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Toddler getting out of bed in the middle of the night

2 replies

needsomezzz · 09/05/2012 11:42

DS (2.3) has never been a great sleeper but things are particularly bad at the moment. He's in a proper bed with bed rail with a stair gate across the bedroom door.

The thing is most advice I come across seems to concentrate on getting them to sleep in the first place. This is not a problem. He has a bedtime routine ending at 7pm when he will generally stay in bed and go to sleep no problem. Then anytime from 12am he'll wake up, get out of bed and come to the stair gate to shout for us. When one of us goes to put him back to bed he'll just go straight back to sleep...until the next time. This can be 20 minutes later and last night went on about every 10-20mins for several hours.

We have a Gro-clock which worked brilliantly whilst he was still in a cot, but now he's in the bed he doesn't seem to look at it. He still has a nap in the day, after lunch, but on occasions where he's missed his nap he's slept no better for it at night, just been grumpier in the evenings.

Because our eldest has GCSEs starting soon and the youngest is only 12 weeks old we tend to jump up at the first bellow to minimise disruption to them. Any suggestions gratefully received!

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IDismyname · 09/05/2012 11:46

Ummm... earplugs for the rest of the family, and a stern "Now, go back to bed, its night time" to DS without any fuss?
Would he be old enough to work with a start chart or a reward system for going back to bed quietly?

Just a few thoughts. I've been there, but it was years ago!

needsomezzz · 09/05/2012 14:49

Thanks blue2 - I'm not sure whether he's ready to understand a reward based system but I think I'll start trying to introduce something like that. Certainly can't hurt to try!

The thing is that once he's disturbed us actually getting him to go back to bed and go to sleep is no problem. We've tried telling him off, but usually pick him up and plonk him back into bed silently. Either way - straight back to sleep.. I guess if we stay in bed and just tell him to go? Might wait until after DDs exams for that as I don't know that they make earplugs up to the task :)

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