2year old in

[samwifewithkid]

Hi everybody

just wanted to rack your brains!

We decided to put our 2 year old dd into a single bed before we fall pregnant with our next (trying at present) as I didn't want her to feel chucked out of her room or bed. She was starting to mess about going to sleep at night and putting her leg over the top of the cot bars. She is OK through the night and enjoys sleeping in her bed, and even goes to sleep in it in 15 mins in the daytime. The problem I am having is that she is messing about at night. We have a good routine, bath, story & bed. She lays down and the second I am out of the room she gets up and happily plays (with anything she can find) for the next 1.5 hours. She doesn't make a fuss, just talks to herself and likes the novelty of getting in and out of bed. I try to ignore the most of it, unless she switches off the intercom. And when I do go in make as little fuss as possible.

The thing I want to know is, am I letting her get into bad habits by thinking she can play for this long before bed? What else can I do to make her go off to sleep quicker? (I've tried walking her, fresh air, everything to wear her out) She is tired, but is fighting it.

Can anyone give me some suggestions or tips, has anyone else been through this?

She has always gone to bed at between 7 - 7.30 and it is distressing me to hear her awake until 9pm!!

Any advice would be great. We shut the door and have a stairgate on her room.

our dd who will turn 3 in August is similar - goes to bed between 7.30 and 8 but often not asleep before 9. Her latest is to go to bed but spend up to an hour "reading" books to Teddy. She is more likely to sleep quicker if she hasn't napped during the day. She dropped it regularly a few months back but still nods off in the car or on the occasional afternoon. If I say she can play for say 15 mins she will go to bed when told but not always straight to sleep. Could you use a kitchen timer to give your dd a finite time to play before bed ? With ds we used story tapes to keep him in bed (ie get in now and you can have a tape)and he'd go to sleep listening to it. Even now at 6 he likes his tapes and follows the books too - he has both sides and then sleep.

Hi Sam. My friend has just had her second DD and so she put her 18 month old DD into a bed about 3 months ago. She also found that her DD1 was getting up and pottering around. She now uses story tapes on a ghettoblaster type thing up on a high shelf, it seems to help her DD1 settle. Perhaps you could try it ?

POsts clashed Liz, it seems story tapes are a popular choice !

Thanks guys, that's a good suggestion! Do I just tell her she can have a tape if she stays in bed? How do I enforce it if she gets out, just turn it off?

Any other ideas from anyone else will be gratefully received!

I would give her 2 or 3 'chances', if she gets out of bed then she only gets one side or something. If she goes to the third chance, turn it off. Like I say, this is a friend of mine and not me so my advice is purely speculation and guess work !

Maybe she just isn't tired that early?

She is absolutely exhausted by the time bedtime comes, with shadows under her eyes and her eyes almost rolling back in her head. I think she is using the power of the terrible twos and pushing her luck to see where the boundaries are. The trouble is that for the first time she has stumped me!

I got a noddy story CD today and told her that mummy would read her a story, then play a special noddy story on the tape. And that noddy wanted her to lie down and listen to it and that when it was finished noddy wanted her to go to sleep. After it had finished she decided to get up and switch the plug off at the wall (including the intercom!!!) by the time I had realised what had happened she had done a poo and woken herself back up and decided it was much more fun looking out the window under the blackout blind!! I had to get very firm with her and say "right, that's it BED"!!!!!and after a couple of times of doing this and physically making her jump by going in and shouting, she finally gave up and fell asleep at 9.30. 2 hours after I had put her down. Arghhhhhhh.

I am going to stick with the tape and see what happens. If I can actually get her to lie still for 5 mins, she might actually realise she is tired and go off to sleep! But it seems that it is all too exciting being able to make the choice of getting in and out of bed!

Oh they are here to test us!!

sam, a quick message to say our ds (who is 2.5) is very similar. Been in a bed since just after 2 (climbed out of cot). Was taking longer and longer to settle at night, was getting out of bed and trashing room (emptying wardrobe, bookshelf etc. looking out of window under blind etc etc). We have just been trying to make getting out of bed as boring as possible for him. Often we ignore it for quite a while (we also have a gate on the room so he can't get out) and after that we go up at 10-15 min. intervals. We don't go into the room, we just go up to the door and tell him to go back to bed (and he just toddles back off into his bed and we shut the door!). No eye contact and very boring tone of voice. It seems to be working - he is now settling in 15-30 mins most nights when it had been around 1.5 hours before (we used to go in and physically put him back into bed and I think he liked the attention IYSWIM).

HTH. I'm off to bed now!

Sam, I have just shifted DS (2.5) and I left the cot in his room. What I do if DS is mucking around is to say that if he gets out of the bed one more time I will put him in his cot in his sleeping bag (necessary to stop escapes). This works very well! You could try putting a travel cot in her room? Other than that I can only suggest the boring stuff like going in and returning her to bed without any obvious attention - without fuss but very firmly and saying, Go to bed, it's night-time. I think Toddler Taming had something like this - first night returned the toddler to bed 100times!

Thanks gingernut, it's nice to know someone else is in the same situation, oh how your post rings a bell!

Well I am using the story tape and doing the putting her back into bed firmly routine, and she seems to have fallen asleep a bit earlier tonight (8.30 - 45 ish, so only 1 hour messing about) also the sun isn't out tonight, so its not so bright around the blackout blind! So hopefully the message is getting through!!

I'm not sure the travel cot idea will work with her as she can climb out of it as it's lower than her cot, but thanks for the advice, its much apprieciated!

Thanks guys!

I have to say ds1 was always v good at going to bed etc, now plays around in his room until he falls asleep about 9pm. I have to say, I just let him get on with it, and take the view that he will fall asleep when tired. Does it really matter when your dd actually falls asleep, as long as she stays in her room? Turn the monitor off, you will need it for the new baby anyway.

I wouldn't mind Deegward if she was coping with the lack of sleep, but unfortunately she isn't. She has bags under her eyes, spots on her cheeks and has come down with a cold as she is run down. Poor little thing looks a right wreck! Hopefully she'll get over the novelty of getting in and out of bed soon.