How Do You Keep Your Toddler in Bed?????

How about a gate at the bedroom door? That way the door stays open but he can't go wandering around.

Three is a big boy. You can discipline him once you've told him not to get out of bed, walked him back nicely once or twice, and warned him. On the third time I would say, "OK, now that's it, don't get out of bed again" and my kids knew I would follow through so they stayed in bed. Use whatever method you use that is most effective for disciplining other behaviors. I wouldn't restrain with gates and stuff personally, it's effective to teach kids to control themselves and it carries over to lots of other self-control scenarios.

Fun answer!.. Duct Tape!

Just kidding. It really depends on the child. right now I have two in the same room and my my my .. it is nuts and hard.. they will either goof around, or keep coming out. We seperate them, and then they want to be in the same room. I feel like we are loosing the battle at times.

My daughter, we just return her serveral times.. and that usually does the trick.

My son.. nothing worked. Now we give him my old 1980's walk man, and that relaxes him so he can fall asleep.

Good luck. May the tape ahem the force be with you. :)

How about a side mattress rail. They sell them for kids' beds.

Also, might help if you got him a Dream light. My brother's kids had this
same issue & that seemed to help. It projects onto the ceiling so he has
something to look at. Show him how to turn it on so when he wakes he
can hopefully push the button before getting out of bed.

Then I'd put a baby gate at his doorway so the door can stay open.
Put one at the top of the stairs too but make sure that one is very secure.

We never had that problem.
He always made a bee line straight to me in our room across the hall.
Our son could climb in and out of his crib and we switched him to a twin bed at 3.5 yrs old.
We never had to worry about him wandering around the house at night.
Once he figured out how to tuck himself in at the foot of our bed without waking us up we all started getting a lot more sleep.

I sat there and waited for him to fall asleep. Is that weird?

I sat in his room (and read a book on my Nook). Each time he started to get up, and told him to get back in bed. It only took a few nights ... maybe a week? He's 7 1/2 years old now, and every once in a blue moon he'll get up and come out to the living room. Usually it's because he really does need something.

Anyway, I just thought that was part of teaching them how to sleep in their new bed? Then again, we left the crib at 16 months and went straight to a twin bed. I placed a fully asleep child into his bed until he was about 2 or 2 1/2, so my transition overall was very different from yours.

Good luck!

We've got a baby gate on his door at night, but our DS, also three, is rarely up or out of bed at night. maybe once every 10-14 days, then quickly back to sleep.

He also likes having an alarm clock. He knows we use alarm clocks, and he likes staying in bed till his alarm clock goes off.

Best,
F. B.

In addition to the Dream Lite (my kids love these) and gate on the door and stairs, you need to reitreate that it's bedtime and he needs to stay in bed. With my kids, sometimes they would keep coming out no matter what I said so instead of saying "You have to stay in bed, you can't come out, etc" I would offer two options "Door open or closed?" "Night light on or off?" and then follow with "You can choose but you have to stay in bed." Even that was a hurdle in the first few days for my daughter so told her she had to stay in HER ROOM. She fell asleep in the doorway one of the first nights!

Put up a gate across his bedroom door. Leave door open.

Baby gates. He can get out of the bed bout not out of the room and fall down the stairs. He can fall asleep on the floor by the door or anywhere else in the room as long as it is in the room.

Sometimes we have to "lock" our kids in so that they know where the boundaries are.

Good luck.

the other S.

We didn't have a huge issue because we moved the kids at a much younger age. That way they never really realized they could get out and wander or play. They just got it, that bed was for bedtime and sleeping.

What we did do when thy got a little older and would get up to come find us we'd put the gate or put a child proof door knob protector on it so they couldn't leave their room. We also put a baby monitor in the hallway outside their door so we could hear them. If you close the door the monitor has to be inside the room.

It just takes time. I am one that really doesn't care about the kids joining us. They still often come crawl in during the night. It's pretty common to wake up on a Saturday morning with 2 kids, 2 adults, and the pets all piled in our bed.

We had to restart after a bad first attempt of trying to get our almost 3 year old out of his crib and into his big boy bed. For three weeks we tried the usual - baby gate him in, walk him back without saying a word, rinse and repeat. It simply was not working. He would be walked back to bed repeatedly for over an hour at a stretch but it didn't stop him from getting out of bed. Then he learned how to get out of bed, go around the house in a particular fashion to avoid us so he could wind up on the couch where couldn't sleep either. Then we tried the baby gate which caused all out rioting. He would scream and shake so much the gate would either come down and/or he'd wake up the baby (then we'd have two up) and/or he'd be in such a lather there would be no way in he-double hockey sticks he was going to bed any time soon. I am not saying we left him at the gate for very long either. All heck could break out within moments. It was incredible; in fact I would say it made the situation instantly worse and escalated us into the stratosphere in nanoseconds. The final straw was when I was laying with him and in a very tiny voice he said, "Momma, I'm scared. Can I have my crib back?" My immediate reaction, "heck, yes!" None of us was getting a restful night's sleep. So....we backed off, put him back in his crib and rethought our approach. Our current approach is to do the usual routine but after reading to him, one of us stays with him until he falls asleep. We tried being at the door but he got out of bed. We figured we were trying to train him to stay in bed so getting up was not working. We have decided to sit on his bed until he can drift off to sleep. We are hoping he learns to connect good things with going to sleep in his bed. We'll see but so far it is a day and night difference from our first attempt at getting him in his big boy bed.

Our strategy and thought process was pretty similar to what's described on the link below.

http://www.ahaparenting.com/ages-stages/toddlers/crib-to-...

I second Maureen jokingly. All else fails, out comes the duct tape or the booze, whatever calms one of us down. :P

Oh, one other thing when we spend time in his room playing or reading, I make it a point to sit on his bed. He is getting used to the idea of his big boy bed being a good place.

you will have to get a gate. and explain to him that if he comes out the door gets shut or a gate goes up. it will be the end of it.

A baby gate or two. They are fast to remove for an adult and should keep him in his room just fine.
You can double stack two plastic "pressure" baby gates if he still manages to climb over just one.

Our house is set up to where there are 3 bedrooms and a bathroom down one hallway, which opens into the living room. We put a gate at the end of the hallway so she could go to our room if she needed it, or the bathroom (she was potty training by the time we gave her a toddler bed instead of a crib) or her room. That kept her from roaming around.

We also put an alarm clock in her room, with the time in big red letters, and above it put the time she was allowed to wake us up. When they matched, it was ok to come get us if she couldn't sleep. But she had a lamp so she could turn it on and quietly play with her toys or books without waking us up.

First/oldest child, right?

It takes most kids a while to adjust to the switch from a crib.
Toddlers are notorious escape artists.
Toddlers can sense your desperation. It smells like victory to them.

Good luck!

McMama said exactly what I was going to say. We put up 1 gate, but then had to stack 2 gates..

We did tell her she had to stay in her room.. and she understood this.. Sometimes we found her asleep on the floor, but most times we let her make a "nest" in her bed.. She would gather her favorite books, (lots of them) hugs kisses and quiet music. her stuffed puppy and her favorite blanket..

The most important thing is we kept the same routine. We read books in a very low light , no conversations or discussions about the story, I would rub her head, and towards the end of the story, I started reading slower and slower.
Then turn on the soft music, sometimes she would request a book on CD.