training them to stay in their beds

My twins are about to be 2. Both of them have learned to climb out of their cribs, but one does it every time she can. No matter how many times we put her back. With my other girls, I trained them to stay in their beds to wait for us to get them. Is there any hope I can do this with room-sharing twins? We are going to convert their beds to toddler needs in soon. I've started separating then for naps (after reading stories on here) and teaching my biggest climber to sleep on a pallet on the floor. Overall, she's doing really good. I have to put her back on the pallet less every day.
My biggest concern is not really their rooms. We just take then lots of places and put then down to sleep (our small group nights, date night Co-op, babysitters, Grammie's house) and I don't want then getting up and destroying someone else's house or getting into something dangerous.
Anybody out there teach your twins to stay in their beds and it worked??

 

Nope. It's only after 4 that I started trusting them not to get into anything. The only time we spent the night elsewhere, I had to baby proof as much as I could and stay with them until they fell asleep (or sleep in the same room really). It totally depends on your kids though, but mine were always too curious for their own good, especially around 2.

 

Same here.

I put this on their door and locked it at night.If I did not hear them in the morning, I would usually hear one of them shaking the door handle trying to open it. Or you can install a cheap hook/eye lock at the top of the door.

And even at 4 1/2 you never know what can happen.

Here is what I woke up to this past Wednesday.

I just thought of another story.

This is my great-nephew around the age of 2. My niece did not feel the need to baby proof her house and woke up to that. He also went in the fridge and ate raw pork sausage and destroyed his birthday cake by smearing it all over the place.

My advice: Lock them in their room until it's time to get up.

 

I do think you can train them to stay in their bed eventually, but 2 is pretty young. My 2.5 year olds got toddler beds recently. At night, they know that if they get up, then I will shut their door. To them, having their door shut is akin to child abuse - they scream and cry. We have to threaten a couple of times, but they typically go to sleep. HOWEVER, nap time is another story. Since we took them out of their cribs, we pretty much have to sit in threre and supervise them falling asleep, which I cannot do due to impatience, but my sweet husband does.

 

I think it's possible - children love to live up to the expectations we set for them. I think you'll need to figure out how you want to teach them & then be consistent about it. That being said, as others have already pointed out, you just never know 100% for sure, so you'll still want to keep an ear out. And remember, silence is a BAD sound.

I woke up to this last summer when I ignored the silence. :laughing: It's neon highlighter. They glowed for days!

 

Oh my! y'all have me scared with these pics!

 

Honestly, we still have a knob cover on their door and nothing in their room. They actually managed to break their closet door (the folding type) so that it fell on the floor. Good thing they were fast enough to move out or they could have been killed.

 

I think it really depends on the child. My older two kids went to bed great, stayed in bed great, would yell for us when they were ready to get up. Both went into twin beds at age 2.

However, when you combine the intelligence of 2 2 yr olds (or 3 yr olds, or 4 yr olds), you actually LOSE intelligence. Because what one doesn't come up with, the other one will. We've had more issues with everything with the twins than we ever had with our singletons!

We did eventually train the twins to stay in bed, for the most part. So far (they are 3.5 now), we haven't had any major catastrophe's from them, other than breaking 2 sets of mini blinds this spring, and throwing a bunch of sand into our pool. Now that they can get their bedroom door open, when they wake up they come and wake us up in the morning. Before that, they'd yell for us until we came and got them up.

 

You still have time, mine are 4 1/2...just kidding.

My anger has lessened a bit since the flood. The water was on hot, full blast and he most likely realized that and playing in the water was no longer fun for him so he went back to bed. If it was the cold water and it overflowed and got him wet, he would have came into our room and asked to be changed and we would have discovered it right away.

He has NEVER done this before so it's not like we were being irresponsible. It happened and now we have to fix it and make sure it does not happen again.

Mine used to do that as well but soon figured out that they did not "need" to wake us. If you asked me 2 weeks ago, I would have told you it's great:; they realize they have to go to the bathroom, they do and go back to bed for a few more hours instead of waking me at 6:00.

And the thing is, he truly do not get what happened. We don't have a vanity in the bathroom, the ceiling is gone is the downstairs bathroom, our house looks like it's on life support with all the tubes coming out of the ceiling because they are trying to save the drywall by blowing air into the walls.

Can't wait to see what 5 brings us!

 

I think it depends on the child(ren) also. Mine have curtains, a glider, 4 baskets of books, and a dresser with clothes in it and diapers/stuff on top. While they toss books on the floor after reading them which makes a mess, they have yet (knock on wood) trashed their room. We put a gate over their door thinking we would need to use it but we leave it open most of the time. From the start, we told them to stay in bed and when we heard them out, we would go up and tell them they had to stay in bed or we would take their toys away. I think I am lucky and I am sure at some point they are going to rebel but for now, it is good.

 

It's totally dependent on the kids. All three of my kids went into beds at age 3. At 3.5, maybe closer to 4, we took the handle lock off the boys bedroom. They were able to come downstairs and watch tv until we get up and start the day(about 30 minutes). They have never, ever, gotten into anything they knew not to. Sometimes, I really think they are odd! :laughing: In their room, they have two bureaus, a changing table dresser, glider/ottoman, their full sized beds, and two pbk chairs. Their room has never been destroyed, nor have they used their bodies as art canvases!

Annabella was just put into a full sized bed. We still have the handle lock on the door. If she's up when the boys get u, they will let her out of her room. Otherwise dh and I willgo get her. The three of them sit quietly on the couch! Really-that's not normal, right?!? :laughing:

 

Truthfully my girls are 4.5 and they still get out of bed all the time! Most of the time we actually put them to bed in the same bed (they have always shared a room) because they just get up and move around in the night anyways. As far as staying in their rooms, I wish I knew! They are constantly getting up. In the past it was "I need a toy" "I need some water" "I need this" etc. Now it's "I need another hug and kiss" at least 5 times. LOL Heck, at least they just want a little bit of love!

 

I might get a bad reaction to the method we've adopted but since it works 90% of the time so we keep doing it because, for us, it is effective.

My guys would stay awake all day and all night because they are afraid of missing something and are very hyper active. Now mind you, their room is baby proof so that they can't get hurt by furniture and things like that and I do not allow toys in their room so that they understand that their bedroom is not a place for play but rather for sleep. Having said that, this is what we do...

First I take the lock from the outside of their door and place it on the inside of their door so that they do not get up in the middle of the night to crawl into bed with us. I also have rules at bedtime and naps to continue to learn to stay in their bed and that it is a place for sleep only. I recite these words every time I put them down...."We are going to bed guys. You know the rules. No playing, no talking and no getting out of bed or we're doing time out. Okay? Mommy loves you, night night"

It may sound cruel but it works. The first couple of times it took them awhile to learn this so we have a lot of time outs for the first few nights but now I rarely have to do it. I will also sit in the rocking chair in their room and say to them "Remember, it's night/nap time. Close your eyes and lets fall asleep" in a calm tone. I will sit in there for a few minutes to let them know that it's time to calm down and go to sleep. Once I know they are settled or are asleep I quietly leave the room and close their door.

We started doing this around 2 1/2 years old. Good luck in whatever method you use!

 

My girls just turned 3. They've, knock on wood, never gotten into anything when they get out of their beds. However they always come to my bed. No matter what threat I give, they do not stay in their beds each night any advice ?

 

What I didn't say, they wake up every nt And scream and cry until they come into our room either bcuz I don't want the whole house to wake up or bcuz I am so exhausted and have to get for work...

 

best thing you can do is to ignore it until they learn that bedtime means sleep time, It shouldn't take long for them to figure it out.

 

We got a crib tent for our climber until the boys were almost 2 1/2. When we first put them in beds, we would bungee the door closed for the first hour or so until they fell asleep. We never removed or locked anything in their room. BUT, they once pulled all their clothes out of their drawers, and then spent about 2 hours replacing everything--piece by piece, and never did that again!