Ok, this isn't about the twins, but my oldest DD. She is 3 1/2 and has been in a toddler bed for a half year now. She has her own room. Problem is, we can't seem to keep her in her bed. We put her down for bed, let her say her litany of statements/questions, say night-night and close the door. She gets up, opens her door and comes in search for us every single night. Her bedroom is right off of the living room, so either my DH or I sit in the living room waiting for her to get up and we put her back into bed. This will go on for some times up to one and a half hours. We put her back into bed the first time, just tuck her in and say goodnight and leave again. 2nd time we don't even say anything just put her back into bed and leave. And this continues until she finally goes to sleep. We do the same thing when she gets up at night--just put her back to bed without talking. She takes a daily nap, but even when she skips her nap, she still keeps getting up. When we've visited family, and stayed over night, I've been in her room to help her fall asleep, but she will still get up out of bed if I leave her before she falls asleep (even if she's drowsy). She doesn't appear scared at anytime. I desperately need some advice or suggestions to get her to stay in her bed!!! This has got to stop! HELP!!! She's never needed me in the room to fall asleep before and I'd like not to have to be in her room to make her stay in bed. I feel like it would just become a crutch for her. Should we just let her get up and ignore her? I feel like the "putting her back to bed" routine is fruitless...
Have you tried a sticker chart? If she goes to sleep without coming out of her room then when she wakes up she gets a sticker. Once she has gotten a certain number she gets a small treat. Or you can make a kind of ladder version where she has to 'climb' to the top to get a treat; you put whatever number of steps you think is appropriate-say 5 or 6-and if she stays in bed to go to sleep she moves up a step but if she gets out she moves back down a step. The other thought I had was you could leave the door to her room open and put a baby gate across. You said she doesn't seem scared so maybe she just wants to know what is going on (lots of kids seem to think that wonderfully exciting things happen after they go to bed!) If you had a gate across she would be able to see you but not come out and you would then be able to ignore her completely, not even have to take her back to bed. Perhaps that would make it boring enough for her to give up trying.
I would probably start with sitting outside the door and holding it closed. Once she realizes she can't get out, she will probably start going right to bed. When the boys were first in their twin beds, we would bungee the door closed--I figured it was quick to open in an emergency--but then open it when we went to bed, since we didn't really want them locked in, just contained until they realized they needed to go to bed. I have friends who have turned the door lock/handle around, so it can be locked from the outside.
I have a hook and eye on the outside of their door. At that age I locked it every night for fear that I would not hear them if they came out of the room while I was sleeping. I did it from the first day of transition to beds so for K&K it was just part of the routine, not sure how your daughter would do since it would be something new but might be worth a shot.
Our handles are turned around and my boys door is locked when I don't want them escaping. I don't have problems at night, but I lock it at naptime. The handle was turned around out of necessity though after they managed to lock themselves in but were to young to figure out how to unlock it.
If she doesn't know how to open the child proof door knob covers, I'd put one of those on the inside so she can't open the door. If she can open those, I'd turn the knob around or do the hook and eye like pps said. The returning her to bed seems like she enjoys the attention since it pulls you away from what you are doing even if you aren't playing with or even talking to her.
My SIL and BIL had this same problem. They first tried the baby gate method. The first night, my BIL was in that half asleep/half awake mode and felt someone staring at him. He rolled over and there's my neice. She says "Look, I climbed over the fence daddy!" :rotflmbo: The next 3 nights she did the same thing, only just going to the living room, turning the tv on and getting a snack. <_< They finally opted for the child proof door knob covers on the inside of the room. That worked like a charm, until she used a toy to pry it apart LOL. In the end they had to resort to the hook and eye method. All I can say is that I'm dreading those days, but I've already learned my lesson thanks to my neice LOL.
We did a baby gate with my second child. He wasn't a climber so we didn't have to worry about him climbing over the gate.
In response to some of your suggestions (please keep them coming!), she's been able to open doors with the child proof door knob cover since about a week after I put them on over 2 years ago--LOL. I think she could easily scale a gate too. She tall for her age and she's a climber. We've also tried turning her door knob around so that it locks from the outside. We give her a warning saying, "If you get up and come out of your room, we are going to lock the door." The first night we tried it, she banged on the door for about a minute and stopped. After that, she's been fine with it--almost seems to like it. I open it when I go to bed, so its unlock during the night. Most of the time at naps we don't have to lock the door. I really resist locking the door, but even this doesn't seem to be working because she has gotten up every night just the same. Any other ideas?
Try putting some clear packing tape around the knob covers. Our girls also figured out to how to get the covers off...but they can't get the tape off. Once they realized they couldn't get out of their room they started going to bed in under 10 minutes most nights. We've taken the covers off since, but they still don't come out of their room. Tape is the ticket!
RE: tape...wouldn't that be the same as locking her door? Which we've already done and hasn't worked the way we've done it. She learned to open the doors with the covers by pressing the side of the cover into the knob and turning. She doesn't use the "buttons" on either side. Very clever--LOL!! Would the tape still work? We tried locking her door immediately, but she would then get up all night until we locked the door again (after I'd opened it when I went to bed). Somehow I feel bad locking her door all night especially since she isn't a harm to us or herself. Any more ideas? We are going to try a few things in the next couple of days. I'll report back.
Lock the door from the outside and put a monitor in her room. That way you know she isn't out of her room unless you want her to be but you can still hear her if she needs you. After many nights of not being able to get out of her room, she'll stop trying. For the monitor...if you have one for the twins, you can get a different brand that will work in the same range. We had to try a few different ones but found one that worked with the other one we had. It was a pain to have to move around two receivers, but it did the job. Also, Graco now makes one that is meant for two rooms.
QUOTE(Twin nanny @ Dec 6 2007, 11:52 AM) [snapback]522875[/snapback] Have you tried a sticker chart? If she goes to sleep without coming out of her room then when she wakes up she gets a sticker. Once she has gotten a certain number she gets a small treat. Or you can make a kind of ladder version where she has to 'climb' to the top to get a treat; you put whatever number of steps you think is appropriate-say 5 or 6-and if she stays in bed to go to sleep she moves up a step but if she gets out she moves back down a step. The other thought I had was you could leave the door to her room open and put a baby gate across. You said she doesn't seem scared so maybe she just wants to know what is going on (lots of kids seem to think that wonderfully exciting things happen after they go to bed!) If you had a gate across she would be able to see you but not come out and you would then be able to ignore her completely, not even have to take her back to bed. Perhaps that would make it boring enough for her to give up trying. This would be exactly what i would do too. Spot on twin nanny!!
OK ladies and gents!! We have a promising update! After my post at the beginning of December and after your suggestions and some of our friends & family's suggestions, we tried out a few things and we found a winner! :yahoo: Both DH and I agreed that whatever we did, rewards for staying in bed were our very last resort before out and out bribes :winking0009: . That being said...first we tried pretending to "sleep" as soon as she went down so that when she got back up we were already "fast asleep" in bed, lights out. I'll tell ya, that was the funniest 45 minutes. She wondered into our room climbed in bed. DH and I not making a sound. She started lightly "walking" her fingers up our arms. She tried laying beside both of us, getting up to change side every few minutes. Whispering extremely softly to wake us up. Going out into the living room to see what there was to see and coming back to our room to repeat. After 30 minutes of this, she cuddled in next to me and started falling asleep. At the 45 minute mark, I got up to put her to bed. Note to ourselves, this didn't work :icon_biggrin:. Next, we started locking her door right away. She didn't like that the 1st night. She banged for about 2 minutes and then quited down. The next night she was fine. This just didn't sit well with me, but for the next couple of weeks, right before Christmas, we tried it. Every night I would be in the living room outside her door and hear her try the lock a few minutes after we left the room. We knew she was fine in there. We just had to think of our next move. Well, we left for a Christmas travels and had to postpone any progress. Soon after we got back, a friend of mine mentioned that she would put her daughter in a chair facing the corner as a time out. Apparently her daughter hates it! (BTW, the conversation was unrelated to our situation with DD1, but the girls have similar personalities). So one day, I tried it on DD1 for time out and it worked!!! She hated it! I had hit the jackpot. After that one stint in time out facing the corner, my warnings stuck. I've only had to put her in a few times since. So my DH and I decided to try this at bedtime. If she got up she would go into the corner in the living room--lights out, us in the kitchen around the corner. After a few minutes, back to bed she went. The first night we told her about it, we warned her earlier in the evening so she wasn't completely surprised by us switching "rules" on her. The 1st and the 2nd nights she didn't get up--whoohoo!! The 3rd night she got up twice. Each time I put her in the corner and then back to bed. There was no crying or anything. She stayed in bed after that. Every night since, she's stayed in bed!!! This is been going on for a good 2 weeks now. I'm sure she'll try again at different times, but IT WORKED! She still gets up from time to time in the middle of the night and we just put her back to bed. I think what she doesn't like about facing the corner is that she isn't allowed to see what's happening. She also hates sitting worse than standing. I tell her that her time starts when she is sitting/standing facing the corner the "right" way. I just wanted to share what's working for us (for now). Now on to the twins in a year or less :icon_eek:.
