26mth old daughter, trouble getting to sleep

[Terryv]

Hi,

Our Daughter is 26 months old and for the first time last weekend, climbed out of her cotbed. Luckily she climbed over the end onto her toy box so didn't fall.

Anyway, my wife and I decided that in the interests of safety, given that an escape route had been found, we should turn the cotbed into a bed. We did this last Saturday afternoon and made a suitable fuss about the big girls bed etc. Daughter loved the idea until it actually came to bed time.

Our Daughter very much knows her own mind and is very persistent when she decides she wants or doesn't want to do something.

In the interests of trying to keep things calm, (my wife is pregnant so I am doing the putting to bed), we continued with the normal bedtime routine, milk and quiet story with Mum downstairs, I take Allie up to bed, tuck her in, read a couple of short stories, stroke her hair etc.

I tried to leave the room a significant number of times and within seconds of me shutting her door she was up and heading towards our bedroom looking for Mum. She is very very attached to my wife largely I think due to allergy problems she has suffered with, Mum being the only comforter that works.

She has also woken up anything from two to four times in the night and each time we end up with the same situation, I end up taking her back into her room and settling her which is taking anything from 15 minutes to 3 hours each time.

I have found myself spending a lot more time just trying to settle her down to the point I can go back and try and sleep,  this turned into only 3 hours sleep for me last night, plus I have a full time job to do which makes it unsustainable for more than a few days.

Last night and so far this evening I have been firmer and simply left the room after tucking her in and giving her a kiss goodnight. She came out of her room about 20 times this evening before finally going to sleep after I got cross with her.

I am sorely tempted to put a stair gate across her bedroom door so that perhaps if she knows she cannot get out and come into find her Mum, she won't bother. Perhaps wishful thinking !

I have already taken her toys out her room so they are not a distraction from sleep, she still has her Winnie the Pooh to cuddle up to though and her favourite blanket on the bed.

I am really concerned that we are not seemingly making a lot of progress, its only been a week I know but I do periodically spend time away with work and am dreading having to leave my pregnant wife to do bedtime and be up and down all night. Wife is suffering form low blood pressure as well so has to be very careful, she has already passed out once and had to go to hospital to get checked out, no harm done to her or the baby but obviously we don't want to take any chances.

Would love to hear any suggestions, I am concerned that the lack of sleep we are experiencing isn't good for any of us and the longer is carries on for, the less able we are to collectively deal with it with the minimum of fuss.

Thanks in advance,

Terry

[Shdef]

The stair gate is a good idea. I would make sure it's higher than the cot bed and no boxes in the room that she could use as stairs. And, at every wake up and attempt, put her back to bed with the same boring words... night night and that's it.

She will try 200 times the first night, 100 times the second and then less and less. After a few weeks there may be a relapse but if you stay consistant she will get the message

Good luck!

[mum101]

The stairgate could be worth a try.

My DD climbed out of her cot once but didn't bother again.  She can climb into happily but doesn't bother getting out.  If you end up going back to her cot, she may not necessarily keep climbing out. For DD it's her bed and she's happy there so climbing out didn't make much of an issue.
 
Our friend's son also started climbing out of his cot but they kept him in there for quite some time.  He is very VERY determined and strongwilled and he was too young to understand big boys bed, so a change to a big bed would have been disaster for him.  For a while he'd climb out, stick his head out of his bedroom door with his sippy cup asking for more milk, then climb back in!!