Creeps in when we are asleep..help!!

[laura75]

Hi everyone, just joined today as we are stuck on a sleep problem. Our daughter is 2y8m and has been in her big bed for 3 months now. It took a while for her to get used to it and now she generally settles well..well, we have to sit quietly in her room until she falls asleep but normally thats after bath, books and lights out, and takes 20mins or so. The new problem that has happened in the last 2 weeks is that in the middle of the night she creeps in and we wake to her in our bed...not great. She has never been one to get into our bed until recently, she comes in and then we wake to her in the middle of dh & i.

I have been reading in the BW book that Tracey says a stairgate maybe the answer and obv if shes coming into our bed then that causes other issues. I am concerened that this isn't really going to help/train her to stay in her bed as the stair gate will be stopping her...how can we use rewards charts/stickers for that. I do think the stairgate may be a good idea as at least then our 8month baby boy won't be woken up by him as she loves to come in and see him. Due to us just having a 2 bed house, our baby is still in our room. We are all so shattered as none of us are getting good sleep. If she wakes in the early part of the night, we do return here but this is very hard to do when we don't even realise she is in there!

I have been wondering about some kind of timer on her bedside light so she knows when its ok to come in...shes got a good understanding of things and i just don't want her to be too upset. I am ok with getting up at 6am but any earlier just tires us all out.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much

Laura
xxx

[imsmum]

We had something similar with our older dd when she switched into her big girl bed although she was slightly older when we attempted to correct the problem.  When dd got her big girl bed she managed to convince dh to lay down with her at night and she would also sneak into our bed by crawling right up the middle between us.  She was so good we would often not discover her until morning either! 

She got used to someone being there when she fell asleep so she also needed us there in the middle of the night.  So we had to put a stop to staying when she fell asleep at night, first by lying with her just for a while, then sitting on the bed.  We started tucking our sheets in so when she would come in the night she would have to physically crawl over us so that woke us up!  We would then take her back to her room and do whatever it was that we were currently doing at bedtime ie. lying briefly, sitting etc.  and then leaving.  This took a long time and there were major nighttime tantrums but it wasn't as important b/c we didn't have another baby at the time. It also was a major breakthrough to explain to her that by coming in the night she was disturbing everyone which made dh and I grumpy with her all day.  The thought of a less grumpy mummy worked better than any stickers or other incentive 

Not sure if any of this will help in your situation given that you have to take the quietest route possible.  I think you may find the stairgate isn't the quietest route because all they do is stand at the stairgate and wail until someone comes to get them.  How is she when you do return her to her room?  What do you do then?  I do think a reward chart though is a good idea after you explain what is going on.   

[Florencia]

The reward method works like this: you build a poster with days in the week. She gets a sticker (she can choose the sticker to make it funnier) when she spends the whole night in her room. If not, she gets a cross or a sad face. When she gets 3 stickers in a row she can have something special like an extra story, tv show, more chocolate. When she gets 6 stickers in a row she can have something more special like going to the park, going to macdonalds etc. When she gets 10 stickers in a row she can have something SUPER special like a new toy, a super special outing, a tea party. You can also adapt it with marbles in a bowl instead of stickers, whatever she likes better. The theory says that when you manage to go 10 nights in a row, then you've stablished an habit that is not breakable.

HTH and agree with imsmum, we'd need to see what her reactions are and more info to offer you more suggestions.

[laura75]

Thanks Imsmum & Florencia for your replys. Our baby is still in our room so noise only really bothers him when its in our room. If she comes into our room when we are awake we say "back to bed" and she runs of down the hallway and climbs into bed, sometimes she goes straight back to sleep other times it takes a little longer. One of us just sits quietly by her closed door until she is asleep, then we leave the room.

Its such a shame that we have started that as up until now she has always settled beautifuly and if she was still awake in her cot would talk or sing herself to sleep, but of course now she knows she can get out of bed, The very first night she was in her big bed i stayed out of the room but it just seemed to wind her up more me leaving each time and as i stayed in her room she eventually settled. I would say as a baby she is a an angel/textbook baby and as she has developed she is def spirited..but still an angel

What worries me about the stairgate is that, yes, she prob would stand at it crying, poss try and climb over it (shes quite a climber!) and that it isn't really teaching her anything. I would much rather put into practise a routine where she knows if she stays in her room..not necessarily her bed past 5am, and then doesn't come to us until 6am..or we go to her...and is then rewarded. We started something last week if she settled and stayed in her room, the first night she did but came in at 5.30am which wasn't great but better, so we gave her a little suprise from the bag so she got the idea of it..since then, we have been stumped as we don't always know shes in our room..but i guess really we should have continued and then maybe she would think again before coming in. I just brought some small £1-2 toys but perhaps she should "earn" 3 stickers, say, before she gets anything?

Perhaps we need to set a few/many nights aside where we make sure we ALWAYS take her back, even if we are shattered and hope it will be worth it in the end!

Ohh, its so tricky! We are having the toughest times at the mo..her little brother sleeps very well but could do with sleeping longer and not being disturbed by his big fiendly big sister lol!

This is a great site, by the way..i am off work tomorrow as have conjuctivitus so will have a good play!

Looking forward to more hints, thanks in advance.

Laura
xxx

[Florencia]

Yep Laura i think you should definetly do 3 stickers in a row cause that teaches her about consitancy. Otherwise she might get it as i don't need a new toy today, maybe tomorrow or the next week. She needs to know she will get the reward ONLY if she's consistant.

What other moms have found helpful too is the light with a timer when you set the timer when it's appropiate for her to come to your bedroom, say 6 am. You set the timer and the light goes on at that hour and you tell her, when the light's on it's ok to come to mommy, but when the light's off you need to stay in bed, it's bedtime.

HTH and good luck!