How to Get My 8 Year Old to Stay in Bed

I am in the process of weaning my 2 year old from sleeping with us. What I do is whenever she wakes and comes into my room I get up and take her back to her room. She has a little toddler bed so I sit down beside her until she falls back asleep and then go back to my bed which takes about 5-10 minutes. Sometimes this will happen 2-3 times a night but I get up and do it every time. But so far she hasn't been in my bed for the last 2 1/2 weeks.

My sister had the same problem with her son. She put a sleeping bag on her bedroom floor and told him he could come and sleep in it whenever he liked but she needed her sleep. I'm not sure when he stopped sleeping in it but I know he's now 14 and sleeps in his own room. She use to complain about never sleeping just like you until she came up with the sleeping bag idea.

Hey M.,

My suggestion is to tempt him with something that big boys like and want. My son has a night light but not a big boy night light. He's almost 5 and I told him what big boys do. If he did what big boys do then I would get him a big boy night projection light/clock. Keep score of when he does big boy stuff thru the day and remind him that big boys also sleep by themselves. Then tell him if he stays in his bed the whole night for a certain amount of time that he'll get something a big boy has. What it is you,of course, determine. Be strong and consistent about it. That is the key. Tell him how exciting the big boy prize will be and praise him about other big boy things he does. It just ties it all in to him becoming a bigger boy not a baby anymore.

tell him he is a big boy now and he has to sleep alone just like you do. tell him that he needs to show everyboby he is growning up and he's not a baby anymore. tell him if he sleeps in his bed that the tooth fairy can find him if he's not in his bed she want leave him any money when he looses a tooth

We just went through this with our own eight year old son as well. I would put a baby gate up at the entrance to YOUR room. If you're a sound sleeper and not waking when he climbs into bed with you, him hitting the gate at the entrance to your bedroom might help rouse you so you can steer him back into his room. Putting the gate at the door to his room could be a problem if what's waking him is the need to go the bathroom. It's important for him to learn that it's okay that he wakes up, but he needs to go back to sleep in his own room. It's not okay for him to come into your room.

Hi M., I am mom to 3, grown and gma to 6. I had one who did this, We sat down and talked. I told him how much I loved him, but that him being in our bed at night was so uncomfortable for me that I was not sleeping and actually, my body was aching. He stopped coming in!
Now in your case, he is very used to doing this, you have let this go on way tot long, so, he may need a reminder, a physical one.
Buy a gate for his room and put it in the doorway when he goes to sleep. Tell him it is a reminder that he is to return to bed when he walks up to the gate. I figure that he is a pretty sound sleeper.
If this doesn't work, take a week off of work, and take him back to bed every time he comes in. I think if you do this for a week, it should stop. If it doesn't, you can get more direct, by removing a toy from his room every morning that he still comes to your room. I really don't think you have to resort to that.
Also, I was thinking of a monitor that beeps, when he gets out of bed, reminding him to return, and waking him a little. Good luck. Problems with children sometimes take perseverance, lots of love, and understanding.

Have you ever tried locking your bedroom door? You will probably still have to get up but you can make him go back to his own bed instead of waking with a cramp.

My 8 and 9 year old do the same thing with me even more so now that hubby is deployed so any info you get on this could help me too I am wits end with it.

It's probably just habit now, so try to break the habit. Maybe try locking your door or if you don't feel comfortable with that, you could creatively find a way for the door to be difficult to just open so it will jar him enough to wake up and realize where he is and tell him beforehand so he will understand what you are trying to accomplish. If it works, it should only take a little while before he will routinely go back to his bed. If he just wants to sleep in your bed then you may more of a problem. My aunt had a son that did that until he was 9 I believe. She ended up just compromising I guess you'd say and put a pallet every night at the foot of their bed. That's usually where she would find him in the morning after that instead of the bed. She just felt like he would grow out of it and he did. Good luck!! :)

My daughter was a good sleeper until about 2 1/2 when we moved to a new house. For some reason after that she started getting up 3 or 4 times a night. Luckly my husband is a light sleeper and opening our door was enough to wake him, he would get up every time and take her back to her room. When she was 6 we moved and have been here going on 2 years and she has never gotten out of bed here except for the potty. Unfortunatly i don't have an answer I don't know what changed from 1 house to another but I am glad we are all getting a full nights sleep again.

I remember when my fiance and I fist moved into together. He has custody of his daughter. At the time she was 8 years old and would come to our room every night to get in bed with us. It got to be such a habit! He asked her why she was doing that and she would say that she was scared, either by a bad dream or hearing something. He finally told her one night when she got up, that she needed to go back to her bed, she wasn't going to sleep with us anymore. After one or two times, she stopped. Kids just get into a habit and you just need to break it. She is ten now and when she gets up in the middle night, she will get up go the bathroom and back to bed. Good luck and I am sure you can break him of this easily.