I need some suggestions on getting my 3 year old to stay in his bed all night again. When he was 2 1/2, I had to do the tough love thing and put up the gate at nap time so he would go back to sleep himself. It worked and he was even sleeping through the night. Then after Christmas we had to go back home for 2 weeks while my FIL was in the hospital and we got out of the routine.
When we got back, my husband started sitting on the couch so he could see him while he went to sleep - bad idea. When we realized what was going on he stopped sitting there. It has been a week and he still is getting up in the middle of the night and getting into bed with us. The dr. said to put up the gate but I don't want him to wake up my 10 month old in the middle of the night. Any suggestions?

By Insaneusmcwife on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 11:29 am:

I don't have any suggestions for you but I will give this a bump maybe someone else will.

By Coopaveryben on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 11:44 am:

Something we did with my son at one time....we obviously fell away from it because he doesn't put himself to sleep but it worked. I would set a timer (it was our microwave because the ding was loud enough for him to hear), I would start at 2 minutes if he didn't cry for we would come back and check on him give him a hug and reset the timer for maybe 3 minutes if he didn't cry we would come in tell him goodnight and reset the timer, you get the idea he would usually fall asleep about the 5 minute mark. If he did cry, we would absolutely not go into his room but tell him his time started over and as soon as he heard the ding we would be in there. If your DS is not used to hearing a timer make sure you show it to him before he goes to bed. Each night start it with a longer time, I would do short times the first few times so he knows your coming back. Eventually of course the ideas is he will go to sleep himself without crying and waking the house.

By Txmomof2angels on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 02:37 pm:

I'm talking about when he wakes up in the middle of the night after he has gone to sleep. I've even tried bribes.

By Fraggle on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 03:21 pm:

My DD goes through this sometimes (she'll be 3 in May). Sometimes she just will go through phases-we will deal with it for a few days and then she will go back to sleeping through the night. If it lasts longer than that then we usually try to see if we need to change something in her bedroom environment. I would check your son's mattress, is it comfortable for him, is there something that is casting a scary shadow, is his room giving him nightmares (my DD was convinced there was a ghost in her room for a while), are his blankets keeping him warm enough, is his room warm enough at night. If everything checks out okay-maybe change the room around, get new bedding or something to make it different-it may just end the routine he is in now. I don't know if he is potty trained or not but if he is the gate wouldn't be a good idea if he can't get to the bathroom. Good Luck .

By Txmomof2angels on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 08:27 am:

No, he's not potty trained yet - we're still working on that. As far as getting his room comfortable - he can pretty much tell me what he wants: covers, no covers, pants, no pants, fan, no fan, songs, no songs.... I think I'm just going to have to take him back to his room. I might not get much sleep but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.