I am SO tired this morning. My youngest son finally learned how to climb out of his crib. He’s two and a half so I knew it was coming but I didn’t realize just how hard it would be to get him to go to sleep. He was up until MIDNIGHT last night! He kept climbing out of his crib. I finally had to bring in a blanket and pillow and lay there on his floor. I woke up a little after two extremely sore so I do NOT want to do that again. I should also note that he shares a room with his brother. I tried not going in there and figured maybe he would play a bit and then just get tired enough to sleep but he ended up waking up Jacob because he was poking at him.
We are going to transition his crib to a toddler bed today.
What advice do you have for getting him to stay in it and go to sleep?
Thank you in advance for your tips! :)
Signed,
One Tired Mommy
I had my twins in toddlers beds at 1. The one would shake the crib so hard, I thought he would fall out. The transition to beds was way easier than I could have imagined. I put up baby gates to their room so they couldn’t leave their [baby proofed] room in the middle of the night. For a while, they would end up in bed together. We make bedtime a big deal and read for about an hour before hand. So they get really excited for bedtime. Hope this helps!
have you seen http://www.tv.com/shows/supernanny/
i dont know if the website helps any or not- i’ve never looked at it- but i love the tv show…
What you have to do is……kiss your son-tell him good night nd put him in his bed….when he gets out- automatically get up and put him in his bed WITHOUT SAYING A WORD..and you just have to keep doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and eventually HE will ge the point and give him and the next night will be much easier…
hang in there- its tough……but my kids just turned ages 2 and 3 in October- thats what i did with them and when i put them in bed-they stay there…let me know if it works
@Tess, I have seen this method and was prepared with it for my daughter because she is kinda difficult in general ;), but we really didn’t need it.
We talked it up and made it seem like a really big deal, for big kids. We kept telling her what a big girl she is now, and that she might need a big girl bed. We asked her if she was ready. We told her that if she wants to sleep in a big girl bed (by this time, she really did) that she has to stay in bed until the sun comes up. We put baby gates up so there is no midnight escaping, childproofed anything that wasn’t already, and put her to bed in it. She thought it was awesome. Don’t stress! It will all be fine and you will laugh about it later.
You could put a long body pillow against the front side to block the exit.
be firm and dont waver- it is the HARDEST thing to do- but the most important- good luck!
When we put my daughter in a toddler bed I slept next to her for the first half of the night the first night. Then I set the rule that her head does not leave the pillow. Whatever you do when he breaks rules during the day you then do at night if he breaks that rule.
It worked. It only took 2 nights and she’d lay in her bed with her head on the pillow and sing and talk then she would fall asleep.
Play Enya’s cd, Paint the Sky with Stars. It has worked at every daycare I’ve ever worked at. The music is boring, so the kids fall asleep. It trains them to become tired as soon as they hear the first song. Plus you can’t understand anything Enya says, so the kids never learn the songs well enough to sing along to keep themselves awake. You’ll probably have to stay in the room a bit the first few nights until he gets the hang of sleeping in a toddler bed. I can get eight preschoolers down for nap with this cd in about 15 minutes.
I want Lisa to come to my house to help with nap and bedtime!!
I’m also probably investing in that CD, and putting it on repeat on my son’s iPod in his room.
:)
Climbing out of the crib thing is hard. Don’t give Quincy any ideas!
Todd and Alec both transitioned to a toddler bed with no problem. Keeping Dylan in his bed was another story. When I met my husband, he had allowed Dylan to either crash with him or his sister for a LONG time and I was tired of waking up in the middle of the night with a toddler trying to crawl in bed. And I thought it was time for him to stop bugging his sister in the middle of the night, too. Here’s what I did:
I put him to bed. I closed the door. I sat in the hallway. When he opened the door, I immediately sent him back to his bed. I sat in the hallway until about 2AM but I never had to do it again.