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We have a 2.5 year old female toddler. We put her to bed at 8:30. We take her upstairs to her room and put her into bed, tuck her in, turn on her mobile, turn on her night light, turn on her fan, kiss her, give her a bottle of water.
However as soon as we leave the room she will get out of bed, stand at the gated door and cry for the next 1-2 hours. She clearly just does not want to go to bed, regardless if she's tired or not. Instead she'd rather keep asking repeated questions from her door, pestering us and driving us insane.
Then when she does go to bed she might sleep a few hours, then she will wake up in the middle of the night, cry, turn on her overhead light, stand at the gate in the door and repeat the whole deal all over again. Except this time she will not go back to sleep for anything and in turn ends up waking us up. We have not slept much at all in the last few days. My spouse and I are cranky and have been short with each other.
Since my spouse is a stay at home mom and I work, my spouse takes our daughter downstairs in hopes of allowing me to catch some sleep. Downstairs my daughter will be in full swing the whole night playing. She just will not go to sleep.
It's to the point where I want to pull my hair out in frustration. We don't play with her the last few hrs. before bed. Melatonin doesn't work. We don't let her eat anything with sugar in it before bed. We can't shut the door to her room at night (to quiet things a little) or she will freak out. We can't put her in a crib because she can get out.
We're not sure why she will not go to bed or why she wakes up at night and won't go back to bed. In the past she would get up and call for us and we'd tell her to go back to bed and she would. Not anymore. We have a sleep study for her coming up in a few months and I'm not even sure how that's going to work. But in the meantime it's all i can do to not lose my temper with her at 3 am when I can't sleep because of her.
Not sure what else to do. We're at the end of our rope.
Since my spouse is a stay at home mom and I work, my spouse takes our daughter downstairs in hopes of allowing me to catch some sleep. Downstairs my daughter will be in full swing the whole night playing. She just will not go to sleep.
I'm sure by now your daughter has learned she will eventually get her way and be brought downstairs to play. What time is she getting up in the morning? Does she take any naps?
I kept consistency w/ my daughter everynight by giving her a warm bath followed by reading her books. This always got her sleepy and ready for bed. After a few stories, it was prayers and bed. I always put her favorite music on along w/ a night light.
Didn't we already give advice about this issue a few days ago?
Kahskye is right - your daughter knows that if she makes enough fuss she'll get her way. Taking her downstairs to play just has to stop. There must be no reward for her behaviour (and by that I'm not advocating punishment... just no reward).
You take her upstairs to her room and put her into bed, tuck her in, turn on her mobile, turn on her night light, turn on her fan, kiss her, give her a bottle of water. Read to her... have story time for about twenty minutes. Let her choose a couple of books. Read them to her and with her. Point to the pictures that describe the part you're reading; have her point out the elephant, the dog, the cat (or whatever the book is about). Cuddle her while you read. And if she doesn't seem interested at first, don't give in... keep at it until it becomes a habit.
Same when she wakes in the night... don't give in. Put her back into bed, tell her you love her but it's sleep time. You may have to do it ten times a night. But after a week or two - as soon as she realises she's not getting what she wants - I'll bet my last dollar that she stops doing it.
I'd also check whether she's getting enough physical exercise through the day, and whether she's getting enough to eat.
PHysical exercise plus a cool-down period so she's not going to bed all jacked up with adrenaline.
Then, do the Supernanny approach. It isn't enough to just bring her to bed and let her get out and stand at the door screaming for two hours. When she gets up, go in there, pick her up, and put her right back in bed again. Then leave and stand outside the door (away from her view). She'll get up again - you take her and put her back to bed. It WILL take awhile. Maybe even those two hours she usually spends screaming at the door. Maybe even longer.
But as soon as she "gets it" - that she will not be -allowed- to stand there screaming for two hours, and that she WILL be put right back to bed every single time she stands up, she will finally learn that bed, is where she belongs, at bedtime. It might take a couple of weeks.
But a couple of weeks now is going to be less inconvenient than several months, or even years, of giving in to frustration.
You can try staying in the room with her while she falls asleep. Instead of taking her downstairs, your wife can sit in the child's room with her while she goes to bed. Instead of having her fall asleep alone, you can parent her to sleep. This may involve different things for different folks, but some examples include patting her back, rubbing her back, cuddling, reading, singing, nursing, etc until she falls asleep. I went through different stages of these with my older daughter after nursing to sleep stopped working. I patted her back for a few months, then I sat in the room and sang to her, then I just sat in the room (brought my laptop). Eventually, she became comfortable falling asleep on her own, but I didn't try to make her do that before she seemed ready to do so without tears. My husband has done bedtime duty with my younger since she stopped being able to nurse to sleep, and he started off with cuddling close, then sitting on the bed, then sitting across the room, and now he is working on leaving the room after a few minutes but before she's actually asleep. We are very gradual, each step going on for months. I realize that you probably don't want to do all of this and you think she should just go to sleep when you say so, but what you are doing is obviously not working for you either, so you may as well try something new.
Make sure she is worn out physically at the end of every day. Take her to the park before supper and have her play hard until she is famished. Then feed her a good dinner and have a bedtime routine that starts with no tv after supper. You want to get her in bed so that the grown-ups can watch tv after she goes to sleep. A bedtime story after bathtime is the classic end to her day. Find stories about going to bed, or pick a favorite to end the day. For many children, it's Good Night, Moon. Turn the light out afterwards and talk in the dark afterwards. Sing a lullaby. Let her know that it's time for her to use her imagination to help her sleep. But it is NOT okay to keep anyone else up just because she can't sleep. She has to learn that nighttime is for staying in the bed and sleeping, or resting while everyone else sleeps. In preschool, she will likely have to lie quietly while others sleep during naptime. It's important that she learns how to be quiet even when she is wide awake.
Take off the gate at her door. Put the regular door back up. Right now she's standing behind what sounds like a cell door. She can see out. She can hear things. She is, no doubt, frustrated beyond measure. Put up the regular door and close it when you put her to bed. Does she rattle it? If she had a tin cup she'd probably zip it back and forth.
Lay down with her, turn the lights down and tell her stories. Make up some kind of story, it can be anything, use your imagination. Every night add something to the story but keep the same theme.
Or understand why she's doing this, she's lonely and afraid in there all alone. Maybe a cat or dog or some pet in the room.
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