And so it begins.... how to keep DD in her bed?

[marensmama]

I'm not known for my short questions, I don't know how to be brief, so please bear with me....

My DD 1 is 2 1/2 years old.  I had planned on keeping her in her crib until she was 18  but at the end of November we all got some sort of Norovirus and she was sick all over her crib and this scared her terribly, she didn't want to sleep in her crib anymore.  Since the family bed is not for us (my mommy radar doesn't shut off when DD is in my bed so I can't sleep), we decided we'd bite the bullet and put her in a big girl bed.  By the time we had purchased/assembled/customized her bed she wasn't interested anymore and was happy in her crib.  Great, right?!  I told her to let me know when she was ready for a big girl bed and we'd move her then.  About 2 weeks later she announced on her own that she was ready for a BGB, and we moved it into her room (with a guard rail on it) and she slept in it like a pro for naps and night-time.  Until the day before yesterday that is.  I had taken DD2 out to run some errands, and DH was downstairs while DD 1 was napping upstairs.  Or so he thought... turns out she had gotten out of her bed for the very first time and wound up in the kitchen, at the table, playing with her cups that she had collected from various rooms in the house.  Some sort of tea party, I suppose.  Sounds cute, I know, but I've been dreading this problem, I thought we'd bypassed it.  Anyways, she says to DH, "But Daddy, I'm not tired!" so he let her stay up (no nap for a girl who NEEDS her nap) and when I got home it was too late to put her back down.  That night, she went to bed without any trouble.  The next day she was at daycare and she sleeps in a playpen there so it was no trouble.  Slept well that night too.  Today, at nap time, she called out to me about 1/2 hr after I put her down, she'd gotten stuck in her closet.  I put her in her bed, tried to settle her again by singing a song, and left the room.  15 minutes later, I hear her reciting lines from the Polar Express book, and I go in and she's standing on her window seat with the blackout blind hiding her.  I say Maren, it's bedtime, and remove her from the window seat and put her in her bed.  She kicks up a fuss and I leave the room.  She's been quiet for as long as it's taken me to type this (5 minutes or so) but I'm afraid to peek in just in case she's about to fall asleep and I disturb her. Oh, never mind, she's talking aloud again.

She sleeps 7:30 to 6:30 and has a 2 hour nap every day.  She has a cold right now, which makes sucking her thumb hard which in turn makes it hard for her to settle.  For this reason she has had several EWs lately, and as I said, she does need her sleep.  So do I for that matter!  Her room has very little in the way of entertainment as most of her toys are in the playroom downstairs (and besides, she can make a plaything out of just about anything or nothing at all!) and it's dark aside from a little night lamp.

How should I handle this?  With a 4 mo lo with 1 nw for feeding and with Maren's EW lately, I'm exhausted and can't face a night-time episode IYKWIM!

[marensmama]

One thought, is she getting ready for no naps, or is it early yet for that??

I think it's early, but it would make balancing the two schedules and leaving the house a lot easier!!

[marensmama]

OK, no-one's answered me, but I guess it is too early to go down to one nap, since I found her asleep on her window seat where she stayed until just before dinner.  Bedtime tonight was on time and uneventful, so I guess we just go on as is and hopefully she doesn't make an issue of it.

[tylersmommy]

We transitioned Tyler to his BBB at that exact same age. Our only rules were that he had to stay in his room. Luckily, he preferred sleeping with his door closed and didn't know how to open it, so that solved that. If that hadn't been the case, a baby gate would have gone up in his doorway.

Other than that, I really didn't care what he did in there as long as he was in his room and not being loud. I never bothered making him physically stay in bed. I just didn't see the point. He was allowed to have quiet toys in there, like books or trains, and he'd often play quietly for HOURS instead of sleep. The novelty did eventually wear off, but to this day he isn't the kind of kid who just drifts off to sleep after being tucked in. He likes to have some alone time to wind down and that's okay. The first few weeks were rough and he didn't get much sleep, but like I said, the novelty did wear off.

He did drop his nap shortly after the transition to a bed. Coincidence? Don't know. But bedtime was moved waaaaay forward to compensate and he was really only overtired for a couple of weeks until his body adjusted.

I hope you guys get it sorted out!

[marensmama]

OK, here's what happened today...
Same scenario, she got out of bed twice and since she has been so sick with a cold lately and we have a family occasion to go to tonight, she really, really, needed a nap.  So, after the second time I just went in, asked her to please lay down in her bed, which she did, and then I told her I'd sit in her room until she fell asleep.  I sat on the window seat and she just laid there for five minutes before she drifted off.  I don't want it to become a habit, so I was as uninteresting as possible, didn't interact with her at all.  I hope she doesn't expect the same now every nap, but it did break the cycle of her getting up and she knows that Mommy means business.

[taygensmom]

We moved our LO to a bed early at 16 months due to #2 on the way shortly after that. We did put a doorknob on that we knew he couldn't open from the inside, especially due to his age and my fear of him "getting out" of his room at night without me knowing!! that being said, I did want him to learn to stay in his bed when it was sleep time. One thing that helped is he has no toys in his room at all except a few in his closet, which are out of reach. The only things remotely close is some books. We did spend some time reviewing the need to stay in bed. He did get out a few times, we just put him right back in saying "no, it's bedtime". We also taught him to stay in his bed in the morning until we come to get him, as again at his age especially I didn't know what he could get into and also I didn't want him to start waking early to get up and play. With consistency this did work for us, and know he never gets out of bed and just talks to himself in the morning until we get him. HTH

[marensmama]

Well, we had a few good days after I sat in her room, then we had a real meltdown today.  She would NOT stay in her bed, and I didn't want to keep physically putting her in there for fear of getting involved in some sort of escalation trap.  I left her in her room to play, figuring she'd fall asleep by herself quietly as before, but instead she started calling me, which changed to yelling for me, which changed to crying for me.  When I went in she began crying harder and screaming and every time I tried to leave the room after calming her down, she just screamed more.  I have a 4 mo lo who is having lots of trouble with NWs and her room is right next door so I couldn't let it continue (need to get DD2 back on track somehow or I'm going to go insane with both of them not sleeping!).  I tried taking her to my bedroom to calm her down, explain what I expected of her and why, but as soon as we went into her room, the screaming started again, and she woke up her little sister.      I just can't get either of them to sleep when they need to, and I'm feeling utterly exhausted and completely frustrated. 

I told DD2 that she if she wasn't going to nap, that she would be going to bed early and that if she got up it would not be play time.  I'm not trying to be mean, but I want her to know that nap time is nap time and not reward her with play for not napping KWIM?

I wish I knew how to handle this better.  She is an early riser, so there's no hope she'll sleep in to make up for the lost sleep.  There is a doorknob cover for safety on the inside of her door and she wasn't up playing with toys.  She gets up on her window-seat and goes behind the blackout blind for light and talks out the window, plays with her hands, etc., so it's not like I can take any of that away.

[M and N's Mom]

At about 2.5yo my DD started skipping some naps.  I told her she had to stay in her bed and try to nap for a while.  If she wasn't sleeping after a while (45 mins or whatever time she was content) I would take in a huge pile of books and tell her if she wasn't going to sleep, she could "read".  It took some wi/wo to train her to do this, but now at 5yo she still has quiet time every day where she rests for about 20 mins and then plays with quiet toys/books in her room for about 1h.