Almost 3 Year Old Want to Stay up All Night Long and Fights When Its Bed Time

When it is bedtime,put the child in bed then tell them "it is bed time now." Time for you to sleep.
If the child cries and gets up put them back,often times they will do this mean time you just be quiet and don't respond to thier crying.and keep putting them back to bed.Sometime sitting on the floor with legs crossed aand head down they will cry for awhile them fall asleep.

Check out love and logic online, or check with your local foster parent agency and ask to take the class it is free.

I would suggest a door knob cover so he does not get out of the bedroom. Tell him it is bed time and he has to stay in the room.

Super nanny is another program on television that may be of some help.

He does not need toys in the room which he can play with just his cuddle toy.

He will stop, when you stop rescuing him. Don't open the door! Say goodnight and say you will see him in the morning.
In the morning greet him with hugs and kisses and he will after a few days get used to the idea.

K.

Children have a funny way of expressing stress, anxiety and change. Moving for a child can sometimes be tramatic, especially if your friend had a good routine for bedtime before. A month after moving has shown him that this situation is not going to change any time soon, and he is probably having difficulty adjusting to this. Since a 3 year old cannot verbalize this, any part of his little life can become difficult. For example when a child first goes to school, he may be fine at first, but after a while when the newness wears off most children start to react at home sometimes with yelling, throwing things, hitting, biting or even having trouble sleeping. My suggestion would be to your friend is to continue with the same schedule. Stick to her guns about bedtime. Try not to give him any dialog after he is put in bed. Eventually he will fall asleep, and as the days go on, he'll get used to his new schedule again. Continue giving him quality time during the day so she won't feel guilty at night. Of course the simple answer may be that there is perhaps something that appears scary in his room after the lights are out.....I remember those days myself from when I was a child.

ths book saved my life when it cam to sleep issues. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, by Dr marc Weissbluth. It is not a big book and i got it on amazon.com for like 10 dollars, but it helped me ouw then my son started that refusal to sleep. (my sons doctor told me about the book)

Hello T. -

When kids go through a phase like this I highly recommend letting the child sleep with the parent or atleast in the same room with the parent. It is often an anxiety about bad things happening during the night and, given all the transition this little family is enduring, it may be a fear of someone leaving or things changing more while he is asleep. Reassurance and a sense of safety are key in helping him and making a bit of effort now will possibly prevent years of insecurity and fear to come.

Best wishes -
D.

It sounds like he may be feeling some stress due to the changes in his life and routine. We went through this after moving too, we just had to start waking her up earlier since when going to bed too late she would sleep later. Eventually since getting up earlier each day, she would fall asleep earlier at.night.

I would recommend the book "love and logic" by jim faye, it's wonderful. one of the basic concepts is that you gain control by giving some up and by realizing when you have no control over something. first, the friend might try jim faye's approach with problem behavior. he would say to: ask the child if they want to go to bed in 5 minutes or 10 minutes (he has a choice) then in 10 minutes (because we all know the child will choose ten) you offer if the child wants anything before bed. if the child refuses to go to bed, you ask them if they want to go their room under your power or theirs (again, a choice. if they don't go, you tell them that "oh-oh" it looks like you picked my power. take the kid to the room. then ask if they want the door open or shut. no response or if he runs out. "oh-oh" looks like you chose door shut. then ask if they want the door locked or unlocked. following the same pattern if they choose not to respond. the child is being given choices along the way. also, tell your friend that she really can't control when the child falls asleep. the only thing she can control is if the child is in the room or not. tell the child they have to be in thier room at a certain time, but it's up to them when to go to sleep. and if they oversleep the next day, they will have to face the consequences. the point is, find where you can give up control and you will gain more than you realize.

She may need to try the stay-in-bed technique. First make sure that she has a bed-time routine that is consistant. With my daughter, we first brush her teeth, then I have her go potty, and then I get her a healthy snack and read her a bedtime story. Then it is lights out. We try to do this every night.

After you have done everything in the bed-time routine, you tell them goodnight and leave the room. If the child gets up, you simply take them back to their bedroom and tell them "Good-night. It's bedtime". If they get up a second time (which child probably will) then you take them back to their bedroom and only say "It's bedtime". Everytime he gets up after this, you walk him back to his room and don't say anything. This may go on for a couple of hours or so the first time your friend tries this tecnique. Be patient. Each night will get shorter and shorter until eventually her son will stay in bed the first time she puts him to bed. Tell your friend to be consistant and patient. Also, make sure they are in bed the same time each night. I start my daughter's bedtime routine at about 7:30 P.M. and she is usally in bed by 8:30 P.M. Hope this helps!

Try making a whole bedtime routine that lasts half an hour so he has plenty of warning that bedtime is coming. A bath, a story, a cuddle, whatever... just make sure it is calm and lots of positive one on one attention. He probably wants to stay up because he thinks lots of fun stuff is going on while he is in bed. Try to limit the noise so he doesn't hear everyone talking, laughing, and watching tv. He is going through a lot of changes too, and just needs some time to adjust. Be VERY consistent! One night letting him stay up will make the next week a fight. Maybe she can try sitting with him for 30 minutes while he falls asleep.

well i am also a single mother of a 2 year old son and the way i get him to go to bed is do a routine every night like dinner play bath and sing songs until about 8 pm and we lay down together and i hold his hand sometimes and he just falls asleep but the biggest thing is making sure he is not hungry and thirsty and no lights to distract him just a night light

Because of the break in his routine he may be just testing her. She just needs to establish his routine again and be firm with it. He will eventually give in as he is secure in the fact his mom loves him and demands he do this. It may take two weeks, but don't give up!

J.

T.,

I am sure that the change in his life has caused this problem and the key will be to establish a new routine for bedtime and stick to it. She can make up a nightly routine and put those things she will do with him for it on a little poster with pictures of each thing (bath, brushing teeth, reading, etc.) and then he can point to each item to tell her what is next. This is good also because you can say on the poster "only 2 stories" or something like that so that this is not an endless routine each night. If he complains and wants another story, she can say "It says only 2 stories, now we have to go to the next thing." The best she can do also is reassure him that she will be there for him the next morning as well and stick to whatever plan she decides is the most important. If he thinks he can get away with staying up super late, then he will fuss and fume until he can. It will be hard the first few nights, maybe up to a week, but after the first initial battles, he will feel secure again and go to bed I think.
Best of luck!
H.

Here is what I do to get my 3yr old screamer to sleep at 7:30 every night.

1.Bath
2.3 Stories
3. Bedtime water in a sippy cup. Stuffed animal of her choice. All the books she can fit in her bed.
4. Cd player with her favorite audio book. This helps more than anything. I have 4 children and discovered with my son, who is now 8, that having something to listen to while going to sleep is very distracting to those who would otherwise not want to go to bed. Right now, Olivia listens to Shel Silverstiens "Where the Sidewalk Ends" read by the author. It's her absolute favorite. Some other books that are nice and are available on CD are Little Bear, Where the Wild things are and other stories, Frog and Toad, and Mary Englebreit's mother goose.

The twins, who are just one and a half listen to Peter, Paul, and Mommy (Folk children music from the sixties). This is very soothing. Each room has either an MP3 player or CD player and sometimes they all go right to sleep and sometimes they scream for an hour first.

CD players can be purchased for $30 at any grocery,drug, or retail store. Or, for the thrifty bargain hunter a garage sale for $5 or dumpster dived for free. The possibilities are endless. Audio books and music are free from any Public Library. They can be purchsed at Amazon.com, or half price books. They are so wonderful. (Not just for bed time, but any time. )
Some people will lead you to believe that you are a bad parent if your child is a screamer and doesn't follow the pattern of rules of a normal child. Who knows? I guess that makes me a bad parent. But my children are all asleep by nine almost every night so I guess there is hope for all of us.

L. Pancake