DD is almost 27 months old and for a number of reasons, we decided to move her into a big girl bed exactly 1 week ago today. For the first 4 days, she did freakin awesome. She loved telling people about her big girl room and laid right down for a solid night's sleep and naps without a peep. On Thursday night, she woke at 11:30 and proceeded to stay up until 5am wandering around her room and refusing to stay in her bed. Since then, she fights every single nap/bedtime and says she doesn't like her bed and wants to sleep in her crib. I don't want to go back to the crib and have had to resort to CIO in the bed but she does climb down out of bed sometimes. I don't want to make her hate the bed but I don't know what else to do. Any suggestions?
-
Sounds like more of a power struggle and she is asserting her new found freedom. I would just keep doing what you are doing, regular bedtime routine and all. She will get used to it.
-
I'd put her back in the crib for a while, and then ask her in a week or two if she wants to go back to her big girl bed. It might be easier if she feels she can go back if she wants. My DS had quite a few transitions where it was one step forward and one step back, but we stuck with it and in a couple of months we'd get where we were going.
-
Similar to @Mama Bird, we had a few setbacks when transitioning. After about a month of back and forth she is happy in her big girl bed and her behavior is MUCH better.
-
The same thing happened to us. It passed after about 2 weeks and it went back to being great. He was 21 months at the time. Good luck!
-
@Jess1483: what did you do? Just keep putting him back in the bed? Let him not nap?
She is starting to express that she wants me or DH to sleep with her...we have never ever co-slept even for a minute or two and has always put herself to bed really easily on her own. I think she is trying to express that she's feeling scared and insecure, and I'm just not sure of how to comfort her without starting down that slippery slope of her needing us to sleep.
@shortcake: that's exactly what I think she's doing too. -
@Mama Bird: @meredithNYC: did you leave the bed up in the room? We actually would have room for both but i'm wondering how many times we can assemble and reassemble a crib and twin bed.
-
@Tidybee: yeah, we had just never taken the crib down - mostly since our second is due in April.
One thing that seems to help my LO is having all of her "babies" ( lovey plus stuffed animals) with her.
-
@Tidybee: well, for naps we sit at the end of his bed. It only takes 5 minutes to fall asleep, so it works well. At bedtime, we tried just putting him back but it was awful. We put up a baby gate and it only took him about 5 minutes to decide to go to bed.
-
We had a really hellacious sleep regression when we moved to the big girl bed. It resulted in her sleeping on her floor (her choice) for nearly a month and waking up SEVERAL times a night. Happy to say that 3 months later and she sleeps in her big girl bed every night and stays asleep. This too shall pass, but hang in there in the meantime!
-
@Tidybee: we haven't dealt with the bed thing yet (and honestly, I'm really scared to because I know DS can stay up past midnight if he feels like it). But when we do get him a big boy bed, we'll leave the crib up because the baby will need it. I'll just do what I can to make the new bed more appealing
maybe get sheets with his favorite characters, or a toy car mobile, or something...The other stuff we dealt with, like potty training, it was super easy to go back if we were moving too fast. This sleeping thing is way harder!
-
I just wish I could figure it out. Last night, she went into her bed happily. Today's nap she fought for 90 min and then only slept if I laid with her. She woke up 20 min later furious that I wasn't in there with her and would not go back down. She's on no way ready to give up the nap. I'm just at a loss....
I asked her if she wanted to sleep in her crib today and she said no so I'm officially removing that idea from the table. Anyone else have thoughts so I don't traumatize my kid? I'm glad to see it's somewhat normal -
@Tidybee: We are about to start this transition in the next couple weeks with our two year old - this is making me nervous!
Sometimes my DD fights naps now and goofs around in her crib. I just let her stay in there for at least 1-1.5 hours, and if she doesn't fall asleep, I move bedtime up accordingly. Is that a possibility? Could you explain that this is quiet time and that she can nap/play/read quietly and then just close the door and walk away? This is my plan, which may not work, but it was something my grandmother always used on us. Even when we were older and didn't need a nap we had to go to our rooms and play or read quietly for an hour in the afternoons!
-
@Chaosmaven: I wish I could. Her anxiety is at an all time high and will not even read in her room without me in there these past few days. She only fell asleep (after a 20 min nap today) after I laid with her and she woke 35 minutes later absolutely frantic that I wasn't there. Which is why I didn't want to go down that road to begin with. It has now been almost 2 hours that she has been up and we've been battling her to stay in her room or in her bed. I'm literally at my wits end
-
@Jess1483: she will tantrum for hours at the gate. We tried doing it for the past hour and she shows no signs of stopping...
I guess she has my stubbornness
-
@Tidybee: do you know what is making her anxious? Is she getting separation anxiety?
Also, this might not be helpful, but what happens if you are not there and DH is putting her to bed? DS will run me and in circles, but he knows he can't mess around with DH and behaves much better if dad is handling bedtime. Well, usually... sometimes he'll just melt down completely instead
-
Has she watched something on TV or read a book that might have triggered some sort of fear?
-
@Tidybee: very similar to us, we did not go back to crib (she was a climber though so it was a safety reason) and just did our best to get her to stay. I'm not going to lie, our LO usually falls asleep on the couch at night and then we move her, on weekends she will nap in there after about a 30 minute struggle and I finally say "You stay in your bed right now" and she usually can tell mommy means business. This has been going on for months, but she's also stubborn and I think sleep is more important than the fight. it's our biggest battle.
-
@Mama Bird: I think the separation anxiety has resultedfrom the transition. She is way more clingy during the day. She is also exhausted. It isn't making any difference with DH. She asks for the other one when one of us is in there with us. Even when we switch off, she'll then want the other one. Like she's upset for both of us leaving her. Last night, we both sat in her room with her, but she just sat in her bed quietly for HOURS until out of exhaustion, we had to lay with her to get her to sleep.
-
@purrpletulips: not that I can think of. But who knows what toddlers are picking up on in their environments....
-
@LuLu Mom: it's just so rough! And us being pregnant on top of it! I've cried some major hormonal tears about this.
-
@Tidybee: I think that's 1/2 the reason I've given in to her falling asleep on the couch, it's just not worth the fight. As long as she goes to sleep I'm fine with it. Not ideal but with my energy level it's doable.
-
@Tidybee: It sounds like a power struggle to me. Could you put the crib back in the room and put her in there for a while (until she is interested in the bed)?
When we transitioned LO, we had the crib and bed in her room for a while. We started reading stories in bed and snuggling there before putting her to bed in her crib. When we thought she was ready, we started asking her if she wanted to sleep in her crib or her big girl bed. She picked the bed. We repeated the same question before naptime and bedtime for a few weeks. 99% of the time she picked her bed.
Eventually we stopped asking and just put her in her bed. When we were ready to move the crib, we asked her if she wanted to move the crib out of her room so she'd have more room to play on the floor with her toys. Of course she wanted the crib gone to have more room to play.
Making it her idea made the transition easier. LO is a control freak and we have to make everything her idea.
-
@Tidybee: I know this is an old thread, but how did it turn out? We're going through the same thing with my almost 3 yr old right now and it's brutal
Any advice from your experience?
-
We had overnight success with rewarding her with a stamp when she slept in her big girl bed. Worked like a charm instantly. We basically just phased it out over time. We got the elmo book about going to bed and we inserted our own line of always calling for mommy and daddy when wanting to get out. She stopped getting out on her own...although she calls us for every little thing but it gives me peace of
Mind that she's not roaming her room and our house.
maybe get sheets with his favorite characters, or a toy car mobile, or something...
Any advice from your experience?
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
24 comments