Need Help Getting Toddler to Sleep by Himself in His Own Bed

I too love to watch supernanny and when my son transitioned from his crib to toddler bed (at 2), he would have days where he would stay in bed all night and then times where he would sneak out. It became a game for him, and we tried the supernanny trick. It did work, but one time, when it was taking too long (he was too awake and playful to go to bed) I told him that if he got out of bed, I was going to put the gate up. He could get up all he wanted, but couldn't leave his room. When he realized that his game of escape didn't work, he would just go lay down in his bed. Now he pretty much stays in bed all night, but when he decides he wants to play his "game", the first time he gets out, the gate goes up. He knows too, because when I put him back in his bed, he will say "you need to put the gate up?" And I tell him that because he chose to get out of bed, the gate has to go up. I take it down when we go to bed, so I don't leave it up all night. Be consistent with what you do, and it will work.

Dear C.,

My son is 3 1/2 and is still likes to come and sleep with us when he wakes up or is sick. The only way that works for us is letting him fall asleep and then putting him back in his bed. We also put him in a Queen size bed with a railing and we can lay with him and read to him at night. Then when he falls asleep we can just get up and go to the other room. He will eventully want to sleep on his own!

Sometimes the best thing you can do is for you and your husband to mentally decide once and for all that your toddler will not sleep with you nor you sleep with him. Kids know when we are being indecisive on a matter and will take it to the most extreme point in response. (i.e....crying so much that he throws up) Once you decide as a team that his and your past behavior is no longer acceptable, you must follow through with not allowing him to sleep with you or you with him. Talk with him through the day so that he is well prepared for bedtime. He is now a big boy and big boys sleep in their own beds with their favorite Teddy. It will be hard but for your sake and your child's sake, you must be firm. Maybe he can be rewarded with some morning cuddly time on the couch when he stays in his bad all night? I always believe that the parents know the right thing to do instinctively because you are uniquely designed for your child. You and you alone can make the true judgment call on what to do. You already know how to handle this inside your heart of hearts... you just need to follow through. You are a great parent. Best of luck.

I thought the answer about how Native Americans think children sleep better on the floor was VERY interesting. When we began transitioning my daughter out of our bed, that is exactly where she slept, on a folded up foam mattress-topper. Let me be a voice of reassurance and tell you that, no matter how stubborn your child is now and how hard it is, he CAN and WILL eventually sleep on his own. It's a matter of consistency on your part, which can be very, very hard when they wake up in the middle of the night and you're tired and you know darn well he'll fall asleep with you. I know, I've been there.

We transitioned our daughter (who's three now) very slowly, first leaving her in her bed for short amounts of time, and eventually expecting longer and longer bouts. She now sleeps in her bed until until the sun comes up, but she does still unfortunately wake up usually once a night (we're working on that). If you want this to happen more quickly, here is what I recommend: Tell your son that everyone sleeps better and is more happy if he sleeps in his own bed. For several nights, put him down in his bed, even if you have to stay next to him until he falls asleep at first. When he wakes up, put him back down in his bed. If he's anything like my daughter was, he'll fight you and you will have to be firm. (You know your son best. If his resistance is too strong to where you know he's extremely upset, don't push too hard. The key is to consistently TRY so he knows what you want from him, but he also knows that you're not just being mean.) See how this goes. If he needs a little extra incentive, make a poster with several squares, and give him a sticker in the morning each time he stays in bed until the designated time (the easiest time is when the sun comes up, since it's something he can see for himself. Or you can set an alarm and tell him he can come in your bed when the alarm goes off.)

We didn't do the sticker thing until we knew for sure that she was capable of putting herself back to sleep (this depends on being able to get themselves to sleep in the first place), but it did help a lot. This is just a quick synopsis. If you want more detail, I wrote all about it here: http://www.mothersclick.com/group/sleep-forum

You need to join the site but it's free just like Mamasource.

Anyway, good luck to you. Remember that it can happen, but that it will take consistency and patience on your part. Oh yeah, and someone else mentioned "The No-Cry Sleep Solution." I would recommend the Toddler and Preschool version of this book. It's geared for, well, toddlers and preschoolers.

C.,
That darn sleep deprivation is one of the toughest part of parenthood. My three were in and out some nights and my 6 year old still shows up and takes over the bed. I personally say surrender to the process and the time you miss on sleep will pay for itself in a secure and happy child. The bond you build that gives your child the knowledge that you will help him through this time is amazing. WHen I was ready to help the transition, I would let my children come to snuggle then say, "let's get you back to your bed honey" You will get resistance. Who would want to leave your comfort and got sleep alone. Just stay with it and each night will get easier. Life goes by quickly and your children will grow into there bests selves with your love and support. As they get older they will remember you saying "You can do this", because you'll still be saying it with every tough issue in their lives. There are products like Emergen-C or liquid minerals that you add to your glass of water that will help with the lost of sleep.
Good Luck!

I have two beds side by side, one for my 2.5 yr old boy and one for me. works great. we both get our own bed and he is just a roll away (sometimes with a pillow in between) and he feels very secure. he is not the type to go it alone either. i figure someday i will be wishing for these times because they pass too quickly by...i try to stay in the moment. bon chance!

I am a firm believer in asking for what you want. You need to discuss with him that you really need him to stay in his bed at night.

When my son was about 2 or 3 we would literally have to lay with him till he fell asleep. It got to be a bit much until one day I was watching Super Nanny and she was dealing with this same exact issue with a family. I really listened to her suggestion...and it paid off. In a nutshell you do your normal bedtime rountine (bath, a story, etc.), then you put him in the bed and the first night you sit by the bed (no physical contact or verbal contact (as much as you can avoid that). But each night you get further and further away from the bed until eventually you put them in the bed and just leave the room. I found my son needed to learn how to fall asleep on his own without the comfort of holding me or my husbands hand or having us lay with him.

Also, when he does get up and try to come to your bed...you have to immediately take him back to his bed. My son is older now but if he has a bad dream he still tries to come climb in our bed...we immediately direct him to go back to his room and his bed.

It's going to take patience and time...but eventually things will get better.

There is a native american believe that kids sleep more secure on the ground. try to put his mattress on the ground, worked better with my kid, also I let the kids sleep together in one bed. Usually there is a reason that a kid wakes up and needs comfort or assistance. He may be very sensitive and see things that frighten him alone. Try to find out when and why he wakes up first.

Hi! I have 4 kids - 15,12,6, & 3 yrs. My husband & I were never very good at "making" our toddlers stay in their own beds ( although we were much more motivated with our 3rd & 4th). Over time I think I can say the things that workred best for us were some of the classic kid care remedies: 1) try to get in a good hour of physical activity after their aftermoon nap, preferrably out-of-doors, 2) realize that little ones wind down much earlier than the rest of us really - try to give them dinner no later than 5 and then go directly into the bedtime routine, 3) have a regular relaxing routine - ie. bath, story, lullaby music. Keep trying and you'll find what works for you. It's definately worth the effort, both for your rest and your relationship with your husband.

C....
My son was the same way when he was young like your son; he wouldn't even nap and per my pediatrician, "if you have to hold him to get him to sleep, then do it." Now my 18 month old daughter is the easy, perfect sleeper! What we did, and it seemed to work was have "cuddle time." He had to wait until it was light in his room, or the door was opened for him. On the occasions he'd come to our room before morning, we gave him the option of sleeping on the floor by our bed (we kept a blanket and pillows handy for him). Good luck, and what people used to tell me was "How many 18 year-olds do you know who still sleep with their parents?" He'll get it eventually, hang in there! :)Chris

Watch Supernanny. It works!

Hi! I have a teenager who slept pretty well. But when I had Juliet (now four years old), she was a different story. She was way worse than you describe your son. We have done the same thing with a bed, a special pillow and trying to make her feel comfortable and unafraid. No matter what we do, she ends up sleeping with us, waking us up all night long. After more than four years of sleep deprivation, we are still resigned to sleeping with her. If not, she'd get up and sleep with us anyways. It's a losing battle. Now, your son may become more independent, but don't count on it. We are now thinking about putting a twin-sized bed for her in our room -- at least she will be separate, but close by. Unfortunately with kids, there aren't always hard-and-fast answers. And, no matter how many things we try, our children are their own unique selves. Giving him all the love and comfort he desires cannot be a bad thing in my book. Eventually, he will grow up to be a strong and independent person because he was given what he needed emotionally at the time. I slept in the same bed with my older child until she was seven or so. (I was a single mother and we only had one bed.) Yes, she's a typical bitchy teenaged girl. But she's also very confident and self assured. She seems emotionally stable and she seems to love herself. That's all I know. BEST OF LUCK!!

DO NOT cuddle with him in your bed OR his bed! Stay out of the beds otherwise you send him a mixed message that sometimes it's okay (and he wont understand when it's NOT okay) so he'll keep on trying until you give in.
Sit in his room while he's lying in bed. Little by little (might take days or weeks) move further away from the bed. Do not look at him nor smile or address him in any way other than to put him back in bed.
I agree, with the other response, read the Nanny book.
It's going to take a lot of hard work to break this habit. Good Luck!

Have you heard of the Sleep Easy Solution. It comes in book and DVD. I heard about it from our friends and it works, although, we have not been persistent in our attempt to get our 8 month old to sleep through the night. It is always something...colds, teething, etc...
Besides I am a total pushover. I have heard that it works like a charm. Go to sleepyplanet.com and you can read about it and order it there online.

Hope it helps!

T.

Well, we've been battling the sleep war for three years and have finally gotten our son to sleep in his own room without crying... what did the trick was a full size bed. When we were putting it in his room my husband thought we were being a little silly for giving such a small boy such a big bed, but now that he can move all over the bed freely (which hs THOUGHT he could do in our bed), he seems to be more comfortable and has only woken in the night when he got sick with a cold. My husband sits next to him on the bed while he falls asleep (I used to do night time duty, I think this change helped him disassociate me with the bed) and we make sure to tell him before bed that we will be so happy to see him when the sun comes up - but we don't mention anything else. Good luck!

You should try transitioning him a little slower. If your son has a clingy personality, suddenly not allowing him to snuggle with you is a hard concept for him to grasp, especially at this age. What you can do, though it will take some time, but completely be worth it in the end, is when he cant sleep because you aren't there, snuggle with him in his bed till he falls asleep. Do that for about 3 days to a week. Next instead of snuggling with him when he can't sleep, you sit on the edge of his bed and rub his back or belly or something so that he knows you are there. Do that for 3 days to a week. Then the next week you sit next to his bed only holding his hand or something simple. The following week you are about a foot away from the bed. The next week your are halfway across the room...and so on and so forth until you are sitting outside the door and then not at all. This should help him learn to sleep on his own. Believe it or not sleeping by themselves is something we have to teach them at some point or another, just depends on what age you do it as to how it happens. I know it sounds difficult and it may not work for you, but I know it is working for me. My son was a co sleeper for a long time too. Good luck.

I guess I am really showing my age here, BUT........when our kids were born, they started out in the bassinet and then went to their crib, and eventually to a real bed. Never a question as to where they were sleeping.
There was never a problem, why start something that will be a problem for them later on.
They have enough things to give up, (bottles, pacifiers, diapers), you name it. They already have a lot of transitions to make for such young ones, why add one more?

Hi, Even though we never did the family bed, as our kids transitioned into their own toddler beds, they would get up in the middle of the night and want to be with us. Our solution was sleeping bags in our room. From night one, they would just come in with their blankets, spread out their sleeping bags beside or at the foot of our bed and go to sleep, usually without even waking us. What a relief! For a while there, I thought I was gonna be sleep deprived until they were 18. They tapered off on this practice sometime between 8 and 12 years old. Now we have new sleeping bags for the grandkids when they visit! Good luck! Grams

Hi Carrie,
Our daughter was in her own crib at 2 months old and into a toddler bed at 2 years. When she turned 2 1/2 her baby brother was born and the sleeping by herself problems begun. We found that if we stay in her room until she falls asleep when she wakes up she freaks out because we're not there. One thing I have done to help is play lullabies and say "Ok, I'll stay for 3 songs", when the first ends I say, "OK that was 1, you have 2 more". Then "Ok, this is the last song then I need to go". When that song is over she gets the huge kiss and hug. Most nights this works well but there are still nights we still need to let her cry it out. Also I'm really bad about letting her come into our bed in the middle of the night. I am now forcing myself to take her back to her room and stay for a few minutes, but she can't come in our bed until it's light outside. We really do create many of our own battles. She also can sleep with whatever toys she wants - the bed is usually so full I have the excuse that there is no room for me but she has lots and lots of friends to keep her company.
Good luck and hold it there, you'll get thru it.

Try reading the Suppernanny book. I know she has a back to bed method which works pretty well. Good luck!

My little boy also sleeps in bed with us, and so far he hasn't kicked us in the head so we are still enjoying it :)
I would pick up "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" if you don't already have it by Elizabeth Pantley. She's a big believer in the family bed, but she also has some very compassionate methods for transitioning to separate beds. I think it might be a bit traumatic for him if you go from what you've been doing to the Super Nanny, but that's just my opinion!

your kid is stubborn. cute, but wants it his own way. So make it on his terms & he will feel like it was his decision to go to bed, not yours of course. Ask him when would he like to go brush his teeth, ask simpple things first,"what do you want to eat, brush your hair etc... then build up the bed question,every thing he does ask him. let him think he is control of himself. it helps with decision making. let him know he needs to make a decision though so give optins, now or after this show? also reward his decisions. "good decision!".. he will love feeling like the man!

It took about 2 weeks of work but we went through this with my son. I sat there with him letting him hold my hand until he fell asleep and each time he would get up I would take him back to bed and let him hold my hand again. After a week I took my hand away and just sat on the floor next to him. I progressively got further away. Every once in a while he'll come in and want a hug or kiss and then go back to his own bed but he pretty much sleeps through the night in his own bed.

Your son sounds like my daughter at that age. We also had been sleeping with her for a good 2 and a half years and we had another baby coming. We couldn't deal with the idea of having TWO in bed with us so we had to encourage our daugher to sleep in her own bed. We purchased a twin bed with a trundle underneath. After our son was born my husband slept on the trundle next to our daughter's bed. She seemed perfectly fine with the arangement and hasn't slept with us since. She's now 7. My husband moved back into our bed when my son was about 3 months.

Good luck!

H.

On the advice of a friend, we put a sleeping bag on the floor next to our bed, and if our son came in during the night he could stay but he had to sleep in the sleeping bag rather than in the bed - not as cozy as sleeping with mom and dad but still comforting if he really needed it...it seemed to help him make the transition to sleeping in his own room, which after a little while he did. It also let us get a decent night's sleep without a wiggle worm in the bed.

Good luck!

Try putting a toy on a top shelf, each night he stays in his bed all night move the toy down a shelf after 3 shelf moves (make it the last shelf) give him the toy. Another thing to try is walking him back to his room every time he gets up. Don't stay with him. It will suck for you but he'll get it after a few nights. You can also try books on tape for him to listen to and get a continous play tape machine. All this worked for my friend when she had this problem, her pediatrician recommended all these things.

My sister in law put a little bed in her room for the child/ren to sleep in and eventually her children both wanted their own space and beds! Good luck! I know every child is different. Follow your heart and don't take advice that does not feel right to you. I give my kids a homeopathic sleep remedy sometimes which helps.

Dear C.,

You and your husband need to make a plan together and follow it religiously. It is an important part of your toddler's life and you two parents need to be on the same page. Be strong and diligent and do not give in. There may be some crying, but he will be a stronger baby when it is all over. It makes children insecure if they get there way too much. They know that we are bigger and stronger and know more than they do, and if they get to tell us what to do, then it gives them less confidence in us. Asi ! C. N.

First, cry it out doesn't work with toddlers anyway, at least not in the same way. I would say lay down with him, but get up once he's calm, and then adjust that until he no longer needs you. DON'T fall asleep in his bed- you're just delaying. Maybe the first night stay until he is just barely asleep, then the second sit on the bed instead of laying, then halfwat out of the room, etc, or whatever speed works for you. And keep telling yourself that it will be best for everyone in the long run!

Hi C.,

I have two children - 10 and 6 now. My oldest was the same way. I have two suggestions:

1) offer an incentive (i.e. a bribe) if he sleeps in his bed all night. Start small, like a prize each night, then move to weeks, etc.

2) whenever he comes into your bed, consistently bring him back to his bed. You can lay down with him for a few minutes, but then let him know you are going to leave and come back in a few minutes to check on him. Wait about 10 minutes, then go back, so that he trusts you will do what you say. Keep stretching out the time until he falls asleep.

These two, although challenging and time consuming at first, should pay off!

Best of luck,
M. Beauvais
____@____.com

Try putting a toddler bed in your room right next to your bed. If that doesn't work cause he has to be in bed with you then a pillow put in between you and your child works wonders.My husband called it the buffer zone. Both child and parent were able to get sleep.It helps to keep them from being all over the place.