3'S a Crowd

Hi,
I thought I was the only one going through this. I can't close my bedroom door because she wakes up in the middle of the night and walks over to mine...What I do now is put a night litgh and its been helping some what...You should try it to see how if it works good luck. :)

K.

Hi M.,

I can completely sympathize with your situation :) I am a 28 year old stay at home mom of two, a girl, 3, and a boy, 18 months. My daughter crawls into bed with us during the middle of the night every night. She falls asleep in her own bed, no problem, and takes naps there as well. This has been happening for about 3 months. We went to a wedding out of state where our only hotel option was a large king bed, where both kids slept between us. Ever since, she comes in with us. My husband is gone for 15 hours a day, so we don't get much sleep either. I have tried putting her back to bed and she comes back a little while later. We have tried nightlights, rewards, nothing works. Maybe we can bounce some ideas off of each other :) Feel free to email me ____@____.com

Thanks,
C.

yes, explain to her that it's getting crowded in the bed with the three of you and at night you have to take her back into her bed and comfort her showing her that everything is okay.

My 4 year old has been doing the same thing.... still in pull up I am wondering if its because he is needing to use the bathroom .... so I have been taking him potty then returning him to his room and rubbing his head ir back til he falls back to sleep, it seems to be working for me. Hope it helps you as well.

M.

I had this trouble with my daughter (we still do from time to time but it is more like once a month now) but I eventually stopped and asked her why she didn't like her bed. She told me it wasn't as comfortable as mommy and daddy's so I put some of that egg crate foam on hers and she liked it alot and felt like the princess and the pea. That might not be her problem but it may be that she is afraid of monsters or she's cold. The best thing to do is talk to her and find out.

Another thing that might work, (athough the night light might be the trick.. works well with little babies too! )
Tell her she can come in your bed in the morning to snuggle. Put a clock in her room and teach her the time she can come in. We did this with our kids, and yes, there were times when the THREE of them hopped in bed in the morning.

M.

My advice would be as soon as she walks into the room get up and turn her right around to her bedroom. After a few times of doing this she will get the idea. Be consistent.

i know the feeling it happened with my two year old but its over now thanks god, what i did was take her back to her room and put a night lite on so she can fall back aslep and it worked or leave the tv on for an hour till she feel asleep and trust me she will not bother any of u

My daughter is also three, and we have been going through this for quite a while. I may be way off base here, and it probably sounds a little odd....but, here it goes.
The last week, she hasn't come into our room! What changed? She's wearing pajamas! She has always refused to wear them before, but we got some new ones that she likes and asks to have them on now. I think she was kicking off her blankets and getting cold in the night and waking to snuggle and get some body-heat from us.

I haven't had experinece with this exactly... but my mom tells me that I did this as a little girl for about 2 years! At the time, her pediatrician speculated that because I was a quiet, middle child, between two very outgoing, attention-demanding siblings, I was getting my one on one time with mommy and daddy at night. Does your older daughter demand lots of attention during the day? My mom said once she carved out some quiet time for just the two of us during the day, I slowly stopped getting up at night. Another idea I had is maybe take your daughter to the store and have her pick out some special pajamas, and bed-sheets. Explain to her that it is time for her to try and spend the whole night in her own bed, so you are getting these special things just for her bedroom. Or find a big Dolly you can appoint as Mommy's sleep-helper, and tell her to snuggle with it if she wakes up just as she would snuggle with you. I don't know... bribery sometimes works! :)

hte problem is letting her stay...at least with my son...once he came into the bedroom no matter how tired i was i had to put him back in his bed...stay strong with that eventually they figure it out...