How can we get our toddler to go to bed and sleep when it's time? (spank, toy)
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There are some children who just don't require much sleep. I assume she does not nap during the day? If so, cut it out.
I've heard the best tactic is to go through her bedtime routine, say goodnight and leave her. When she gets up and starts her act, calmly return her to her bed. Do not speak, just put her into bed and leave. You may need do do this a bunch of times in the first few days, but when she fails to get the payoff she is getting now (Mom's undivided attention) she will stop.
As others have said, you make the rules. Make a firm rule that even if she cannot sleep, she is not allowed to make noise or leave her room. Some daytime bribe couldn't hurt either...like she gets a sticker on a chart for each night she doesn't disturb others, and then gets a special reward for 3 stickers.
i'd give her a nice leather belt beating. or maybe a shot of whiskey.
but seriously...don't reward the behavior by giving her what she wants.
You're assuming she's trying to be bad. Punishment is when it's deliberate. A toddler generally isn't trying to be bad, isn't trying to displease parents. When you have kids, you're supposed to realize you're going to make some changes in your lifestyle to accomodate them, so why not understand the child's motives, alone in her room feels like punishment, solitary confinement is punishment for adults in prison.
Make bedtime and her room more pleasant, book reading, story telling will go a long ways, spend some quality time with the little one, the childhood years are very short.
And to all parents of toddlers: Someday - in the not very distant future, you'll find yourself saying those were the best years, when your kids were still at home and little. So why waste them battling with the child constantly?
Savor these moments, make them fond memories. What's so terrible about a parent cuddling with a small child until the litte one falls alseep? Always keep in mind that child will soon be packing up his or her stuff and moving away. And you can never get that time back.
Show her how bedtime can be sweet. Cuddle up and tell her stories, stories about anything, big friendly spiders, your own childhood fantasies and experiences. Children love imagination. Once upon a time.....
Keep in mind too that in 20 years it won't matter is the baby didn't fall asleep until 10 pm. What matters is the deep down memories of their childhood.
And to all parents of toddlers: Someday - in the not very distant future, you'll find yourself saying those were the best years, when your kids were still at home and little. So why waste them battling with the child constantly?
Savor these moments, make them fond memories. What's so terrible about a parent cuddling with a small child until the litte one falls alseep? Always keep in mind that child will soon be packing up his or her stuff and moving away. And you can never get that time back.
Show her how bedtime can be sweet. Cuddle up and tell her stories, stories about anything, big friendly spiders, your own childhood fantasies and experiences. Children love imagination. Once upon a time.....
Keep in mind too that in 20 years it won't matter is the baby didn't fall asleep until 10 pm. What matters is the deep down memories of their childhood.
This this this. I couldn't agree more. It's so short, why make everything a war? I think there's a mistaken idea that if you don't follow exactly some plan or other your kid will end up being a brat. But they have their quirks just like anybody. Figuring those out and working with them is not necessarily giving in and spoiling the child.
Let her stay up until she's tired. Make sure she's worn out before she goes to bed. If Mom stays at home, this shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully she'll sleep through the night, if she's tired enough. The concept of 8 or 9 or 10 o'clock is not really relevant to a 2.5 year old, through their eyes. You can gradually introduce the idea of a set bedtime when she's a bit older and understands the concept a little better.
No naps!! She needs to be completely worn out when she goes to bed, so she won't wake up after midnight.
I'm sorry you're going through this. It must really suck.
She planely does not want to be alone .
Some children having spent their early months not sleeping alone but with their parents have a difficult transition.
It is not natural to sleep alone, we are by culture, forced in to it, but it is by no means natural.
She spent all her first existance in you womb, hearing you feeling you 24/7. breaking free of that is not easily understood. She's not playing, she's standing at the gate needing the reasurance you are there.
if your spoue left you , your sleep would be inturrupted in the same way.
Yes there are couples that sleep alone some even have their own bed rooms often because of snooring or over activity during sleep . It messes up the love life but adults pretend to adjust , but it shows .
If she needs the contact at nite I don't see the problem with her sleeping with you or at least in your room.
Be patient , the first few nites are going to be out of habbit waking , but as she sees you there when she wakes, she knows she's not alone.
In time she will choose to be in her own room .
Sounds like she is taking too long of a nap...no more napping! And have her get up early, around 6 am, and do things around the house, chores, dancing, physical activity, playing outside, mine were usually exhausted by 8pm, after a day of riding bikes, running with the dog, doing housework, reading...
I would suggest some kind of wind down activities in the evening. Take her to her room and read to her. Obviously, just putting her in bed isn't working. She's not making the transition from wake time to sleep time.
This alone isn't enough to make a determination but, very bright children often have trouble falling asleep because they cannot turn off their brains. One of the first things they asked when they evalutated my daughter for giftedness was how old she was when she slept through the night. It is not unusual for very bright children to not sleep through the night until they are 4. My youngest was like this. The only thing we could do was wait until she announced she was tired and going to bed, whatever time that turned out to be.
We made sure she got up early, she gave up naps early so that helped, then we made sure we had quite down activities in the evening. Bath, pajamas and books to read. It wasn't unusual to spend an hour reading to her before bedtime before she was ready to go to sleep.
As she got older, we would read to her and then just let her play in her room quietly while we went to bed. She'd crawl into bed when she was ready. Of course, she didn't stand at the door and cry. Her problem wasn't that she wanted to be entertained. It was that she didn't want to go to bed because she couldn't turn her brain off. She still sets her own bed time. There is no telling this child when she will sleep. She sleeps when she's ready to sleep.
You might want to have a different set of quiet toys in her room that she can play with for an period of time before she goes to bed. You might want to try eliminating nap time so she's more tired at night. If my daughter did take a nap, at two, she was up all night. We used to call her the Ni-Cad baby because she could fully recharge in only a few hours. Turns out she's highly intelligent and just can't turn her brain off. Fortunately, she has never required much sleep so it hasn't been an issue for her. Just her tired parents.
My son was a horror to put to bed. He got up so many times, ran around the house, hid on me.. ugh.. He's 27 now. Needless to say, we both survived.
When he had a child he did the Supernanny routine. Read to the child, kiss 'em good night and leave the room.. When his son got up again, he'd put him back in bed, kiss him, and leave the room. Every time he got up after that he'd silently put him back into bed and leave the room. It worked.. I only wish I'd known about that way back when.
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