Any suggestions on this will be greatly appreciated. My daughter (5 1/2) will fall asleep in her room but no matter what we find her in our room every morning. A friend had suggested we set up a pillow on the floor so that if she comes in she can sleep there on the floor v. in the comfy bed. Figuring this would stop her from coming in. It has not - she loves sleeping on the floor in my room now...any suggestions?
My son is 5 and a half. I lock my door at night.
Not only for his sake but mine. it's much easier for me to walk him back to his room (instead of letting it slide), when I am already up out of bed.
If it were me, I'd probably try to take every method of discipline and reward system that I thought might work and use them all at once to try to stop the behavior quickly. For example, I might lock the door so that you could be sure to wake up when she tried to come in and then walk her back to her room without saying a word to her. Of course I'd tell her before she went to bed that you'd be doing this. I'd also probably set up a reward system like those listed below. I'd definitely use rewards that would be very motivating to her. After trying this, if she started exhibiting some unacceptable behaviors over the situation, I might start taking things away, either privileges or toys or something valuable to her. But I would definitely try the positive approach first and I would be relentlessly consistent taking her back to her bed each night. And who knows, it might take more than a few times each night before she'll stop coming to your room.
Having said all that, the way I got my daughter to stay in her bed is to allow her door to remain open all night. It was as simple as that for her because that was/is apparently something she really wants. It happened as a fluke. One day she asked for her door to stay open after many months of us having trouble keeping her in bed. We said okay, if you promise not to get out of bed. But the first time you get out of bed in the middle of the night, the door gets closed again. It has worked. I have been shocked and amazed ever since, she hasn't gotten out of bed once. My point here is, whatever you do for reward it has to mean something to her or it probably won't work. If I had known my daughter wanted her door open, I could have eliminated the problem a long time ago. Sometimes it's the simplest things.
Good luck.
You may want to try a prize box and give her one prize when she sleeps all night in her room.
I have a 4 year old little girl - for a while bedtime went from normal to very drug out on her part (she would stay in her room but would stay up and sing/play with her animals, etc. and not going to sleep until 10:30-11, thus exhausted at 7a.m. when I would wake her up). So, I decided to try positive reinforcement when she went to sleep within 15-20 mins of me putting her down. If she did it, the next morning she would get a sticker on the calendar and then at the end of the week we would total the stickers and 0-2 would get a little reward, 3-5 would get an ice cream sunday on sunday, and 6-7 would get a lunch at McD's where she could play on sunday. This worked beautifully and within two weeks she was back on track and we didn't have to keep it up.
We also did this with throwing fits.....if she didn't throw a fit (which would be around bedtime) she would also get a sticker.
Good Luck!
