Wandering son at nightime

[Binza]

Can anyone suggest what to do with a 2 1/2 yr old boy who will not stay in his room at night? There is a stairgate at his bedroom door which despite my raising it he can still climb over! He is two flights up from the main living area of the house therefore potentially two flights to fall down and he has in the past but it doesn't deter him! Short of shutting him in the room ( he screams blue murder when I have) I just don't know what else to do. He's a bright little fella and I've tried to explain that it's dangerous to walk around on his own and following his tumbles he stopped for a while but now he's at it again. His favourite trick is to go into the bathroom and mess around with toilet paper and water until it's like a bombsite!! Apart from anything else it's costing us a fortune in toilet paper and it won't be long before he blocks the loo altogether! Books are no good to keep him amused as he ends up tearing them to shreds. He always had an afternoon sleep for approx. 2-3hrs so I knocked that on the head in an effort to get him to sleep at night. This just means that after about three days he's so tired he's unbearable and not the happy little boy he usually is. The wandering is usually over by about 9.30 -10pm and then he's asleep. Anyone got any answers please?

What time do you put him to bed? If he's not sleepy till 9.30-10pm then maybe you are putting to bed too early, particularly if he is having an afternoon nap too. I don't put my 2 year old to bed till about 9.30 sometimes 10 and he just goes out like a light. He generally has a 2 hour nap during the day.

Eulalia, he usually goes to bed at 7pm and the thought of keeping him up until 10pm fills me with dread.The evenings are the only time my husband and I get a chance to be on our own and they are cut short by the fact that this little boy has two older sisters who have later bedtimes anyway.I know that sounds selfish but I also know that I would resent him being around until that time and that after a few nights of it he would be absolutely tired out. Today he had no afternoon nap and he's gone to bed and to sleep without any problems but teatime was a nightmare as he gets hyper when he's tired. Perhaps I'll just have to live with that. I will try the cutting down on the afternoon nap as Batters suggests and hopefully we can arrive at a mutually acceptable amount of nap time. Thanks for your suggestions.

Binza, Could be wrong but I think that kids of this age are supposed to get about twelve hours sleep at night - so unless you son is getting up at ten in the morning putting him down at ten at night might be doing him out of needed sleep.
As for the night wanderings - my brother used to wake up in the middle of the night and cause havoc. He also managed to let himself out of the house several times which nearly gave my mother a nervous breakdown. I don't know if the NSPCC would approve but she ended up putting one of those security chains - the sort that you put on the front door - on his bedroom door, so he could open it enough to shout for the loo etc, but could not get out. Sounds rather cruel in print but it was the only way to stop him getting hurt. I think Batters suggestion sounds like the best idea though!

Binza, what type of stairgate are you using? My friend had this problem with her son and then she used a travel stairgate, which he couldn't climb over and the problem was solved.

binza, i suppose it couldn't be that without his nap he is getting overtired and past the point of going to sleep easily? i have a teenage daughter who is still like that - she insists on staying up as late as poss night after night and when she reaches the point of being impossible to live with she is so tired she can't sleep (and yells at everybody else for keeping her awake!)

could you let him have a nap every other day and see if that makes any difference? just a short one maybe...they all have different sleep requirements and those requirements change at different times, it is a very hard one to get right.

or else put him to bed earlier?

(the fact that it is still light probably makes a difference too. once the nights start drawing in again - a cheerful thought! - you may find the problem resolves itself anyway.)

Binza, our toddler kept coming out of his room when we put him to bed. We had a few nights of physically holding the door handle from the outside so he couldn't get out (I hated that but he generally gave up after 15-20 minutes of trying every few minutes and pottering around his room in between beak-out attempts). The next 10 days we stood outside the door and just picked him up and plonked him straight back in his bed when he appeared at the door. Some nights it would take 2 plonks and others an hour. The most difficult part of that was keeping a straight face when a little face peered round the door, pointed into the hall and danced about saying 'no no no nooooo' with a cheeky look on his face! I think its penelope leach who says just stop being interesting to them after bed time so if they come out you don't talk to them beyond 'go back to bed' and they stop thinking its worth coming out of there room cos theres nothing interesting going on !
we don't close his door, we want him to think he can come out if he needs to, he actually settles quicker with the door open now. good luck

Willow2 - it is 12 hours over a 24 hour period so it could be 10 hours at night + 2 afteroon nap. Kids vary at lot and some need more sleep, others less. My son only sleeps 9.5 hours at night plus a 1.5-2 hour nap and he's just turned 2. He rarely gets grizzly.

If you want to get kids to bed early then best to have the afternoon nap quite early - late morning if possible. Sorry if that sounds rather obvious!

I'm grateful for all the advice given but it seems that all I had to do was ask the question on mumsnet and he would go to bed without any problems! For the last three nights there have been no wanderings or toilet paper games. We take it in turns to put him to bed so at first I thought it was because I'd put him in. However the next night it was hubbys turn and there was the same good result - long may it last. I've taken on board the advice about naps being made shorter and maybe even alternate days. Of course it's now the school holidays which will bu*r up all my carefully planned routines so it'll be back to the drawing board in Sept.