Bedtime issues with a 3 year old

MrsSippi · 24 February 2014 at 1:22PM

I wonder if anyone here has any ideas for a constant problem we are having during the night with our 3 year old. Basically she keeps coming into our bed during the night which we are trying to put a stop to but it doesn't seem to be working. When I put her to bed at her bedtime I explain that this is her bed and she needs to stay in it. She is perfectly happy and goes to sleep (indeed, if I ask her where she sleeps, she says "my bed" and where does she not sleep she says "Mummy and Daddy's bed"). But every single night after we have gone to sleep she comes in our room. Sometimes I hear her and pop her back to bed, where she goes straight back to sleep and will sleep through till the morning but frequently I wake up to find her in the bed.

I did put the baby gate back up for a while which did work because she would walk up to it and her could hear her have a little whine and then turn straight back around and get back into bed but as soon as it was removed we were back to square one again. Any ideas of how to deal with this?

warmhands.coldheart · 24 February 2014 at 1:46PM

We had this with our son. Exactly the same actually...Put him to bed happy as Larry, Wake up the next morning, three in the bed !! lol !!
It is a right pain in the rear I know but we just kept putting him back in bed and after a while he just "grew out of it".......

Have you tried a reward chart. we use them for our 2 eldest and they work well. Something basic just around bedtime etc. Not a miracle cure for everything but makes them think about what they do... (and gets them to help around the house)

Moomum · 24 February 2014 at 2:11PM

Another one here, dd will be 4 in a month and still does this. No advice I'm afraid as I can't seem to break the habit but just so you know you're not suffering alone!

chillicheeks · 24 February 2014 at 3:21PM

you could try a basket of small wrapped gifts outside, if she manages to stay in her bed she gets to unwrap one

Make-it-3 · 24 February 2014 at 4:05PM

Well it sounds like the gate does the trick so just keep it up. Unfortunately this doesn't work with us, as LO (also 3) just stands at gate wailing for "mummy's bed". Even if we go through the whole process of putting her back into bed, settling, making sure she is asleep it might only last an hour and then she is up again.

We gave up, she goes to bed in her own bed, but once we are in bed and she wakes up she is in with us for the rest of the night - we need our sleep too.

Figure she will grow out of it one day!

Prothet_of_Doom · 24 February 2014 at 4:16PM

As my 17 year old daughter said to her mother "and how are you going bto get me to do that, mummy, a star chart ? I'm not 3 anymore"

notanewuser · 27 February 2014 at 1:04AM

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Well it sounds like the gate does the trick so just keep it up. Unfortunately this doesn't work with us, as LO (also 3) just stands at gate wailing for "mummy's bed". Even if we go through the whole process of putting her back into bed, settling, making sure she is asleep it might only last an hour and then she is up again.

We gave up, she goes to bed in her own bed, but once we are in bed and she wakes up she is in with us for the rest of the night - we need our sleep too.

Figure she will grow out of it one day!

This.

We have a 3 year old who is welcome in our bed whenever she likes.

Lilly12345 · 15 March 2014 at 2:21PM

Our daughter was like that till she turned three. Then suddenly over night she sleeps alone in her bed all night long. She's 4 and a half now and we kind of miss her, but we are glad that she's becoming more and more independent.

taffy1969 · 16 March 2014 at 10:36PM

My daughter is nearly 10 and when DH is offshore quite often I wake in the morning and she's in my bed. When I ask why this time I get a variety of 'I don't know, I had a bad dream, the wind was noisy' etc etc. When little I spent many, many nights putting her back to bed, sometimes 4 or 5 times a night!!!! There is no easy way but, if the gate still works I would go with that. My daughter learnt early on how to open the gate (which we still use downstairs now as have a dog and my mum still can't open it!!!)