Sleeping Less

Everytime she gets up I would go in her room and put her back into her bed. Do not talk to her do not make eye contact. It may take a while but if you are consistent with her bed times and consistent about not giving her extra attention when you put her back into bed she will eventially be condidtioned to stay put. As a last resort you could just let her cry herself to sleep at the door then put her back in her bed. If you do that though you might want to put up a baby gate instead of shutting the door because you might not be able to open the door if she's too close too it.

this may seem heartless to some...but it works & our daughter shows no signs of distress from it: we lock the door from the outside. we just put a new doorknob on, but changed it so the lock was on the outside of the door. now that our oldest is 2 1/2, we don't lock the door anymore b/c she doesn't even try to get out until after her nap (or if she can't sleep for a nap, after her 'rest' in the room). for awhile, though, she would try to get out for about 10 minutes & would cry, etc but would 99% of the time fall asleep, yes, sometimes not in her bed...but at least she was asleep!

I would let it go and let her play in her room until she fell asleep. Put a gate on the door and tell her she can play quietly if she doesn't disturb you. My kids also like to "read" books in bed; it's a treat b/c I don't make them turn out the lights right away, but they are in bed and calming down until they are sleepy. Good luck!

When we transferred our (then) 2 1/2 year old daughter to her big girl bed, we would put her to bed with her usual routine with stories, hugs, etc and also the rule that she was NOT allowed to leave her room. SHe could play, sing, talk whatever but she could not leave her room. We put a gate in her doorway so if she did need us she could call for us. We also had a plan to put a doorknob protector on the indide of her room and also a hook and eye outside her door incase she got the gate unlatched but it never came to this. (we plan on using this with our son when he turns 3 in January) Good Luck!!!

My daughter is 16 months and after she turned 1 she turned into my sleeping nightmare! I bought the book health sleep habits happy child by marc weissbluth and loved it! I read the book which gave several suggestions and bedtime routines and now my daughter is a great sleeper! my son is three which we had the same problem with as you are expierencing the book also helps making the smooth transition from crib to toddler bed. Good luck!

I did the same thing with my first born. I had to back track and change the bedtime routine to make it special and different. We started bedtime with a bath and then snuggled in his bed with syory time. He chose the book (some times there were 2 books),then we said prayers, tucked in and said goodnight. There was a lot of talking about being a big boy, having a big boy bed and "thinking happy thoughts" when falling aslaeep. (think of things that make you smile and feel happy inside as you fall asleep)As the other children were born we added each to the storytime when they wereold enough and then followed the same routine.We used the other children's "new" bed for stories when they moved into a big bed. The story times continued until the children were old enough to read for themselves.

Try putting a gate on her door and taking out toys from the bedroom if possible. Our 4 year old just learned to open his gate and now is old enough to stay in his room. If your child is upstairs and you are downstairs, you might want to think of fire safety, however.

I don't have much advice, just sympathy:) My son would get up and sleep in front of his door, then we'd hear him at 4 in the morning running around, singing, rocking in his chair, whatever. Then he learned how to open his door (even with a protector, those worked for about a week before he figured them out) so we put a gate in front of it, he learned to climb the gate so we bungeed the door nob to the gate, but he figured out how to open it just enough to slip in between the door and the gate and climb the gate. We finally had to put a nob with a lock to the outside when he got downstairs and turned on the toaster and I smelled smoke. The doc agreed it was better to have him safely locked in his room than running around "you do what you have to do to keep them safe" she told us. He never cried, it was just a big game to him.
I can promise that once the newness wears off, she won't do it as much. You can sit outside the door and silently, without even recognizing that she's gotten up, put her back in bed and walk out again OVER AND OVER AND OVER until she gets the point, so you can just wait.

Good Luck:)