3 Year Old Mommy's Boy

I recently had a problem w/ my 2yr old and bed time. What you have to do is put him to bed, dont lay on the bed, and everytime he gets out of the bed, escort him back to the bed, tell him it is bedtime and nothing else...Even if you have to do it 40 times a night. It will be very hard for you both, and lots of tears shed, but by night 3, he will sleep on his own. I swear by this and it worked magic for us!!! Just remember, YOU are in charge, dont let him rule the roost!! He is old enough too if something is actually wrong with him, he can tell you...

I was wondering, how does your 4 yr old do?
Best of Luck

1 mom found this helpful

Hi C. ~
I am a mom of 2 girls, 5 years and 11 months.
My first question would be have there been any changes in his life or the household? It's amazing the smallest thing can send their whole world off kilter.

My 3 year old (now 5) sounds like yours. She would wander the house at night until I explained to her how dangerous that was... if there was a fire and I couldn't find her because she wasn't where she was supposed to be - IN HER BED. We tried 20 minutes of looking at books with a flashlight before she was to turn it off & go to bed (with me reminding her of course) - all sorts of things. Nothing seemed to work.

After we read books, I lay down with her now with soft music, I tell her a story (lights out of course) and she has 5 minutes with me after the story where she is to close her eyes and fall asleep. Wether she is asleep or not, I am out after 5 minutes (I work from home at night sometimes). It was not always easy and there were night where I had to walk her back to her room 10-15 times (no talking from you) where she was up until 11pm! However, those nights got less & less and now she sleeps through (save nightmares).
It was not easy and believe me, there were times where I didn't react the way I should have. All I can say is be consistent, even when it's 11pm and you have to walk him back to bed AGAIN (and if you're the only one parenting, I hear ya!).
When he does the littlest thing right (like staying in his bed even after he's passed out from being up so late), remember to PRAISE him. Yes, he was up way too late, but he stayed in bed until the morning; that rocks! You see?

Good luck...

this is a tough one with what sound like an easy solution.
Establish a good bedtime routine and stick to it. When he gets out of bed 1st time say it's bedtime, good night and put him backinto bed. 2nd time it's bedtime and put him back into bed. 3rd time and all times after just put him back into bed. The les interesting you make getting out of bed the les he should want to do it. you may find that even the first time you put him back into bed you ned to say nothing. Also have the house fairly calm after dinner. As far as the middle of the night goes you need to bring him back to his bed as soon as you can, each time. This ghas worked very well with my 5 year old who was up until midnight on a regular basis. She is now in bed by 9 most nights YAY!!! figure out what will work for you.

Have you tried sleeping with a stuffed animal and then letting him sleep with it? Sometimes your scent on the stuffy can help him feel more secure.

We also have two boys, ages 5 & 6 and I'll be honest, my 5 year old does the same thing you're describing. Has been for about a year and a 1/2, on average 3-4 nights a week. Most of the time we dont even know he's there. He's not screaming for us or crying that he wants us in his bed. for whatever reason he just needs that extra comfort (and I'm home full time). In the grand scheme of live we dont feel it's a big deal. He's not going to want to do it forever and he's not disturbing us. We want our boys to know that we are there for them no matter day or night. Others will disagree and say that children should be in their own beds but it's honestly what the parents feel comfortable with. If your son's not bothering you, I say let him snuggle :-)

what the last mom said about being consistent and just keep bringing him back to bed is true. really hard at first but in the end it works. also not sure if you still have any baby gates around, but i keep one on my 3 year old daughters bedroom door just so she doesn't get up and fall down the stairs in the middle of the night. maybe just putting the gate there will remind him in the middle of the night that he needs to stay in his own bed. good luck.

Every child is different & not everything you try is going to work for your son even if it worked for someone else.
I have a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weisbluth, MD. I did use this approach for my son when he was 6 monhts old & it worked. It is sort of like the CIO method but a tad bit different. But I am not sure if it would work for him now (21 months old). Thank God I have not gone through this again as of yet! But try buying the book & see if it works for your little one. My sister let her 2 little ones sleep in her bed when they were babies & now at 11 & 13 they have trouble sleeping in their own beds still! So I agree with you even though sleeping together maybe nice & cozy and loving it can cause major problems when they are older. Oh not to mention once my sisters kids are asleep she has to leave her bed due to no room in it & she gets no sleep & she goes in their bed(s)!

Put a gate on his bedroom door.

Hello C.,
My youngest son went through this issue. I found out that the reason he kept waking up at night was that my snuggling him at night kept him warmer than his regular blankets. After I left, he would cool down and wake up... sneaking into my bed to get warm again and to hear my heart beat. I fixed this by getting him a mama bear and a flannel sleeping bag. When he went to sleep, I would cuddle him for a few minutes to get his blanket warmed up. Then as he drifted off, I would slowly move the blanket so that it was between us (a little tucked in under him on the side I was on), but still keeping him warm. It took about a week for him to get out of the automatic habit of waking up that he had gotten himself into. The first night he woke up an hour later than he had been. Each night, the time between bedtime and him waking up got longer until he did not wake up at all. The first time that I happened, I got up three times during the night just to make sure he was o.k.!! I hope this helps. Nobody had ever mentioned to me before that his waking up could be that he wasn't warm enough. Just a thought- C.

I think he is showing you who is incharge here. Does he share a room with your other child? Why is he going into your room? Did he recently transition into a big boy bed? Is there something going on in his life that could have triggered this change? I think you should think about all of those things. I wish I had some advise, but I woudl start asking your self what was it that made this behavior start and go from there.\
Good luck.

You have to be strict with him being in his own bed. You will probably have a few screaming nights, but be persistant and keep putting him back to bed. If you cannot hear him coming in, try tying a little bed on his foot or something that will make noise to wake you. Bit be persistant or you'll never get him out of your bed.

Personally I think it is rather sweet. I mean he will grow out of it on his own and all too soon kids move on and have their own life.
But one way to get him to stay in bed is to have him bond more with his older brother, for example if they share a room he might feel comforted by having his older brother near by and not come looking for comfort from you.

Hi C.,

This may sound silly, but do you really want him out of your bed? If you are both happy with the arrangement, maybe it is ok right now. (I don't know if you are married, but assuming so, of course your husband would also have to be ok with the arrangement) I pesonally don't think 3 is too old to still be sleeping with you.

In today's day and age when so many children are in childcare all day. Being physically close at night is a way to reconnect. Of course, if you, or your son are not sleeping well because of the arrangement, that sort of defeats the purpose.

If you really want him in his own bed, let him know in no uncertain terms what the expectations are. Expect some fight and be persistent. If you are committed to getting him into his own bed, eventually the new pattern will be established.

Try to have a consistent routine, bath, story, tuck in. Reassure him and listen to his fears (check out the closets and under the bed if necessary) maybe provide a night light. My 9 year old still falls asleep with a sound machine. (she likes the faint city noises selection) (funny, because we have never lived in the city!) We bought the machine at Brookstone and it has numerous sound choices as well as a sleep timer.

Hang in there. This too shall pass.

J. L.

Hi C.,
I am going through this with my two year old. Out of the blue, she slept through the night just recently and I used that as my window of opportunity. I praised her tremendously and gave her little treats throughout the day to let her know how proud I was of her such as letting her watch a movie and giving her a sweet, making her a little congratulations certificate,reading an extra book, etc. I really made a big deal of it and also explained to her how important it was for her to sleep in her own bed now because she is getting too big to sleep in my bed. There just isn't enough room. That was Friday night. Saturday night she woke up and I rubbed her back for two minutes, she went back to sleep in her own bed. Sunday, I battled with her for 2 hours (from 1:30-3:30) trying to get her to stay in her own bed and I eventually gave in. Last night I told her I was so proud of her for staying in her bed Friday and Saturday night and that Sunday night was difficult, because we didn't get much sleep. It made sense to her, because last night she stayed in her own bed again and she was very proud of herself when she woke up this morning. I'm not sure if any of this will help, but at least you know you aren't alone.

I don't have a lot of help for the middle of the night waking, except to say that if he's not waking you up (since you don't know he's there until the morning) then that might not be the biggest deal. He won't still be climbing in your bed when he's 17!

As far as going to bed, I was given this trick which works for my daughter most nights. We wait until she's pretty tired (her bedtime is between 8-8.30), having done the whole bedtime routine. When she gets in bed I ask her what she's going to think about when she's in bed. A lot of the time she says her dolls, or baking a cake, or something like that. If she's not quite tired enough she can tell me a little story about what she's going to think about. I then tell her that she can lay there and think about those things for as long as she wants. She normally drops right off to sleep. It's hard even for adults to "will" themselves to fall asleep, and I have found that when I insist she sleep she fights it even more. But thinking about something they like is relaxing and allows them to kind of drift off. I'm not sure if this will work with your little guy, but it might help. Good luck!

Dear C.,
I am currently going through this phase with my 3-year old daughter. I don't swear by anything, because I have learned often enough in these three years that every child is different. For example, I learned that "crying it out does not work with my daughter at all". She actually gets much worse every night that way. However, I am happy to let you know that after about two month of this, last night was the first night she slept in her bed without coming to see me. She was very proud of that in the morning:) All of this started with her having a dream about crocodiles. Imagination and dreaming at this age is so real that it does not help explaining that "it's just a dream". I think this is the main reason of this night-time behavior. Usually I stay with her until she is a sleep. If she comes to me at night, I hug her and keep saying that everything is fine, it's night time and everybody wants to sleep. Then I take her back to her bed and stay with her for a bit again. I am not saying it is easy and sometimes I am not as calm as I might sound here... It sounds like the big difference for us is that none of us can sleep properly if she is in our bed (she moves all over the bed), so I definitely feel when she has arrived:) Anyhow, this phase will end just like all the others and there will be something else in place. Hang in there!