Getting 3.5 year old to sleep

[scarylea]

So we have fallen into the trap of staying in the room whilst my son falls asleep. Used to be fine until he was poorly and then we did what we needed to help him and it became a habit. Friend has suggested putting on a story book for him to go to sleep to. Is this a good idea or am I just creating another sleep crutch? Not convinced it will work without many tears anyway.

I was the same as you with my second boy. At just about the same age I just sat with him and told him he needed to go to sleep like a big boy without me laid there. I gave him incentives and we made a big fuss of him doing it, and surprisingly he was fine. They are old enough to understand at 3.5.

I'm no expert because I've done this with all 3. I would say, if my eldest is anything to go by, they do grow out of it by about the time they go school and settle in. We started off slowly with a "I just need to go down and put the dinner in "/ some other random household errand but just so he'd know we'd be back (we weren't always if he didn't call we didn't return) Now my second is 6 and she's starting to allow that. The 4 year old on the other hand looks likely to never fall for this ruse!

Thank you for your replies. Perhaps I don’t give him enough credit and if I talk to him and explain perhaps it will all be ok. Tonight’s the night we give it a whirl. Ergh!