Child Getting Out of Bed

try talking to him and telling him that he is a big boy and it is very important for him to sleep in his own room. also ask him why he doesnt want to stay in his own room. even if you can't understand everything he says it could help just to make him feel understood and appreciated when it comes to what he thinks. they understand a lot more than what some people think.

Also a friend mentioned to me that some kids get up to play with their toys because they can see them. If you can try a toy box with a lid and boxing up any toys he doesn't play with much. It could be over stimulation.

Hi M.-
I have no answers because my 2 1/2 y/o son is also horrible about sleeping through the night, so I'm going to read your responses! I know we haven't helped him, since we also leave doors open and run to him when he cries and pick him up and hold him. He usually goes right back to sleep but won't necessarily let us put him down for a while, so we're usually up with him 2-3 times a night for at least 15-30 min. Funny thing is he apparently sleeps well at daycare, goes right down, but at home he's a fighter and up a lot, especially in the first part of the night. Good luck with yours, hopefully I can get some help from your responses!

M.,

We have a four year old Granddaughter that still can not open the Safety knobs that we put on the doors that go outside. We found them at Target - these should help him with staying in the room and he would not be locked in. You actually have to be able to squeeze the knob and turn to make them work, there have been some adults in the house that can't work them!
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=26366509

Also on the lovey front - you could get him a special lovey to sleep with or even a stuffed animal. My company combines the two of them. (Created for above mentioned Granddaughter!)

Good luck!

N.
www.lovems1.etsy.com

Have you tried putting a baby gate at the door? Then he can't get out but you can still hear/see him. (Not sure if that would be a good thing :) ) Good luck!

M.,
I feel your pain. I have the same problem. I can probablly count on my fingers the nights that my son who is now 2 1/2 has slept through the night. He will not go to bed for me. The only way I can get him to go to bed is to either rock him in the rocking chair or to lay in his bed with him. When I am laying there I am reading a book by flash light. He is usually up one to two times a night. However now that my husband is away at school I have let him start sleeping in my bed during the week just so that I can get some sleep. My bed is not big enough if my husband is home for all 3 of us. So I do not blame you for not letting him in bed with you.
However he has never been a good sleeper. I have always told the dr. that. In fact it has become kind of a joke between us when I take him in she will ask me if I have any questions or concerns and now has started saying other than sleep ones. She does saying it with a smile on her face. I know that if I did have one she would answer it for me.
What I am wondering is how did you manage to get him to a sleep dr?
Good luck. I am told that they will grow out of it in time. I just wish that it was sooner rather than later.

Mailain-

I can feel you pain because I have a similar situation with my daughter. She is 22 months old and never been a great sleeper. She usually wakes up 1-4 times a night. Most times, she just needs her binky and a quick back rub and goes back to sleep. Other nights, that is not enough so I let her get into bed with me (husband works evenings so he usually comes to bed around 3 am and I get up at 6 am). I still use a baby monitor which is probably not a great idea because I hear her every sound and whimper. However, I do not give in until I know it's not just a sleeping whimper. She has been waking up lately SCREAMING like she's having a nightmare. I think her waking is a combination of things:

1. She loses her binky and can't find it. We plan to get rid of it by 2.5 or 3 but not sooner as baby brother or sister is on the way in a few months and I don't have the heart to take it away from her and let her brother or sister have one!

2. She knows that we let her sleep with us if she is persistent enough. I don't mind her sleeping with us at all, but do not do this the first or second time she wakes up. Depending on the time, (usually if it's after 2 am I will let her sleep with us), I will put her in bed with us and she's fast asleep, no waking and no crying!

3. She may be having nightmares or night terrors. I'm going to talk to her pediatrician about this at her 2 year appointment.

4. She hears her daddy get home around 12 am or when he goes to bed and wakes up.

5. Lately, we've had family visting so I think it's a 'I want to play' thing that wakes her up!

6. She's been in her toddler bed for about two months now and just now has been standing by it when I go in to check on her when she's crying so I think she's learned she can get OUT of her bed and then she does but can't get out of the her room as we shut her door at night.

A guy I work with suggested Melatonin (as another user did) as they used it with their daughters.

Our baby (to arrive in a few months) will share a room with her after a few months in our room so I'm interested in seeing how that will pan out! I envisoin nights of my daughter getting into bed with us then me taking the baby to her room to put him or her down in the crib so they don't wake each other.

I've heard from other parnets and "This too shall pass". Just keep telling yourself that!! I also realized that all kids have some 'thing' that their parents wished they did better - eating, bathing, behavior, etc.

Another note...she sleeps well for naps and at daycare, goes down by herself (which she doesn't at home). Also when she spends the night at my parents, she doesn't wake at night. So who knows? Maybe she just KNOWS that if she's persistent enough, she'll get her way (sleeping with us!)

Have you thought of getting the safety doorknob covers so that he can't open his door? We have the doorknob covers on our doors to go outside where you have to push in 2 buttons on the cover to get the doorknob to turn (we got ours at walmart for about $3/pack of 3). This would allow you to close his door at night to keep him in his room but you would still be able to open it from the outside with no problem. I don't know if it's true or not, but I've always heard that you should sleep with your bedroom doors closed in case there is a fire. A closed door will buy at least an extra minute or two before the fire/smoke gets in the room. Good luck!

I don't want to suggest that my experience is anyone else's, but here's my sleep story: my daughter was a HORRIBLE sleeper from day 1. Even putting her down for naps left me in tears every day because she was exhausted but it would take her forever to get to sleep, then she might wake 20 min later. At around 7 months she was up as much as 8 times a nite and taking a long time to put back down. We went to the sleep clinic at St. Luke's and were given a modified cry it out plan, which we never used because we knew she had food allergies and reflux and thought that could be affecting her sleep and cry it out would be cruel in that case. She's allergic to dairy, beef and corn (plus other stuff). Dairy was easy to avoid (actually at that time we also had to avoid wheat and eggs) but it took us a long time to get a handle on the corn allergy because it's in/on everything including fresh fruits/veggies, meat, pretty much anything enriched or with vitamins, yeast, plus almost anything chemically sounding, and on and on. We switched her rice milk and juice to non-fortified versions when she was almost two, and almost immediately she started sleeping through the night and taking 3 hour naps. We still had some issues, because we were still learning about corn (and we still are) but as we eliminate more and more, her sleep continued to improve. I was completely stressed about her sleep for two years, scoured the internet, and read every book about babies' sleep, and most of them don't mention food allergies at all, and if they do, it's a paragraph at best. The sleep clinic lady didn't know anything about sleep and allergies. I'm not suggesting a corn allergy (which is not as common). Any allergen could affect sleep (and/or behavior--my daughter would also throw fits....that changed with foods too). Dairy is the most common....but it does take a while to clear the system --as long as two weeks, but improvement should start before that. Try eliminating it and see if anything changes. Wheat is another common one. If sleep is sometimes good and sometimes not, look at how the diet changes--it could really be anything. You can have your child tested for allergies, but traditional allergy tests are not reliable....it might show an allergy, but a negative test doesn't mean no allergy (it could possibly help you identify something though). An allergist pretty much told me my daughter at 11 months didn't have allergies...let her eat what she wants, even though from birth dairy (in my diet) made her scream in pain from reflux. She's getting holistic allergy treatments now and her corn and dairy allergies were VERY strong and she reacted to almost every component of them, plus very allergic in general (wheat, nuts, environmental stuff, etc....so many of the new foods we try with her she's allergic to....yet the allergist told us she HAD NO ALLERGIES. And no traditional doctor has been any help, even after I figured out her corn allergy (which is the big one)--they think I'm nuts. So you may have to do your own detective work. Again, I'm not suggesting that every kid that doesn't sleep has allergies, but you can't rely on your doc to figure it out....none of them will suggest it. I think food allergies are very underdiagnosed. Lots of kids have problems with food colors too--behavior problems especially. I see so many kids whose behavior reminds me of my daughter when she's reacting, and their parents are screaming at them and I wonder if they have undiagnosed food allergies. Sorry, I'm rambling. Good luck.

I have a 2 year old boy who goes to bed happily every night and then around 11:30 wakes up screaming. We have a gate on his room and have tried closing it, but it doesn't matter what we do he still wakes up in somewhat of a screaming panic. Sometimes he gets out of bed, others he does not. We usually have to go in to calm him down and he will go back to sleep but we repeat the cycle about every 2 hours the rest of the night regardless of where we let him sleep. I have tried letting him sleep with us, a lovey, a nightlight, darkening his room, sleeping with him, changing his bed time, etc, and nothing is working. My 5 month old wakes up once at 5:30 and goes back to sleep! Yet my 2 year old hardly sleeps at all. He gets grumpy and so do I. I don't know what to do. I too am curious how you got him in to see a sleep doctor. I know my son sleepwalks and talks in his sleep. I also believe he has night terrors as sometimes we are very certain he is not awake when he is screaming. It is pretty scary and I am getting to be at my wits end!!!

Goold luck to you. I will be anxious to hear what the doctor says!

I'm with you! I never liked the thought of locking my child in his room (expecially because of fires & tornados). We put up a hardware mounded baby gate with slats (not the ones with 'toe grips'/holes that he could climb). The one we had you had to push the 'handle' in then squeeze to pull it out.
Does he have a 'lovey' to sleep with? My oldest did, but my youngest didn't.

God bless!

have you thought of letting him in your bed or at least your room? It makes for lovely mornings and lovely nights. (this is from someone who swore they'd never do that) My two year old crawls into bed with us when she needs to without even waking us usually. My five year old did the same thing, but now only comes in when it is time to get up. It doesn't last forever!

K.

My daughter was doing the same thing. Our doctor suggested giving her Melatonin (a little white pill we crushed up). Melatonin is the chemical your body produces naturally to make you sleep. We gave it to her 30 minutes before bedtime and she would sleep for a good 8 or more hours without waking up. We gave it to her for 2 weeks and it broke the cycle of her waking up 1 to 2 times a night. My son was around 3 when he started getting up in the middle of the night. We just bribed him with a treat if he slept through the night in his own bed.

Hope you are able to find something that works!!