Uncontainable Toddler- Help Needed!

S.,

I would just turn him back around and tell him "time for bed" after the second time he gets up you do not speak to him at all and just keep walking him back into his bed room. The first few times will be rough for you but it will be worth it!

Do NOT lock him into his room! For MANY reasons. It could affect him in the long run. Also...God forbid but what if a fire started? Then what? Seconds count! Or like you said he could hurt himself. Yes, it is cruel! The trust would go out the window!

Good Luck to you and your family.

Truly,

Eliyah

I agree with Eliyah. Don't lock him in his room.

The technique mentioned by Eliyah is the one we used, we learned it from watching Super Nanny. It will take consistency on your part, and yes you may be tired for a few days until he gets it. The first time he gets out of his big boy bed, you take him back in there, give him hugs & kisses and say "good night". The second time he gets out of bed, you take him back to bed and only say "good night" - don't say anything else. The third and any additional times he gets out of bed, you take him back to bed and say NOTHING! This could take some time, but it will work. The first night will be the worst, then each night will get better and then one night he will stay in bed. What is happening right now is that you are giving him a reason to be up, by giving him his pacifier or milk (which by the way is horribly bad for his teeth). It is very unlikely that he really needs a drink or anything else he can come up with when he gets up, it's just an excuse to be out of bed. If you use this technique, you will all be getting better sleep within a few nights.

Good luck!

I'm not sure what to do, but locking a little boy in his room where he can't see out sounds cruel to me, too. He might get really scared. Maybe one of those crib tents would fit the pack and play and then he couldn't get out, but he could end up screaming for a while. I would try to encourage him to stay in his bed by giving him rewards for doing so. Oh! I just remembered-- My pedi told me to buy two gates and put one on top of another in the doorway if my son tried to climb over. Good luck!!

We can relate! My son was the same way. I tried to put up two baby gates one on top of the other. My husband found him crawling like Spider-man the first time we tried it. Fortunately we caught it before he got hurt, NOT one of my shining moments as a mother! My friend turned the door knob around so it would lock from the outside only. She thought she was very smart until it just became a contained disturbance. Her son would bang and scream until someone answered his calls. Not to mention the tongue lashing she got from her fire fighting brother in law. We tried the super nanny method and it didn't really work at first. Finally, we just made sure the rest of the house was safe, locked the doggie door so he couldn't slip out, covered all the knobs so he couldn't open doors and go in to other rooms and made sure the chimes were turned on the doors. We started being preemptive. I found a no spill water bottle and we filled that and put it in his room near his bed. Bought a night light to turn on before we left him. Stashed extra blankets near by so he could get to them. And we just stayed consistent with bringing him back to bed (like super nanny)...it took a while, but he finally started staying in bed.

My 4 yr old has been doing this recently - only he just comes into our bedroom and tells dad he wants to snuggle. The first few times he let him get in bed with us, and it made for an AWEFUL night on our part. We didn't get ANY sleep. After a few nights of that my husband started telling him he needed to go back to bed in his OWN bed and sent him back after giving him a hug. He woke us up 3-4 times a night for about a week. Now he's staying in his room through the night. He got up last night and probably went to the bathroom, but he never came into our room, so we slept undesturbed!

I agree with the others that giving into his requests encourages the habit. A night light might help. I know my son prefers having the hall light outside his room on.