2 1/2 Yr. Old Getting Out of Bed at Night

I went through the same thing with my two children. I have a good routine before bedtime first then I use a technique that is both calm, yet shows my children that I expect them to stay in their bed.

Whenever, either of my children get out of their beds, we lovingly take them back to bed. The first time they come out, we calmly say, "It's bedtime sweety and we love you. We already had kisses. It's time to sleep." Then walk them back to bed. The second time when either came out of their rooms, we calmly say, "It's bedtime sweety." Then walk them back to bed. The third time and there after, we say nothing still calmly walking them back to bed. After about 30 to 60 minutes the first night our children stayed in their beds. As days progressed, the time keeping them in their beds decreased, until only occasionally do we have to walk them back to their beds, reminding them its bedtime.

It takes time, but its a calmer approach than to lock them in their bedrooms. In fact, if I were you, I would not lock children in their bedrooms, because it may satisfy you; but children become scared. My husband was locked in his bedroom as a child and now has great difficulties going to sleep at all. What you do now will impact how a child will sleep when he or she becomes an adult.

The whole aspect of the technique I use, is to let my children know my expectations and that I remain calm; because Im sure you can agree that if your not calm yourself when you go to sleep it is hard to get to sleep even as an adult. It's triple the effect with children. They can't sleep if they are not calm. On top of having two children, I have a Master degree in Child Development. I hope this helps. M.

My little girl did the same thing. We tried a bunch of different stuff and we had to use different things for different phases, but there were a few things that really helped:

Having a "mommy bear", a bear that wore one of mommy's shirts or something that reminded our daughter of mommy. That way we could remind her that she had something of mommy's with her to remind her that mommy was still here, just in mommy's bedroom.
We tried walkie talkie's (ours wasn't always on, but she could "talk" into hers and tell us whatever she needed to).
We had a heart pillow that mommy and daddy hugged every night so that there were extra hugs on it for her in the middle of the night and she could just love on it...
We gave her a flashlight as she got older and that helped.
(Make sure she has a nightlight).
We also pray, so if you do that, you can remind her that she can pray anytime too. (or sing or talk to her stuffed animals)
We constantly reminded her that she was still our "baby" even though we would be having another one and we showed her pictures of when she was a baby and talked about what it was like.
We put pictures of us (our family) on her nightstand next to her bed for her to look at whenever she needed. (We also gave her her own photo album of extra pics)
If she is having bad dreams, give her an extra remote control and tell her to change her "dream channel".
Give her a book she can sleep with or look at after you leave the room.

I hope some of these ideas help! Good luck...it will happen!

Congrats on the new arrival soon. Seeing you are expecting a new baby the sooner you stand firm right now the better sleep everyone will get. Getting your daughter to sleep alone in her bed is a gift. I agree having a child snuggle with you is great, however a child DEPENDING on you to sleep is not okay and you aren't doing her any favors allowing it. She will have disruption enough in a month when her new sister comes home.

Put a bed rail on her bed if you haven't already, gives a toddler a visual of clear boundaries. Put up a chart )poster board or whatever), have her help you decorate it, call it the BIG GIRL CHART. For every night she stays put, stays in her bed and sleeps good a big happy face. After 7 happy faces a special treat.
Seeing her progress, empowering her with visuals and praise is ideal at this age.

She has made a mental habit of waking and coming in your room. You don't want the baby getting woken up and breaking the habit for her will help everyone, especially her. Put a baby gate on her room, tell her if she gets up she will have the door shut. I don't think it is being mean, it is being firm and giving kids a chance to get a good nights sleep is not being mean or harsh. Stand tough, don't cave and if you do this it won't take long and maybe she will even be able to sleep all night without waking up with the baby.

Right now it is just a habit, continuing to put her back to bed or not allowing her to get out of her room will help break the cycle. Really praise her when she does it and play it up like what a big girl she is. Get her a baby doll too so when the baby comes she can take care of and put her new baby to bed when you are taking care of your new little one. Empowering her now will help.

You know, I've never been one of those Moms who feels like the end of the free world will happen if baby isn't in his/her bed all night. I've always thought it was a nice thing to sing my children to sleep each night. Read a story, say prayers, sing them to sleep so the last thing in their head at night was loving and sweet. I don't understand when other Moms say it was a mistake to do caring things like that...I guess it's the "me" time.

When my wee ones get up in the middle of the night I've never thought any horrible thing would happen if I allowed them to sleep on the floor with their blanket. To this day, I still have no evidence of terrible things.

All of our children have good sleep patterns, I don't have to sing to all of them because, you know, they get to an age where they're just "not a baby anymore""thank you very much". It's good, but kinda sad at the same time...a bit like being fired...lol.

I know what it's like to be very pregnant with a wee one that wants to be close to you...in my opinion there's nothing wrong or bad or misbehaving about that.

You're little one knows there's a change happening. Once your new baby gets here, she's going to be put on the back burner...the wee one will have more immediate needs that can NOT wait like hers "can" for a minute. She'll no longer have your 100 percent attention. Having this huge transition is a difficult time to approach another.

Anyway, you may like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGQ_JR0Knx4
I HIGHLY suggest her book.

There are a few different thoughts about this situation but they both require some persistence and patience on your part.
The first point is that as long as you give into her tantrums then she is winning the control battle. And you are not helping any of you by giving into her and laying with her when she comes in. Try setting a minute timer to a couple of minutes for the bedtime routine so that she doesn't feel like you are changing things altogether and telling her that you are going to go when the timer goes off.
You can get a child gate and put it inside her door so that she can see and know that she can't come out. Then you are going to have to let her scream. Don't be surprised if she falls asleep right next to the gate. Get a blanket and put it over her where she falls asleep since you run the danger of her waking up and demanding that you lay with her if you move her to the bed.
The other way is that you have to walk her back to bed. You say the same phrase everytime "goodnight sweetheart we love you" or something like that. You can not use emotion here at all. The first night you may have to take her back to bed 100 times for every waking session. The second will be more like 40 and the third should be much less. You will have to dedicate at least 3 days and there is usually a relapse on day 5.
The third way is place a chair in her room and tell her you will sit there with her until she falls asleep. Then the chair gets closer and closer to the door until it is outside the door in the hallway and then you can pretend that you are sitting in it. This method takes about 2 weeks to transition. But it doesn't really help with the night time wakings.
Either way you can plan on spending a good week with this sleep training. It is so worth it in the end and you will need it when you next daughter comes. There is nothing more exhausting than having two night wakers at the same time...talking from past experience.
good luck and if you need any clarification or extra help message me!

I REALLY agree with the two previous posts. We went through this with our DD when we put her in a big girl bed when she turned two. We made the mistake of sitting in her room until she fell asleep, which at the beginning was just a few minutes, then it suddenly got longer and longer - up to about an hour! We had to stop that. So, we did the gradual transition of less and less. We also have a gate on her door - and there were nights and nap times when she'd stand there and cry, sometimes would just sing and play a bit, and eventually she would fall asleep on the floor by the gate. It sounds rough, but within a few days she "got it."

This eventually turned into permission to "play" in her room - especially at nap times. She was taking clothes out of her drawers, emptying book boxes, etc. She was doing this instead of sleeping, though she was VERY tired and needed to sleep. No nap for her meant a rough evening, and night terrors at night. We had to do something. Now, when she gets out of bed during nap times, I go in there, I don't say a word - but am not acting angry - and put her back in bed and walk out. This makes her cry a bit, and some days I have to go in there 10 times, but she eventually gives in and stays in her bed.

It is a tricky transition - could be short or a bit longer, but know that if you stay consistent in your expectations, you should be very successful. Hopefully you'll learn a bit from my story and won't make the same mistakes we did. It made the transition far more difficult than it had to be, that's for sure! Live and learn. :)

Good luck - hang in there! When she "gets it" it will be so great!

We went through that with my now 26 month old. We put a gate up in her room. She refused to sleep on her crib turned toddler bed. So, we gave her a sleeping bag laid out with my big u pillow and a pillow to chose to sleep. To this day, she prefers sleeping on the floor to the bed. We don't care as long as she is sleeping. We always say ""oodnight Kaitlin. We love you and you have a good night. See you tomorrow morning." She now says kiss and hug mommy and daddy. Then walks to her sleeping bag arrangement and goes to sleep. It works for us.

It sounds to me like you are doing everything that experts suggest. A strong routine is very important for kids. Just keep taking her back to bed and be firm. I know it is hard. You are probably like a zombie right about now. Maybe she is not comfortable in a big girl bed. They do make the bed rails. When the baby comes you can tell her that she needs to be an example for her and stay in her bed.

This happens with my 2 1/2 year old twins a lot. One or the other of them will come in and want to lay with us. Sometimes we let them, and sometimes we tell them to go back to bed. At first, though, we would always say no, and it's bedtime. Go back to bed. When they started protesting, we would get up and go put them back in their beds and leave. It helped that we had a knob cover on the inside of their door. If they didn't stay in bed, the door had to be closed and they couldn't open it. They didn't like that, so they would stay in bed most of the time. Now, when we say no, go back to bed, they do. Maybe try the knob cover with your daughter. She may not like being "trapped" in there more than she doesn't like not having you there. Good luck.

I went through that with our son and my advice is touch love! We would get up and firmly tell him that he needed to stay in bed and sleep and then we would close and lock the door and let him scream it out. It only took a couple times before he realized that if he woke up in the night he could go back to sleep by himself. I know it seems kinda mean but if you have such a good bed time routine and you show her you love her a lot she'll be ok and you can sleep too! Good luck!