An 11 PM Slumber Party...

They do not sleep! Nap, no nap, it doesn't matter..when bedtime roles around it is a joke. It is almost 11 and they are still bouncing off the walls. They stay up past midnight at times...but in the morning...if I try to wake them they are dead to the world. I'm talking 10a.m. sleep ins! They share a room, that can't be helped. I try falling asleep on the floor between them...sitting back there with them. Nothing helps, it is one excuse after another. Get my blankie, I dropped my car, "I have a question for you", and Heaven forbid one starts laughing...the other just starts up too!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH I'm loosing my mind. Thanks for the vent.

 

:hug: I can only imagine how frustrated you are. :hug:

Are they taking a long nap during the day? Could that be interfering with their nighttime sleep cycle?

 

:hug: I would lose my mind too. Do you think they may be overtired, especially since they are not napping during the day? Do you have a bed time schedule. What really helped for us was developing a pattern for bed time. I even created a chart. Bath, snuggle time & milk, brush teeth, book, and bed. Something like that. Also, it may help if you start waking them up in the morning by 8am. It may be rough the first couple of days because they will be grumpy, but maybe it will help with the night time problem. :hug: again!

 

I would say that if they are not going down at night, then naps should definitely be a thing of the past.

I would suggest reward charts for them. My kids always responded to being able to put a sticker on a chart if they stayed in their bed all night, etc.

Sorry you are dealing with this! It is so frustrating. If my two year old (almost 3) falls asleep during the day, bedtime is usually a nightmare.

 

It sounds like you may have night owls by nature (are either you or DH night owls?). You may not be able to make them fall asleep a lot earlier -- though dropping naps would help -- but you can work on getting them to at least stop calling you into the room. We had some success by defining "emergency" (we said it was poop, bleeding, throwing up, or seeing a bug :laughing: ) and then saying we would only come back for emergencies. If they call us in, we stand outside the door and say "Is it an emergency?" and if they say no, we say "Then we can deal with it in the morning."

Also, they like to have lots of books & stuffies on their bed, and we take one away every time they do something that's not allowed, like getting out of bed, yelling at each other, etc.

There is a fair amount of backsliding (on my part and theirs), but for the most part, this has gradually cut down on the callbacks. Age helps too -- it was worst for us right around age 3, but started getting better around 3.5.

Now sometimes they're still up late (if they've had a long nap at school), but at least they stay on their beds and mostly don't yell for us. I figure we're doing pretty well.