How to keep 2 year old in toddler bed at night?

[s7714]

Here's a thought then. How about every time he gets out of bed, you take one of his toys out of the room? Maybe something like that would work? Even using that method, I think I would still limit the amount of toys in his room, because you wouldn't want to spend the entire night taking away toys!

Jennifer
Mommy to
Annalia 3/03
Sophia 6/05

When raising kids the days are oh so long, but the years are short.--John Leguizamo

[megulis]

Is there a way to stop him from turning on the lights? That way even if he does some things he may only sing or play with his one toy in bed. I give my son his cheerios and one toy in bed. When we say good night to him, we have a routine. Read, sing, and say goodnight and kiss him. We have him lying down through the whole time. It sometimes still takes him 1/2 hour or more to sleep, but he does sleep.

He really doesn't get out of his queen sized bed. He has never been in a crib though so that may make a difference. We also don't check on him if he is still awake 30 minutes later.

[mommyj_2]

>
>THE PROBLEM IS HOW TO MAKE HIM MIND US? During the day I have
>a well-behaved little boy who does what I ask. He minds me
>simply because he's disciplined if he doesn't mind me. But
>how do you make them mind at night? I wish I could ask my
>mom- my brother and I were the best behaved children (everyone
>told us so :). but she died a few months ago. Anyone else
>have any advice? Anyone?

I wonder if someone told you that you had to go to bed and fall asleep at a given time, could you do it? In your PP, you said you didn't see this as a discipline problem, but the way you're wording your questions seems to suggest that you view going to bed/sleep as a behavior issue (i.e. your son is disobeying if he can't calm down). IMO, a yound child needs to be guided in learning positive bedtime routines. They can't just figure it out on their own.
Have you tried lying in his room next to his bed with him while he's trying to go to sleep? What about reading books to him, or singing to him until he falls asleep? On days when my son can't seem to unwind, it often calms him if I sing the same song over and over on a soft voice. Sometimes it takes a long time for him to calm down and go to sleep, but most often he can fall alseep without any singing at all. I've found that if I turn something into a power struggle, then he is much less likely to want to do whatever it is I want him to do. If I approach it from the standpoint that he and I are working together, he is usually happy to go along with what we want him to do.
I think reading a book like Positive Discipline might be helpful, and might give you some ideas.
Maybe you could try to wait a little bit longer to put him to bed, and then go through a routine (or add a new part to your bedtime routine, like reading, singing, or telling stories). I know my mom got my niece to stay in bed by saying she would stay in my niece's room with her as long as she was lying in bed. They would either watch a video together, read, or sing util my niece went to sleep. This worked really well on the nights when my niece kept wanting to get out of bed.

[gatorsmom]

I think this is an excellent idea. It's an immediate reaction to his behavior of getting out of bed. If he gets out of bed again, he gets a toy taken away. As a matter of fact, I saw his pediatrician today (not for him but for my 2-month old) and I asked her if she had any ideas. She mentioned this same technique, only using stickers on a bulletin board. Put up stickers on a board or someplace visible but out of reach in his room, make a big deal about how pretty they are, then every time I have to turn off the lights, take a sticker away. But I like the toys idea better because he has attachments to his toys so it will really get the point across.

Thank you!

[gatorsmom]

I think I found my answer to this dilemna but i wanted to thank you for your advice and respond to your post. I really to think this is a behavior/discipline issue. The issue is that he is not listening to me. It's important that he mind his parents. It's not only a matter of respect but of safety. Right now he is too young to understand that his behavior is disrespectful but it's important to enforce it anyway in the same way we teach children to share or say thank you. If I teach him the behavior now, later on he'll understand why he's doing it. It's not about working WITH him in this case.

As for safety, luckily we have the means to purchase baby gates to keep him from wandering the house at night but what if we didn't? He can't just wander around til he decides he's tired enough to sleep. Also, I can't always spend 2 hours in his room at night waiting for him to go to sleep. I have a 2 month old to nurse!

My point is this- mommy knows best. We have a bedtime routine that he enjoys (he sure lets me know right away if I've forgotten part of his routine) that includes teeth- brushing, sitting on his potty, reading several books he chooses, singing songs, saying prayers, and lots of hugs and kisses. But then it's lights out- end of discussion. I don't want to sing him to sleep or sit by his bed because then he might begin to need that to fall asleep on his own. When he was in his crib he was able to do this. So, falling asleep on his own is not the problem. The problem is keeping him in his bed. And that's a disciplinary problem.

To answer your question- I remember my mom telling me every night that it was time to go to bed. And I did even when I wasn't immediately tired. Often I would lie there singing songs or thinking different things and eventually I went to sleep. But I also remember that often I'd fall asleep quickly because I was more tired than I thought. My mom knew best too :).

[lubdubdeb]

I guess I am in the minority after reading these responses, but I agree with you that this is a discipline issue. When we first moved our 2-yr-old into a big girl bed, we had trouble with this, too. We took most of the toys out of her room and made it pretty dull. But she would still find ways to occupy herself. So we told her that she would get a spanking if she got out of bed. Her spankings are generally so mild that it doesn't even produce tears (that seems to be all she needs, not an overly-strong willed child) but it bothers her. It worked immediately. She no longer gets out of bed and if she has a problem she calls for help. If she is more wide-awake than usual, esp at nap time, I leave her with a book to read while she falls asleep.

Good luck!

[kboyle]

My DS#1 plays in his bed for about half an hour (9:30-10p) every night. Whether there are toys with him or not you can hear him talking and mumbling to himself. He has a few Hot wheels, a playmobil guy & 2 duplo legos (as of last night), but nothing big to play with. We keep the light off and the door closed w/ no night light and he doesn't get out of bed, and he has always slept in complete dark, so he's not scared. Oh yeah, and he has a fisher-price tiger flashlight that growls in his bed too, helps him if he does get frightened of something and it occupys his time till he gets bored and falls asleep. Plus, I've been playing the same lullaby CD since he was a baby.

Naps are a different story, that took a while for him to not climb out of bed and play with...socks. The first 2 weeks of his "big boy" bed he would climb down and put on all of his different socks. His sock/diaper/towel bins are right next to the door so I'd have to slowly push open the door to slide him out of the way and wake him up with different socks on, and socks on his hands. Now he changes outfits before falling asleep. I find it pretty amusing, so I don't mind re-folding his clothes & re balling up his socks. But like PP I don't check up on him, once the kisses are given, the CD is playing and the door shuts I don't see him again till it's time to get up. And he doesn't mind, well at least I don't think he does, he's never cried b/c it's bedtime. Hopefully DS#2 will be the same way!

So, after all that, in answer to your post, I keep all the lights off and he doesn't go anywhere. When the lights (technically daylight) are on he's checking stuff out in his room for about an hour. We've tried night lights at night and he yells for us to turn it off.

Good luck!

[kboyle]

My DS#1 plays in his bed for about half an hour (9:30-10p) every night. Whether there are toys with him or not you can hear him talking and mumbling to himself. He has a few Hot wheels, a playmobil guy & 2 duplo legos (as of last night), but nothing big to play with. We keep the light off and the door closed w/ no night light and he doesn't get out of bed, and he has always slept in complete dark, so he's not scared. Oh yeah, and he has a fisher-price tiger flashlight that growls in his bed too, helps him if he does get frightened of something and it occupys his time till he gets bored and falls asleep. Plus, I've been playing the same lullaby CD since he was a baby.

Naps are a different story, that took a while for him to not climb out of bed and play with...socks. The first 2 weeks of his "big boy" bed he would climb down and put on all of his different socks. His sock/diaper/towel bins are right next to the door so I'd have to slowly push open the door to slide him out of the way and wake him up with different socks on, and socks on his hands. Now he changes outfits before falling asleep. I find it pretty amusing, so I don't mind re-folding his clothes & re balling up his socks. But like PP I don't check up on him, once the kisses are given, the CD is playing and the door shuts I don't see him again till it's time to get up. And he doesn't mind, well at least I don't think he does, he's never cried b/c it's bedtime. Hopefully DS#2 will be the same way!

So, after all that, in answer to your post, I keep all the lights off and he doesn't go anywhere. When the lights (technically daylight) are on he's checking stuff out in his room for about an hour. We've tried night lights at night and he yells for us to turn it off.

Good luck!

[Bethann31]

Ok, feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but as a BTDT mom (my kids are 15, 13, 10 and 2) and a former special ed teacher, I can tell you that positive reinforcement and the earning of reinforcement is a better way to go, long term. There is a great deal of research that supports this. Ok, that's my teacher angle..... now from a mom: my older children did the same thing. I tried the toy removal game with them, but some children (like my brilliant oldest son) will find something to play with even if there is NOTHING in their room. We laughed that he could make his belly button lint a toy. With him, once you took everything away, there was no reason to behave, because there was nothing to be lost.


Beth
mom to:

Josh 3/90
Mollie 4/92
Jeffrey 12/94
Katherine 6/03


http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/lamla...e+Grace+is.png

[o_mom]

No actual experience yet on this one, but it sounds like you need to focus on what exactly you expect from him. I am reading this as the main problem is keeping him in bed until he goes to sleep. In that case, the discipline needs to focus on the getting out of bed part, before the lights get turned on and the party starts. IMO, waiting until he is up and playing is too late for a 2 yo to make the connection.

I think the PPs have been right on removing all toys except for a few to keep in bed. A 2yo can't be expected to stay in bed with all those toys just waiting to be played with. Don't present it as a punishment, just slowly remove them to other rooms/storage over a few days. Also, you may try a light switch lock, such as this one:

http://www.totsafe.com/proddetail.asp?prod=483&cat=4

if he can't turn on the lights and there are no toys, there may be less incentive to get out in the first place.

If that doesn't work, then a next step might be to work more intensly on not getting out of bed at all. In Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, they recommend going in as soon as the child leaves the bed and putting them back with minimal interaction. Don't get mad, rough, or talk about it, just place them back in bed. Explain ahead of time that he must stay in bed, even if he is not sleeping and that he can play with the toys in his bed (if you choose to leave some there). The case reports in the book talk about parents repeating this up to some very large number of times (50?) the first night or two and then having it drop off dramatically by the third night to one or two times.

This may require a team effort of someone sitting right outside the room for a couple of nights. Schedule the first couple of nights for a weekend, bring a good book and agree that the designated person gets to sleep in in the morning if it lasts into the wee hours.

Don't know if any of this will help, but let us know how it goes.