How do you/would you handle it if your LO refused to stay in his/her room at night? This is what we are dealing with lately with my 4-year-old. She will keep coming out of her room until she ends up passing out on the couch at 10 pm. Then of course she's tired and cranky the next day. DH and I are both in grad school and have to get work done at night so I'm extra stressed out here. I'd like to use "natural" consequences if possible, because threats and taking away privileges have gotten us nowhere...
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I've heard of a system with door closures. I think it goes something like: start the night with door wide open. Have 3 lines of tape on the floor when the door gets more and more closed. Each time she comes out, the door goes to the next line. If she comes out again (after it's been on each tape line), then door gets closed. I guess I don't really know what happens if she opens the door, or if you are supposed to lock it at that point. Hmmm. Not super helpful. I'll see if I can find where I read about it.
http://www.prettyprudent.com/2010/12/baby-kid/the-tape-trick-2/ -
Not sure if this is what you're looking for but my cousin put a gate on their son's door but then he started climbing over it so they put a 2nd gate above it on the door.
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Friends of ours have a daughter who went through this while they were living with us. They stopped her as soon as they heard her, picked her up, put her in bed and shut the door, all without talking to her or making eye contact. For the first few nights, it was dozens of times, but after that, she realized that there was no point coming out of her room because nothing was happening.
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We have had this problem since we converted his baby crib into a toddler bed with one side opened since I don't know when. We have tried everything that we can think of, and finally this is something we do now and it is acceptable to us. He is now 3.5 years old.
- We talked to our doc back in the 3 year old visit. He said it is OK to push bedtime from 7:30pm to 8:30pm or even later, because he is still taking that 1-2 hour nap at nap time.
- We have a clock that turns green in the morning. So we make it a big deal that he needs to stay in bed until the clock turns green.
- Consequence: Every morning I would give him 3 short videos of his choice (Peppa pig or something). Every night, if he gets out of his room once, he loses one video. If he gets out of his room twice, he loses 2 videos...etc. He really wants to keep his videos, so he wouldn't get out of for more than 2 times now.
- This is quite a breakthrough for me. A few months ago I casually chatted with a friend and I complained how LO is still getting up and it is almost 10pm now. She said, well nowadays if her LO wants to stay up and read a book, she'd let him. I tried. Instead of insisting that he needs to stay in bed and get all Super Nanny on him, I gave him a choice to turn on his light and read a book, if he couldn't go to sleep right away. And he would indeed read a few books, turn off the light, and go back to sleep all on his own! The rule is, he can not scream and come and bother us (because he would start losing videos in the morning). Nowadays instead of fighting until 10pm, he would stay up if he is not super tired and goes to bed by 9:30pm the latest. He just stays in his room and read 1-2 books on his own.
This is what works for us now, who knows what happens in a few months...
Good luck to you!
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