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Our son went to a bed at about 18 months. We had issues in the beginning with him not wanting to go to sleep. This is what worked for us:
First time he gets up, give him a kiss and put him back in bed. No talking.
Second time, hug only.
The rest of the times, nothing. No eye contact, no hug, no kiss. Stay calm...easier said than done!
The game will end.
I've also heard that you can start by standing near the bed until they fall asleep and each night moving closer to the door until you don't need to stay anymore. But again, no talking or eye contact.
And lose the lock on the door. Far too dangerous in a fire.
Nightmares? Scary yes, not important enough to wake someone up at 3 in the morning.
Thirsty? Open that Pandora's box, they'll be doing that every night as a thing. Kids are like that. Thirst is uncomfortable, but waking someone out of a sound sleep is uncomfortable for them, & besides once the adults awake they'll be more than glad to handle it for you. (I always do.)
Tummy-ache--I can kind of see that, but again, the Pandora's Box thing.
The elderly, unless they have dementia or the like, don't wake you up at 3 in the morning unless it's urgent, at least that's my experience. They don't need to be locked in their room. That some with dementia or the like may be prone to do that is the reason why many families opt for assisted care facilities, as there are people PAID as part of their JOB to handle such things, because I agree the elderly in such cases deserve dignified treatment.
Basically, to me, you wake me up at 3 a.m., you better have a fever of about 107'F or have blood squirting out of your eyeball, or you're in big freaking trouble. I NEED sleep, you don't NEED someone over a scary dream or a slight tiny and un-hazardous amount of temporary discomfort (although that's not to say it isn't a legitimate need, it's just not an EMERGENCY one). Again, the typical thing is that if you open that Pandora's Box, they will be nagging you every other night for EVERYTHING & you will forever be on eggshells not able to do anything out of fear you'll be interrupted or walked-in on. Sorry kids, I love you but unless it's the 107'F fever or blood squirting out of your eyeball thing, I'm off duty after bedtime & expect you to leave me alone. There are locks on ALL the doors, including ours, for that very reason.
LRH
I often wake thirsty in the night and so I know how horrid it is to wake up and have nothing to drink. Why would I put my child, who I love, through that? As for tummy aches and nightmares - why would I make my child suffer alone?
I often wake thirsty in the night and so I know how horrid it is to wake up and have nothing to drink. Why would I put my child, who I love, through that? As for tummy aches and nightmares - why would I make my child suffer alone?
No one in their right mind would. The thing is though, if a child is showing consistent, nightly problems going to sleep or staying in bed, then these issues are not at play. If that is what the kid is saying, then that is a damned smart toddler!
I often wake thirsty in the night and so I know how horrid it is to wake up and have nothing to drink. Why would I put my child, who I love, through that? As for tummy aches and nightmares - why would I make my child suffer alone?
Because it's not really THAT bad (I'm not saying it doesn't matter or it's nothing, but that it's not THAT bad), and because they have a tendency to turn it into a game & next thing you know you end up telling all your co-workers how you never get any sleep anymore because your child didn't want to go to bed until 1 in the morning & you didn't have the heart to make them go to bed.
In other words, it won't be a "once in awhile for special occasions" type of thing, it will quickly become an almost every night thing. It quickly becomes childish foolishness.
So yes, you need to draw some boundaries and teach your child you love them & that you are there for them, but that you're a person with needs too & sometimes as the child you have to wait. (Your husband, if you have one, has needs too, and they're just as important, especially when the child is now well old enough to sleep through the night, such is possible by age 4 months.) I would certainly say sleep is easily as important as a nightmare or a tiny amount of thirst. When they wake up later then yes by all means upon your being up too you get them something to drink pretty much right away, show them that you know they're thirsty and you'll now be more than happy to take care of it.
But if you open the gates to where ANYTIME they need you they can call on you, it ALWAYS in my observation becomes to where they "need" you ALL the time & it gets out of hand. You have to draw boundaries to say that such is not okay.
Because it's not really THAT bad (I'm not saying it doesn't matter or it's nothing, but that it's not THAT bad), and because they have a tendency to turn it into a game & next thing you know you end up telling all your co-workers how you never get any sleep anymore because your child didn't want to go to bed until 1 in the morning & you didn't have the heart to make them go to bed.
In other words, it won't be a "once in awhile for special occasions" type of thing, it will quickly become an almost every night thing. It quickly becomes childish foolishness.
So yes, you need to draw some boundaries and teach your child you love them & that you are there for them, but that you're a person with needs too & sometimes as the child you have to wait. (Your husband, if you have one, has needs too, and they're just as important, especially when the child is now well old enough to sleep through the night, such is possible by age 4 months.) I would certainly say sleep is easily as important as a nightmare or a tiny amount of thirst. When they wake up later then yes by all means upon your being up too you get them something to drink pretty much right away, show them that you know they're thirsty and you'll now be more than happy to take care of it.
But if you open the gates to where ANYTIME they need you they can call on you, it ALWAYS in my observation becomes to where they "need" you ALL the time & it gets out of hand. You have to draw boundaries to say that such is not okay.
Just my 2 cents worth, that's all.
LRH
Well now I know that you know nothing about babies and toddlers and sleep if you believe that.
My daughter doesn't turn waking up into a game. She has her drink, her belly rub or her cuddle and she goes back to sleep. If its bad then she comes into bed with me and goes back to sleep. She now sleeps through more nights than she wakes up in despite me going to her when she does wake up.
Well now I know that you know nothing about babies and toddlers and sleep if you believe that.
My daughter doesn't turn waking up into a game. She has her drink, her belly rub or her cuddle and she goes back to sleep. If its bad then she comes into bed with me and goes back to sleep. She now sleeps through more nights than she wakes up in despite me going to her when she does wake up.
If it works for you, then by all means. But most people whom I know who dilly-dally around with this & think it's child abuse to MAKE a child go to bed and/or stay in bed, they are CONSTANTLY telling us or others about the countless times they've been kept awake by kids who FELT like getting up 4 in the morning to play. They complain about how awful it is but when you suggest sort of getting serious and doing whatever to MAKE them stay in there--oh no, that's cruel. Blah blah blah. Most of them are single too, the father in most cases got tired of it & left a long time ago. (I used to think it was always the case that the dad left because he was a heartless jerk, but now I know better--yes, sometimes it is, but most times, it isn't.)
Yes I have kids, they're 4 & 6 and have done just fine, they're loved on throughout the day, but night-time is off limits unless they have blood squirting from their eyeball. No, they are no locks on the door, it never came to that, but then for a time I'd discipline them if they protested bedtime too much & let them know if they came out of that room they'd have pure hell on their hands. (I'd also rig the door to where if they opened it in the middle of the night, the next morning I could tell. Bathroom needs--they had kid-sized "training potties" in there which I cleaned the next day.) That was long ago, the drama has long passed. Now it's just the most normal thing in the world, no issue. It never was a power struggle as they call it--I had the power, and I wasn't afraid to use it. (More parents of unruly kids in nice restaurants could sure stand to learn to use the power & make their kids stop squalling & ruining it for the rest of us, but that's another post.)
At this point, they can open their door to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, because they've learned to do that and ONLY that, and if I catch them fooling around in the kitchen area raiding the refrigerator without my explicit permission or playing at an odd hour they will surely hear it from me. (The 6 year old, I'm thinking maybe she's old enough that I can make it okay if she does help herself to something to drink from the refrigerator so long as she only gets the pre-packaged drinks or such, 1 at a time only, and drink the whole thing don't waste it.) But they wake up around 8 if you don't wake them earlier, and they start playing on their own, and it's totally fine by me. I think it's because I established that "foundation" or routine as such, and insisted on it even if it meant getting ugly at times.
As John Rosemond said once "to get from the bad [behavior] to the good [behavior], you have to FORCE the child to behave properly, FORCE...to quote Marlon Brando, you have to make this child 'an offer they can't refuse.'... Once this child submits to your forcefulness, which by the way does not have to be loud or dramatic, in fact the more calm you are the more effective you are.....THEN you can begin teaching, NOW you have his attention."
Its perfectly possible to deal with bedtime and sleep issues while still attending to your child's needs at night (and yes, needing you at night because of nightmares, tummy aches and thirst are legitimate needs). Most parents know when their kid genuinely needs them and when they are just playing up. When my daughter is just playing up because she doesn't want to sleep then I ignore her and those occasions get rarer and rarer because of that, but I don't have to stop taking care of her needs at night in order to make her learn how to behave at bedtime.
Yes I have kids, they're 4 & 6 and have done just fine, ...
and insisted on it even if it meant getting ugly at times.
As John Rosemond said once "to get from the bad [behavior] to the good [behavior], you have to FORCE the child to behave properly, FORCE...'... Once this child submits to your forcefulness,....THEN you can begin teaching..."
Oh, dear. Where to start?
We have all known those who were "forced to behave" haven't we? The minister's kids who run wild. The father who says he can't understand it, though he spanks his son repeatedly, the kid still gets into fights at school. (I've actually heard this more than once, amazingly enough.)
We wanted to raise adults who had a strong personal sense of right and wrong, who behaved well even when we weren't around to force them to do so.
As your kids are 4 and 6, you have a ways to go and a lot to learn. I would encourage you to look farther than John Rosemond for parenting advice.
Parentologists- thanks for the advice but mine is too young for all that.
Anyway I really need to provide more details here as many people are throwing around advice for older kids , different scenarios etc.
He JuST turned two and there is big difference from almost 3. (We have a 4.5yr old). We put his older brothers IKEA toddler bed in his room and locked the inside door. Reason for this is we are two story with steep steps. There is a baby gate in hallway but he could get over it . He got out of his crib with ease. From what I am gathering it is probably just adjustment issues with the new bed. He would get up a lot thru the nigght even with crib wanting us to come in.
Wife and I decided to just let him cry it out after going in once. I try and lay down with him but he doesnt do that with wife so much for some reason.
So put a baby gate over the stairs! You don't lock a kid's door!
When we were raising our kids, we had friends who advocated John Rosemond's approach to parenting. I remember one dreadful dinner party in which they announced that they tied their toddler in bed to keep him from getting up.
I was appalled. The husband assured me that they had used terry cloth restraints. As if this made it all right. So strange.
Their son went through a rebellious stage (huge surprise, eh?) and spent part of his high school years in a treatment facility in Utah. Last I heard, they'd lost touch with him.
Imagine working for a boss who tied you to your chair, locked the door on your cubicle to keep you from wandering around during work hours, forced you to behave. Most folks would try to get away from this dreadful place as soon as possible. If they had to stay, the natural response would be to undermine the boss's efforts at every possible opportunity.
You can raise children to be well behaved, productive adults without resorting to "forcing" them to behave.
I've seen it done.
Last edited by Jaded; 10-22-2013 at 01:13 PM..
Reason: Removed deleted post
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