Staying in Your Room

Sorry to say I don't have a good answer, I wound up letting him have his downtime on the sofa now. He didn't want to be away from everything, but if he was in his room he threw major fits which woke up his 1 year old brother! The super nanny technique - put them back in 100 times...does work, except if you have a younger one!

Like the first poster, I altered my down-time arrangement. Not because of another child, but because a fight sort of negated the whole idea.

Down-time has become many different places/activities in our house depending on whether it's down-time my son has needed or time that I needed, and what was available.

With my son, being given a choice to PICK which rest activity (out of a selection of 2 or 3 constants and a couple others that would change every few months), seemed to do the trick. A few times he even opted for a nap. How's that for contrary?

Also at about 3 1/2 we started setting a timer. He didn't have to stop his activity if he didn't want to, but it gave him a good idea of the chunk of time that was expected.

If it's a little down-time YOU need, may I suggest www.Starfall.com? It's an amazing free online reading program and it has a strong tendency to absorb toddlers for hours if you're not careful. (There's only so many times I can read a page in a book before the irritation creeps in, and no matter how well we mask it, the kids always know. But the recorded voice on the website is just as excited the 700th time they click on "A"!! "ASTRONAUT" baum baum bum baum baum bum!! "A" !! as the first. Even though it's designed for K+...it seems to have better results with younger children. Most of the 2 year olds we playgrouped with were reading by 3-3 1/2 and stayed interested in the site until they were approaching 5. On the other hand...most kindergarteners I know get irritated by it.

I would like to add at this point that I am in no way affiliated with Starfall,& I'm not advocating an electronic Mum...but we had the Terrible Threes at my house...and it helped save my sense of ahhhh. Side benefit, of course, was that my son DID end up reading pretty early.

Best of Luck!

I have let my boys take books to bed with them when they have gotten to this point, they usually fall asleep. When my now 4yr old was 3 I start setting a music alarm to let him know when he could get up and come out of room. It still works, yes we have our bad days but he knows that he won't get to do something fun later or get a treat if he keeps getting out of bed/room. Some days if he has been good will let him have a matchbox car in bed with him. My two yr old takes only one book.

K.,

My son is 4 1/2 and has not been a consistent napper for about a year now. We usually play a CD that lasts about an hour and tell him that he doesn't have to go to sleep, he just has to lay quietly and listen to the music. We don't say anything about sleep, just listen to the music. We also tell him that if he's still awake when the music stops he may get out of bed. The CD we usually play for him at these times tends towards lullabies or other soft, relaxing music. He's usually out in 10-20 minutes.

The other thing we do is set a timer or point out an hour on his clock (analog, not digital) and tell him he needs to stay in bed, but he may quietly read his books for an hour, but he has to stay in bed, and be quiet, not playing with toys. This way he gets the down/quiet time, but we're not yelling at him every five minutes to get back in bed and go to sleep.

Hope this helps,
Melissa

You can get the old fashioned hook that attaches to one side of the door frame, and an eye, which attaches to the other, and have it higher up. This will stop him from leaving the room because he won't be able to leave it.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, at least with my experience with my kids, but at that age you don't get your child to stay in his room for down time.

My down time came with Sesame Street and Mr. Rodgers (I didn't let them watch anything else) and we watched them together, so we all had a much needed rest.

I do not have any other suggestions. The good news is that your child will probably go to sleep at night more easily.

Believe it or not, we used to use the old fashioned hook and eye. This was really important as my son used to have terrible temper tantrums and it was the only way we could protect him and his brother. I could keep him in his room where he eventually would make himself a little cave to hide in and he would often fall asleep. Even now at 13, he goes to his "cave" when he is upset and will often fall asleep! We just made sure that there was nothing in his room that could hurt him and if he tore his room apart in anger, he could put is back together again pretty easily. The hardest part were the times when he fell asleep against the door, but we had enough room to push the door open and pick him up and put him in his bed.
Good luck!
C.