Frigging 4am. Somebody fix my 3 year old.

[arfishymeau]

She's getting up and refusing to go back to her room to play/go to sleep. Bribery is not working. Today I am attempting the 'extremely cross' approach. Now she's singing and playing in the living room. I am in a towering strop.

What do I do? Returning her to her room doesn't work. Reward charts aren't working. She's getting up earlier and earlier. And so is the damned cat.

put a stairgate on her room?

Put them both in the garden.

Tell her a suitably frightening story about a norty witch who will eat children who wake up in the night, as she can hear them playing and come and get them. Perhaps DH (yours though, not mine) will play along in pointy hat and mask for realism.

We´ve just told DS1 that boys who pick their noses will get their fingers stuck up there forever, seems to work as he doesn´t do it anymore......

Fertile imaginations, use them to your advantage....

No solutions I am afraid, my 15 month old DD has me up at about 5.30am most days (5.10am today), but thank you for making me smile . And lol re: the Cat.

Do you think it's becoming a game? What about the Tanya Byron approach of just taking her back to her room, saying 'it's still night time' and leaving her with no other attention or talking, no matter what she does. I think you have to repeat it lots and lots of times before it works but she may get fed up with no attention and give in. Depends how stubborn she is though.

Otherwise a big bolt on the outside of her door .

DD2 is 2 1/2, and she became a pest for waking in the night and asking for a cup of milk. I bit the bullet one day and decided, that even though I knew just by giving her some, she would go back to sleep, it was becoming a habit. So.

She was fine for a couple of nights. I said I would get it for her, but didn't and she just went back to sleep. Then one night (at about 3.30) she decided to kick up a stink about it. She got up and down, and I kept putting her back. She cried and tantrumed, and I kept putting her back. She kept this up for an INSANE quantity of time, and eventually at 5.30, she stayed in her bed, and went back to sleep. I got up, as I was due up at 6 anyway. It was a loooong day.

But you know what? She hasn't done it since. No - I tell a lie, she has VERY occasional waking, normally with something I can forgive, like a nightmare, but she chances her arm, and asks for milk, and I tell her we have none until the milkman comes in the morning, and she accepts this and goes back to sleep.

Oh - and I also threaten that the door is shut if she keeps getting up. And I stick to it. Good girls who are in bed, get the door left ajar. Works at nighttime too.

Gawd bless Tanya Byron!

This week I asked her if there was anything she wanted. She said another small blankie. Great thought I. She was promised it if she stayed in her room until 6am for a week. So, she's taken to taking her clock off the wall, winding it forward until 6am and coming in to me with it.

She can open her door and can climb over stairgates. Scary stories would probably induce screaming hysteria.