what do we do?
Our sweet little boy is becoming quite rebellious at bedtime. He has always been really good at going to bed and never complained much about it. The past few weeks he hasn't been complaining but he hasn't been staying in bed either. The other day it took us an 1 1/2 hours of putting him back in bed before he finally went to sleep. We have tried a lot of different disciplining tricks to get him in bed and none of them seem to work.
Normally we put him in time out when he makes a bad decision but that doesn't really work with bedtime (since he would gladly be anywhere but in bed). He has a few stuffed animals that are in his bed with him. He is pretty good "friends" with all of them but has a couple of favorites. One night we decided that we would put his animals in time-out. So we told him if he got out of bed one more time than Slacker would have to go to time-out until morning. He was pretty devasted when he lost Slacker but it still took him three animals before he stayed in bed. The next night night it only took a couple of times. The third night he was bringing them out as offerings to us! He thought he could just trade an animal to stay up later.
It's a good thing he is so cute, it's pretty hard to get mad at him. It wouldn't be quite such a big deal other than if he doesn't get to bed on time he is pretty ornery the next day. What do you do with your kids? Any magic tricks that might work?
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4 comments:
For me, I just really appreciate having "MY" time when we put the kids to sleep. So even if Jaxon isn't sleeping when we put him down, I really appreciate that he can entertain himself so I can relax. I have a bunch of books by his bed and he is allowed to read books before he goes to sleep. Most of the time he'll go to sleep after he reads or plays for a while. If he's up causing trouble, then I go in and put him back to bed.
But, from the "get your kid to do what you want" standpoint. Stay firm, be consistent, don't give an inch, and eventually he will get it. Also, if he's not tired and that's the problem, try putting him down for his afternoon nap earlier or just eliminate it. I recommend the first and am holding on to the naps as long as I can.
I like the Supernanny's technique. It works on the show. http://www.supernanny.com/Advice/-/Supernanny-techniques/-/Routine-and-teamwork/Bedtime-routine.aspx
He might need a shorter nap in the day or a later bedtime. Sometimes even just 15 minutes can do the trick.
I also echo the cut out the nap. Once we ended nap time for our kids then going to sleep at night got better. Consistent bedtime is also something that is a good idea. If you cut out naptime, then bedtime would move up as cranky kids are just as bad as disobedient kids
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