Won't sleep in big kids beds

Hi everyone,

My b/g twins will be 2 on Saturday!

We set up their toddler beds a few days ago as they were jumping out of their cribs, and we thought it was time. However...they will not go down for a nap or go down at night because they get out of bed, play, leave the room, chase each other around - anything but sleep! Does anyone have any advice on how to cope with this? My husband and I try to lay down with them to encourage them to sleep but they do not get that it's bed time.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!
Elizabeth

 

when we transitioned our girls, at 18 months, we put them to bed & just left them. for the first few weeks they played a lot (it sounded like a herd of elephants in their room) and we often found them asleep on the floor. it made for some cranky days here & there, but eventually they started going to sleep in their beds. now, we'll sometimes here them chatting for a bit before they fall asleep, or sometimes they "read" to themselves, but usually not for more than 30 minutes.

for naps, we put them down for an hour. if they hadn't been asleep by the end of that hour, we would have gotten them up, but they were always asleep within an hour. the one thing i could do to guarantee they wouldn't sleep was go in. ardon:

they couldn't open their bedroom door when we first transitioned them, but they've recently figured out how to do it. DH & i spent a couple of nights in a row sitting outside their bedroom for the first hour or so after putting them to bed holding the door knob so they couldn't get out. they would come and test it every couple of minutes & then eventually went to sleep. now they don't even test it.

 

Thanks Rachel. A big problem is the kids letting themselves out the door and running free. We will try the hold the door knob method. Hope it works! Elizabeth

 

Instead of holding the knob I have 2 suggestions 1) turn around the knob so it can be locked from the outside or 2) this is what we did, put a towel folded in half over the door so it is hard to close, then pull it closed. I did that with my kids at 2 aqnd they didn't ahve the strength to open it. Plus it is an easy solution.

 

Can you just get knob covers? Looks like it would be easier than holding them!

 

we tried that first & Danika had it ripped off the door knob within 30 seconds. ardon: we just bought the cheap ones, so maybe if we'd tried out some others we could have found ones that worked, but holding the door only took about 2 nights of an hour & a couple of nights of 5 - 10 minutes, so we didn't mind.

 

We don't have the round knobs that you can get covers for. It's the lever kind, if you know what I mean. Thanks for the towel suggestion!