Josie has done great without the paci. She cried for 2 minutes at naptime and whimpered at bedtime, but hasn't asked for it since the first day without it. However, she still having a hard time staying in bed. She's so tired, but she won't stay still long enough to fall asleep at naptime or bedtime. I have to end up sitting in the room, but that only keeps her in bed. She'll still toss and turn for an hour before passing out.
Any Suggestions on how to keep her in her bed and help her develop good habits for falling asleep easier?????
4 comments:
It was frustrating, but with both Alexis and Trystan we did the ignore and repeat. Basically, when they got up we just put them back in bed, over and over and over. We did not speak to them, did not hold them close to put them in bed, just kept putting them back in. It was hard, but they didn't get the reaction they wanted from us so they eventually stopped getting up.
Sorry :) We still have two little ones in our king size bed, and two more in an extra twin bed in our room. But we like it that way :)
i don't know, i have to go through the same thing every time one of mine gets to that stage.
aunt rebecca suggested once to play music on tape recorder on low so it's kinda like background noise. then supposedly, evenutaly you won't need to sit in there, just play the music.
Two possibilities:
The first one sounds pretty counter-intuitive. Sometimes when my kids are extra good about getting into bed, I go in there and pluck them out of bed so that I can snuggle them. I do it because they "were so good about going to bed." I honestly do it as early as 8 months, but have done it with the older kids too, particularly when they have been giving me a hard time for a few days about going to bed by dawdling excessively or whining. It helps take the "forbidden fruit" aspect out of getting out of bed. BUT -- if THEY come out of bed, I do NOT snuggle them and I tell them that if they are going to behave that way, then I will not be able to come in and pull them out of bed anymore. I look at them frowning, kind of harsh. I don't pluck them out every night, but somewhat often. Usually for just a few minutes. But it is ALWAYS on MY terms. I doesn't work at ALL if it's on THEIR terms.
#2 is something my friend tried at about this age that worked wonders. It also sounds counterintuitive, but it worked great for her. She got some popsicle sticks and every night gave her son TWO sticks. They were his "get-out-of-bed-free" sticks. Every night, no matter what time of night, he could use these sticks like a coupon to get out of bed two times. To get a kiss, a drink of water, to tell mommy good-night again etc. and the mommy would NOT get mad or frustrated those two times. (Again, taking the forbidden nature out of it). BUT, when those two popsicles sticks were gone, there was NO GETTING OUT OF BED. What actually happened was that her son started hoarding the sticks, never knowing when he was going to need to get out of bed more than twice!! He ended up choosing to NOT get out of bed so that he could keep the sticks until he had a massive collection!! Anyway, we've never tried it, but I'll never forget how effective it was for her bedtime jack-in-the-box.
Good luck! I hope you find something that works!
Oh, and we also read chapter books at night when we're on our game. And if they are naughty, they lose the reading privilege for that night and sometimes for the next night. Some kids will do ANYTHING to get mommy to stay in their rooms, even for a little while reading across the room.
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