I have a question about my son and his strange sleeping issues. First off, he's 2 1/2 years old, he'll be 3 in July. He was a great sleeper as a baby, sleeping "through the night" early on, lie him down, he'd roll over suck on thumb and out he go. Granted he was the 2nd child so I kinda knew what to do with him, BUT...around 2 years of age after we transitioned him into his toddler bed we started to have some issues with staying IN the bed. I know that around this age is when their imagination kicks in and they start to have dreams or in some cases night terrors, our daughter had those, and on occasion our son will too. We started some not so good habits with him by staying in the room on the floor, in the rocking chair, or right outside his door where he could see us to get him to stay in bed and go to sleep. Well, we were able to break ourselves and him away from this habit a few months back. He would talk for a bit, get up once maybe, and off to sleep. Then at 2 1/2 years old I started with the potty training. I had always encouraged it and we had a potty in the bathroom early on b/c of his older sister. He would sit at bath time and go pee pee before his bath. (Whoo hoo, for us, right?!?)
Well for some reason this seemed to backfire. He'll go pee pee and we'll do the bath, maybe go again, do our normal routine of getting into bed, lotion, books, cuddle, singing etc...and then lights off. Well 5 minutes later he's up saying "I have to go pee pee." Well at first we were excited, yeah he's sensing it and going. And he would usually go, but then we noticed he'd only do this at night or at dinner when he didn't want to eat his vegetables. So we caught onto his game and we've been trying very hard to break him of this cycle. Getting up every few minutes with the winy voice and begging to go pee pee. He's not anywhere near potty trained, I'm at a lost for how to handle him every time he gets up. So far our strategies are to say, no night night and go back to bed. We walk him in, tuck him in, and off we go. He's already out of the bed before we're out the door, so most nights we have caved in and let him go again, and he does, which frustrates me, b/c why can't he go and do all of it before he goes to bed. Then last night we did a Supernanny approach and kept walking him back into bed, with no talking, over and over and over. He cried, he gave every excuse he could think of. Sing me a song, tuck me in, gotta go pee pee, turn light back on, mommy tuck me in, daddy tuck me in and on and on. Finally he exhausted himself and fell asleep.
So help, how do we transition him out of this bad habit or strange situation we've gotten ourselves into.
Set up the routine and stick with it. My 24 month old has been playing games at night, so to deal with it, we've established some base rules: we've talked to her about her game playing, explaining that bed time is bed time and that we are all going to bed. I make sure she has everything she wants before I leave the room. I have spent many a minute talking to her about her desire to not be alone, etc. I think affirming their feelings is a good first place to start.
I also find that telling my daughter "that is it, I'm not coming back in here." tends to work. My husband will then go in, and usually that will be that, she will be reassured or whatever and go to sleep.
So, with the potty asking, simply explain, sweetie you just went, you haven't had any liquids, you are empty, please get back in bed. Make him do everything he wants to do before he gets in bed.
Report This
S.T.
answers from
Knoxville
on
Hi A.,
I have twin boys who are 21/2 also and we have a lot of the same issues. One thing we did after we transitioned them into beds was put a baby gate in their doorway so they can't come out. We were getting too many surprise visits before that.
That helped A LOT. Now they don't want us to "lock/close" the gate so if they are lying in bed we leave it cracked. If they get up and are playing or whatever, I give them a warning (or 2) that I'm going to shut the gate and that usually does the trick.
Good Luck!
As far as the potty training, one of my boys was doing the same exact thing- I knew he was manipulating since he had just used the potty 10 minutes before, so I finally just told him it was ok- that's what his diaper is for.
The other has just started potty training himself at night even though I still keep a diaper on him- he will wake up yelling in the middle of the night that he has to potty. We take him to the potty, he goes and then he goes right back to bed.
Report This
T.D.
answers from
Fayetteville
on
A.,
We had similar issues with our daughter, with bedtime, and had trouble getting her fully daytime potty trained. I bought two books, The No Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and The No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers. Both of our issues are solved, she sleeps well, and is fully potty trained. These two books, I think will help your situation a lot. :)
Report This
C.M.
answers from
St. Louis
on
I have the same concern with my daughter....
She's potty trained during the day but today woke up with a dry diaper which gets me thinking about night time potty training and I'm not sure how we do it?
I'm going to post something like your post to see what answers I get back as well!!
