Toddler refuses to stay in bed

[taylorrosej]

My 20 month old has been in his toddler bed 3 weeks as he was climbing out his cot. The routine is breakfast as the kids call it with a cup of milk then up stairs by 7.30 to brush teeth and stories. Well this goes well but then he just won't stay in bed he will wonder round his room for hours and cry and shout for mummy, Daddy and I have done the checking on him and the leaving him to it read more to him but he just won't stay in bed soon as we leave he's up and he can get so worked up the longer he is awake I'm guess from being over tired at that point.No matter how long or short or no nap this still happens. He often falls asleep on the floor and I have to scoop him up. Any advice would be appreciated or anyone been through the same

I would do the rapid return - every couple of minutes go back and put him in bed with no talking; no attention.
You will probably have to do it 80 times the first night but this is teaching him to stay there with no reward for mucking about.

With our children we used to just keep going in and putting them back to bed every 5 minutes with minimal interaction. We also had inane loud conversations on the landing so they could hear that we were still around and they hadn't been abandoned. The worst stage was when toddler was getting out of bed and baby was learning to self settle. We got there in the end!

This is something I hadn't heard or thought of so will give this ago. I have a 3 month old so can be hard sometimes when they both want me. I do feel it's separation anxiety. Just really hoping he gets used to it soon. He's still up now at 10.30 but moving about on his bed. Only reason he is stopping in bed is cause husband is in there but he's chatting away.