We had to move DD out of her cot and into a toddler bed a few days ago because she was able to climb out of the cot.
So bedtime has become a bit trying as she gets in and out of her bed a million times. The last few nights I've found myself getting quite irritable and it's especially hard as DP isn't home in the evenings one week out of two so I have to do dinner and the bedtime routine on my own grrrrrrrrr.
I think my plan of attack will be to basically ignore whether she's in bed or not because nothing I do has made a difference to her actually getting into bed - but let her do whatever she wants to do and I will read her a (long) story even if she's ignoring me, then leave. That seemed to work tonight.
She does seem to be able to get back into bed and go to sleep even if she's out of bed when I leave.
DD was similar when first going into a bed, once the novelty wore off she started being alot better, altho now she is back to getting in and out, doing god knows what, we hear thumping but when we get up there she is back in.
Now we've set ground rules, she takes one toy to bed and books she can sit in bed read her books play with the toy til she is tired and only get out of bed if she needs to use the toliet. This seems to be working well.
He used to wander around at night playing with all sorts of things. If we heard particularly loud/destructive sounds like thumps and bangs coming from there, we'd stick our head in and hustle him back to bed but otherwise left him to his own devices.
At first, he would end up asleep on the floor (during the warmer weather thankfully). Then he started to put himself back to bed when he was done. Now, he tends to stay in bed. We got there eventually.
ETA: Oh yeah, I should add that he used to escape, so we put a safety gate on, and then he used to open the door and throw things out, sing to us, etc (their bedroom door looks directly onto our one living area), so dh has rigged up a system where he can only open the door a crack, not as fun, so he doesn't do it really. He was furious the first few nights, but got over it soon enough.
With DD for the first few nights we went through the usual routine, book etc and then turned off the light and sat next to the bed, didnt talk to her or anything. She would then simply go to sleep but understood that she had to stay in her bed. After a few nights of this we simply then put her to sleep in her bed, left the room and didnt have any problems.
DS on the other hand has always required someone to sleep next to him, so we laid down with him till he fell asleep and then left the room.
We have also moved DD into a toddler bed and we do the same routine as we did while she was sleeping in her cot..She has the routine down pat.
Starts with a bottle, then nappy / clothing change (we put her in a sleeping bag too in these cold nights as shes a wriggler and ends up in the most peculiar positions), then we read her a story in her bed, dummy goes in, night light is switched on and thats it. She hasn't even escaped!
Putting Toddlers To Bed - What Do You Do?
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks