DD sleeping on the floor behind her door

The kids are 3+ and have been sleeping in their own rooms, in big kid beds for some time now. Own rooms for at least 5 months, BKB for near 10 months.

We just spent a week in VA visiting the in-laws. The kids slept in the same room on futons on the floor. It worked OK, except towards the end of the week, they started waking each other up and getting out of bed to open the door and hang on the gate until one of us came to put them back in bed. Several times a night.

We've been home almost a week now. The second night we were home, DD started getting out of bed, with her animals and sippy cup, and sitting on the floor behind the door. We keep her door locked, from the outside (turned the knob), because she has a tendency to wander out of her room and go wake up DS or get into things way too early in the AM. No point in putting a door knob thingy on because our door handles are levers, comes to the same thing in the end - she can't get out of her room.

Before we left, we'd gotten to the point where I didn't have to lock her door anymore, she'd stay in bed until we came to get her for the most part.

Most of the time, she just sits there half asleep and jumps up when we come to check on her. Her room is right over ours so we hear her when she's out of bed. Several times a night. I tried putting her in bed with us, but she doesn't sleep well there.

Jump to last night, I went to check on her, and she was sleeping jammed up against the door. Her head was right there. I had to wiggle the door and scooch her back slowly to get in the room and move her back to her bed - for once I did it without waking her. I was so worried I was going to hurt her neck and she wouldn't wake up to move herself.

I've offered a night light - definite no. We check under the bed, and in the closet and behind the curtains together so she sees that nothing scary is in her room. We have our cat Linus "patrol" the room nightly to make sure all the scary monsters are banished (he's like a dog - can't get him to stay away at bedtime and have to make sure he's not hiding in the kid's rooms before we close the door - anyone want a 12 yr old really friendly, but howling cat? He's very noisy.... I digress!) I reassure her several times that Mommy and Daddy are just downstairs and DS is just down the hall. But she keeps saying she's scared - undefined. She has all her favorite lovies with her, several favorite toys in the room, and turns down the offer of a flashlight.

What do I do to reassure my DD that sleeping in her bed is OK? She's not the healthiest child and I worry about her sleeping on the floor near the dust and junk that builds up in carpet regardless. I worry about the safety issues of having her block the door with her body, like last night. I worry about what's so upsetting to her that she won't stay in her bed?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

 

One of my boys is doing exact same thing right now! By the time I go to bed at night he is asleep in front of the door. I actually banged his head opening his door the first night. I felt so bad! I haven't started worrying about it yet. I look forward to the responses and advice.

 

We are going through this too... But with my girls it isn't fear. It's "I dont want to go to bed so I'm going to stay here and pound on the door (yell, put my hands under the door and be a general pain) until I pass out" thing. It's only every once in a while. I really haven't found anything I can do to keep them in the bed. I just scooch them back as gently as possible and put them back to bed. Occasionally, I leave them there.

 

Would it be an option to put a safety gate across the doorway (to stop her getting out) and leave the door open? Or would she not go to sleep if you did that? Because then it would be easy for you to move her.
Or maybe she just decided she likes sleeping on the floor and putting her mattress down next to the bed would solve the problem. Moving her bed as close as possible to the door might help too, if that's possible.

From your post it doesn't sound like she is getting upset/distressed so probably she is not that scared.

 

I don't have any advice but my brother did this when we were younger and my mom always talks about it. She would find him at the top of the stairs he was a newsy little kid or behind his bedroom door where she couldn't get in...he did this until he was about 6 or 7.

 

The only problem with a gate, or dutch door, or screen door, is the cats and the house design. The cats, one in particular, will howl at the door (if it was a screen door), or jump over a gate or dutch door and pee in their room (revenge). Also, our house is designed with a tall living room, and the bedrooms upstairs overlook the living room, with the hallway acting as a kind of balcony to the living room. Great design for a young couple. Horrible for parents and kids. What were we thinking??? So she would hear anything we're doing after they go to bed - fixing our dinner, doing dishes, watching TV. Which, as a baby, kept them awake. We were super cautious about making noise for a long time - and I wanted babies that could sleep thru anything, but mine would NOT. Since about 18 months, they've been sleeping better, so maybe the noise of downstairs would be comforting instead of keeping her up. But still, the howling cat at a door he could see into but could not get into.

My MIL suggested I instruct her to sit in her beanbag, which is next to her door at the foot of the bed, or put a pallet on the floor there - there's about 2 ft of space between the foot of her bed and the doorway. I'm worried the pallet would start a years long issue of not sleeping in her bed. Maybe the bean bag suggestion will work.

I'd lock the cats up, but they howl when they know someone's still awake in the house (they do get locked up when DH and I go to bed). I'd give the cats away if I knew of a loving home for them, there's 4 of them, but they are 6-12 yrs old and indoor cats with attitude, so I don't know who would love them as much as I'd want - they were my first babies, tho they are less important now than my twins and they know it - thus the peeing in the kid's rooms revenge. So we keep the kid's rooms off limits to the cats....we'd tried to let the cats in, I'd hoped they could all coexist peacefully, without pee. But it was not to be.

She's not distressed, but that's what she tells me when I go in to check on her - "I'm scared of something" so that's all I have to work with right now. I don't know what's making her wake up and move, or not stay in bed in the first place - she's 3, who can understand their logic! It certainly amazes me at times, now that their imaginations have really taken off. I know that her schedule is off track, with our vacation to VA, and I know that she's picking up a lot of new things from the older kids at school (she's in a classroom of 3-6 yr old kids right now, moving to another school next week, yet another chnage for my poor kiddos! Another post.) I know this is just a phase, but I want to do whatever I can to ease her fears, if any, and to shorten the phase.

Thanks for the replies! Keep them coming if you have any suggestions.