My 3 1/2 year old son has always been a dream when it comes to going to bed. We have our routine and he has gone to sleep (in a full size bed since he was 2 1/2) by himself. About a week ago he started saying it didn't want to sleep in his bed but he will not tell me why. I have asked if he is scared, I have tried to talk to him about it but to no avail. He is sleeping in our guest bedroom instead. No issues with going to bed there, no is he getting up. We did recently have a baby but she is 3 months old now and is sleeping in her room also and this didn't start until a week ago. Any ideas on how to get him back to his bed???
Well we are still having some issues. Thanks for the notes. He told his sitter that "spiderman" was in his bed (he caught a portion of Spiderman 3 that some of the older kids were watching with the dark spiderman). He did lay down in is bed/room last night and let me read him stories, he actually feel asleep there but got up about two hours later. He ended up sleeping in the spare room again, but he insisted my husband or I sleep with him. We will work through it night by night. Thanks.
How about switching rooms? Make the guest room his and his the guest room. Seems like a simple solution and he can help you with the switch since he is such a big boy and big brother.
The big picture: he isn't sleeping with you and that is a beautiful thing.
He might just want to exercise some choice and in this instance it isn't a choice that hurts you or him so I would just let it go. For convenience sake I would set some ground rules, like: 1) This is the guest bedroom and not your private space, so you have to help make the bed and tidy up if you are going to sleep in here. 2) When we have company come in and they are staying here, they get the guest bed and you have to sleep in your own room.
My mom alwasy said if there's no reason to say "no" then don't say it. You may have really vallid legitimate reasons why you don't want him in there. If you do, then stand firm. He may not like it, but that's ok. There's no rule saying he has to. If it's just that it's not his room or normal routine, I would let him do it. He still sleeps through the night and you and your husband have privacy again, so just roll with it.
**My reference to the beauty of A.'s son sleeping alone is that my 2 year old son sleeps with us because he is scared to be by himself. I think however we choose to sleep in our homes with our family is fine as long as all are happy. I do think however, that if my son weren't so afraid, if he felt secure to go to church nursery and be safe, or play with friends his age and be safe, and, yes, to sleep and feel safe that would be the most beautiful thing in the world to me. I want him ALWAYS to feel safe. So if A.'s son does, then that is, indeed, beautiful. That was what I meant. It was in reference to my son and my situation alone, no one else's.
I am sorry for the confusion and any insult anyone else felt because of it.
I agree that if you don't mind him sleeping in there it's not a problem. Kids do weird things that we don't always understand, and he'll probably be on to another thing and fine with sleeping wherever before you know it. That or the guest room will become his room and vice versa!
One note, though. Just because your daughter is 3 months old doesn't mean he's not dealing with some issues about her arrival. My daughter started acting out and acquired some very strange behaviors when my youngest was about 8 weeks old. We thought that everyone had adjusted to the new baby, but she started doing some things that we now recognize as being responses to stress. I talked to a friend who is a family life educator and she said that 6+ weeks is the most common time for older siblings to show signs of difficulty with the new ones. Who knew? But when you think about it, it took me more than 6 weeks to adjust to the new baby, and that is just about when the new is wearing off and the fatigue is setting in.
I really don't think Lisa meant to offend co-sleepers. I took what Lisa C said to mean, "hey, it could be worse, he could be crawling in YOUR bed every night!" For a co-sleeper, that obviously wouldn't be a problem. For a mom like me who REALLY wants my son to sleep in his own bed at night, and is endlessly frustrated at having to get up 2 and 3 times per night to walk him back to his room, I would find his habit of crawling in bed in the guest bedroom a beautiful thing! Honestly, I love the closeness of waking up with my 3 yr old son cuddled up in my bed (and in my heart would love to have him there every night!), but I don't want it to be a HABIT (because I understand that's really hard to break), such that he can't get to sleep unless he is with us. Plus it does get very crowded in my bed with my husband, son, and 55 lb dog... Bottom line is that my husband is adamant that our son sleeps in his own bed, for many legit reasons. So like Lisa, if my son stopped on his way to my bedroom, for the third time that night, and laid down on the couch and slept, I would think it was a miraculous compromise! :) Although to A.'s original point, I would surely wonder what was going on, and why my little guy no longer wanted to be in his room!! Like most advice I hear at this age, it's probably just a phase... Good luck!
our kids like to sleep on the floor and the couch sometimes... just for a change of scenery. they usually end up wanting to sleep in their own beds after a night on the floor :)
try sleeping with him
then try sleeping with him and leaving after he's asleep
The rule of thumb at our house is that the most important thing is that they are sleeping, not where they are sleeping. So, if sleeping in the guest room is not that big of a deal for you, then don't sweat it. Maybe have him help you clean up once in a while, and make him aware that he does have his own room.
On a side note, as a very proud co-sleeper, I found this quote "The big picture: he isn't sleeping with you and that is a beautiful thing." VERY offensive. Especially given that the issue of co-sleeping wasn't even in the request, so it had no place in the response.
Is the guest room closer to your room than his is?
He may have caught part of a movie and is suddenly disturbed by some toy in his room. We had this type of issue over a clown map because our child had caught part of the movie "It" and the lap was upsetting him but he didn't know how to tell us.
We had a similiar problem with my daughter because of the street light and the shadows of some tree branches on her walls that looked to her like moving people in her room.
Is his bed comfy? Is the guest BR decorated better? I wouldn't try to talk him out of sleeping there; just ask him where he wants to sleep at nite and go along w/it. He may just enjoy the attention from you that he is receiving. Make sure he gets plenty of quality attention from you. A 3 month old is an adorable stage and maybe he's a little jealous at the attention she is receiving. I think you are doing a marvelous job and it sounds as if the kids are very happy. I would, though, cuddle and praise him more. Praise is the single most important thing parents can do for their children. He is the big bro so let him know how imp he is but love him up a lot too! God bless, you are in the most important time of your life! Love it and enjoy it!
