Sleeping

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 31 August 2007 12:02:09

In Britain it is usual to sleep in a bed. In other places the floor is favoured. My Terrible Toddler is going through a phase of preferring ‘other places' at the moment. He's been in a ‘big boy bed' since he was just over a year old - displaced from the cot to make room for his baby sister - and he's loved going to sleep in it. Until now.

It started on Saturday night when he decided he didn't want to stay in bed. Totally happy going to bed. Just got up again the moment we left the room. We tried the telling-nicely-to-stay-in-bed way. We tried the being-firm way. We tried the supernanny-silent-treatment way. We tried the holding-the-door-shut way. And then his sister was woken by the screaming tantrum. It took over two hours to get him in bed.

The record was Tuesday night. First put in bed at 7pm - read story, tucked in, said prayers, kissed goodnight. Thirty seconds later he was out of his room standing in the hall. We had a guest staying. We alternated between nicely-encouraging-back-into-bed and totally-ignoring-the-child-in-the-hall techniques while we had dinner. Then Dad took Guest out to the pub. I tried the getting-firmer approach... then the cuddle-and-sing-son-to-sleep method. At 11.20pm he finally went to sleep. And so did I.

Wednesday we decided to revise our parenting approach. Child rearing is totally a make-it-up-as-you-go-along sort of thing. So we made up another approach. 7pm toddler in bed. 7.01pm toddler out of bed. Stairgate closed so he's only got access to his room, our room and the hallway between the two rooms. 7.10pm parents downstairs relaxing to the noise of happy toddler chattering to Tedi in hallway. 7.30pm parents find toddler asleep on floor in hallway. And he stayed asleep when we lifted him back into his bed too.

I'm thinking- what's the point in battling to get Terrible Toddler to stay his own bed? It may be standard to go to sleep there, but he won't come to any harm if he quietly goes to sleep on the floor each night and is just lifted back into bed.