Does your toddler choose their own bedtime or did you decide when it would be?

[helle]

Maybe try going in and out. So to start off with say 'you can sit in bed and read your books and mummy will come back and check on you in 1 minute'. Then make sure you come back, see that he is ok, whatever. Then do it again. And again. And again. Over time you should be able to build up the time so that you are only having to go in and check on him once a night after 5 minutes.

That's what we do. Kinda. If he doesn't stay on his bed tho we shut the door, if he "behaves" it stays open. I do the "i'll be back in a minute" thing, and then leave the room but generally once DS actually stays still he's asleep within 5 minutes and by the time I get back in there he's zonked it.

Since we started doing this he's gone from waking 5 times a night, to zero

[Kmn]

He goes to bed when he's tired. He wakes up at different times, depending on what we are doing in the day - and only has a nap somedays.
We keep a watch on his behavior, and when he starts getting clingy or unco or silly or repetitive we tell him "When the big hand gets to (whatever number is in 15 minutes) it's get ready for bed time".
Some nights that's 7.30 (earlyish start, no nap) other nights its midnight (slept in and had a nap).
We also sometimes give him the choice mid-afternoon "are you going to have a rest or are you going to bed straight after tea".
It works pretty well for us.

[Little Chicken]

Truthfully, I have no idea how I got her to stay. We started off sitting with her when we started her going to bed by herself (in our bed), but that only lasted a week. If she ever came out, we just put her straight back in.

[Kazzo]

No bedtime here either. My DD1 is a great sleeper and always has been. She has maybe been up past 8:30pm a handful of times and most night after her bath and a glass of milk she likes to cuddle with DH or myself and will end up falling asleep. She very rarely has a day nap anymore so most nights she is asleep by 7:30pm. If she has had a nap and is not showing any tiredness and it gets past 8pm I do tell her it is quiet time now and she will come cuddle. She goes through stages of wanting to go to bed before falling asleep and wanting to fall asleep in the lounge room. I choose not to force her and we all have a good night.

[~Kaz~]

and when he starts getting clingy or unco or silly or repetitive

LOL DS is like that most of his waking hours but I get what you're saying about tired signs.

*sigh* I am sure he will get there eventually. Thanks for all the replies, I think I am still just heartbroken that he can't seem to go down quickly anymore and since I work 4 days a week, I really miss the evening time to myself. By the time he's down i'm so exhausted I can't be bothered doing much. Going off to sleep was the one part he was good at and now he can't do that and he still has lengthy overnight wake ups. Hard not to think we've gone backwards getting my evenings back somehow would really help atm.


Sent from my phone.

[beansbeans!]

Thinking about you getting your ds to sleep on his own.

With DD1 I always had to cuddle her to sleep, but when I got pregnant with DD2 I had to change it up so I could get up and walk out of the room if I was needed elsewhere. So we went from cuddling in her bed to me laying next to her holding her hand, to me sitting in a chair next to her holding her hand, to me sitting next to her but no touching. Then it changed to me standing at the door, needing to go to the loo whilst she was nodding off, then to me saying to her that I would be close by and she only had to call out to me if she needed anything. Now I put on their night music, kiss goodnight and walk out of the room. Both are happy with that.
So maybe you could try taking some babysteps at getting out of his room whilst he's nodding off.

[Kmn]

Here's what we do. Dinner, play (unless dinner very messy - then bath immediately), bath if its bath night (DS has eczema and baths are every 2 or 3 days), wind down with reading or dvd watching or doing lego and then when he gets silly have 15 minute warning, put nappy on, clean teeth, stories, bed.

The downside to all of this is that there are nights when you end up painting pictures at 10 pm! But not especially often.

[Heaven]

Bedtime here is 8.30pm, a lot later than other kids DD1's age but she chose that time. We are now in the routine that we put her to bed at 8.30 every night but yeah, that's because that's when she's ready for bed.

[Kazzo]

Our routine is the same, dinner, bath cuddle bed. Ours starts at about 5:30 with dinner. Then the girls go straight to the bath/shower. DH & or myself also normally have our showers at this time too. We let the girls have around 10 minutes of nudie time and then PJ's on and quiet time. One rule we have always set is that they can't dictate what is on the TV (that ends at 5pm when playschool finishes) and if they do want to play for a little more after getting dressed then it is quiet play on the floor. Then it is cuddles for DD1, DD2 likes to go to bed to fall asleep ATM (she is only 11months though). Sometimes we cuddle for an hour sometimes we cuddle for 5 minutes.

I have found with DD1 that by having a guideline of events but not inforcing a time limit and saying okay times up, you have to do this now that she naturally follows along happily.

[briggsy's girl]

Bedtime here is between 8.30 and 9.30 - usually 9. We kinda let DD choose. If she isn't ready to sleep, she will fight it - and fight and fight and fight until it ends up being MUCH later than this! It's just not worth the angst!

DD still has a day nap - if she sleeps after a certain time, it nudges bed time back. so we have to make sure she is awake at that time.

we could probably look at trying to move nap and everything earlier in the day BUT, i don't get home until after 5, so that period from 5 until dinner (around 7) is our Mummy/Daughter time. I'm not ready to eat dinner any earlier than we do - i just want to chill after work - and i dont' want the angst of seperate meals and then having to try and get her settled before we eat

for now, it's working. when she ditches her day nap or we head towards 3yo kinder (2013) we'll have to re-think things. but i'm working on the thought that we've done everything else "DD-led" - this is just part of that approach. it's not hurting anyone, so we'll run with it for now

[~Kaz~]

Kmn - I have wondered about putting bedtime back. I guess that was my question (tired posting not my strong point) for those who let their kids decide, how do you structure the evening, if at all? My head is stuck in dinner, bath, cuddle and then bed and i'm struggling to wrap my head around more play between bath and bed or perhaps we start to have dinner later? Dunno. The few times we've been later with the routine, he still takes just as long to settle so sleep just got further into the night! But I haven't done it on purpose for a week to trial it.

Sent from my phone.

[Tegam]

We have a set bed time and I work their day sleeps in around that. I would prefer a tired afternoon then a kid up til 9 pm I just need some quiet til on the evenings. It works for us. I say give it a try, at 2 hrs to get to sleep what's the worst that can happen? Good luck

[black_rose]

All of our kids are in bed at 7.30, if they are not ready to sleep they have torches they can read with or play with their toys.

[Miss.September]

DD wouldn't go to bed until around 10.30 for the longest time. Would drive us nuts. We were getting tireder and tireder, and here was this child bouncing off the walls. Then there was a day where she didn't have a day sleep - and was asleep by 7.30. We do a bath, drink, story routine, she's in bed by 7.30 everynight (unless she has a nap during the day which is rare). It took a long time for us to be able to say goodnight and leave the room while she was awake, but now that happens too. I guess we half followed her lead, and worked out what would work. Now if it's around 7ish and I'm doing something else when she finishes her drink, she'll come up to me and say "Bed, Mummy."

But while it was all up in the air, I was freaking out, wondering if that was going to be the case forever!