We've been having some troubles the past few nights with getting our Berry Princess to sleep at night. She asks to go to bed between 8 and 8:30. We do the normal routine that has worked for a the last several months. She has decided to get up about 10 times each night! By 9:30 she is usually asleep. We've tried giving no feedback, threatening. What do you threaten at bed time - a timeout? So I was looking for help and asked Sanny for help. She suggested that each time she gets up she loses a special toy. It worked for Sam. So we tried it....
At 8 she asked to go to bed.
We talked about the new rule.
She stayed in bed until 9pm.
And then the routine started.
We put favorite doll #1 up on the fridge,
then #2,
then the milk bottle for the babies,
then the ketchup bottle
I know it is weird, but it is the back up milk bottle for the babies!
On round # whatever we're on,
she went to pick out the thing from the shopping cart,
so I picked up the whole durned cart and it is one top of the fridge.
The top of the fridge is full of toys.
I need to backtrack a bit
our house is hot
the air just went in this evening.
At 9 we also put Early Bird to bed on her floor so that he could sleep in some dehumidfied air.
On this time I put her back to bed,
I noticed that I couldn't see his head, but he was still sleeping.
BP "Mommy, that is what you do when you are little! " Giggle giggle giggle!
She had taken one of her baby blankets and covered his head with the blanket.
She got up again.
Daddy gave her a timeout.
She got up again.
Daddy gave her a timeout.
It is now 10:30.
I think she might be sleeping.
Ideas?
2 comments:
Honestly, the thing that worked the best for me with Sammie is absolutely NO feedback. Every time she gets up, you just put her back in bed. No conversation, no emotion. The first day I did this, it took 40 tries - yep, 40 non-interactive returns to bed. The second night, it cut in half. Within a week, she wasn't getting up anymore. Whatever route you choose, you have to stick with it. Switching tactics every few nights only increases her interest to see how you will react now -- like a gambling addict at the slot machine!
With Jaylene we had a little routine chart in a page protector. It had clip art for all the things she liked to do once she was in bed (drink water, go to the bathroom) and all the before bed routine stuff (brush teeth, pick up toys, read a story). She got to use a white board marker to check of each thing. Then it was bed time. There were three empty boxes and everytime she got out of bed we put an X in one of the boxes. If she got three X's then she didn't get a treat before bed the next night (that was one of the clip art boxes too).
Good luck.
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