just keep taking him back to bed, no conversation/interaction.

Remind him he is old enough now to go to the bathroom on his own, have a check list ie: water/torch/toy/book etc that he goes through every night.

Good luck.

We have a stair gate on DS's room (he's 4). He still wears a pull-up nappy for bedtime so we don't have an issue with him needing to get out of his room to go to the loo. It definitely works - I can guarantee that if I accidently leave the stair gate off he's straight dowstairs - and he can still have his door open etc so he doesn't feel locked in.

Hi there i dont know if this will help.
My dd who is now 5 had a terrible sleep problem so i thought up the bedtime fairy..
While she was at nursery one day i wrote her a little note from the fairy saying that if she went to bed and slept all night then mammy and daddy had to draw a smilely face on the chart(simple one i made with just the days of the week on but all colourful) and if it had a smile then the fairy would leave a suprise normally her favourite sweets or some loose change(that would be used again and again as she hadnt noticed us taking it back)and also a little note to say how well she was doing.hehehe and that went on for a while until she asked the fairy not to come anymore.And she sleeps great now!