25 month old wont sleep at night

[ohmum]

Please help
My 25 month old will wake up get out of her bed and will crawl into bed with me and hubby. I tell her to go back to bed but she wont. Hubby has to go to the spare room and lock the door to sleep (he is a shift worker and needs his rest) DD will not go back to sleep she will sometimes fall asleep but it wont last long. She screams and crys as she wants me to get up and go to the lounge room with her. This usually happens at around 3am or 4am! Can anyone offer me advice?
thanks in advance

[justmum]

Oh I hear you! My 27 month old has been doing the same thing. Last night though he slept 7pm to 6.30am! No get ups and no call outs.

First thing I'd say is to rule out any physical reasons for it - ear infection etc.

It's taken a lot of hard work for me to get my DS to stay in his bed, but I do this:

* when he gets up I get straight up and say "back to bed" and gently guide him back to his room with a hand on the back of the head. If he resists I carry him back and put him down on his bedroom floor just inside the door.

* when I get into his room I say "hop into bed".

* I stand there until he does get into bed. I do not help him. This took AGES at the beginning. Like hours. But now it takes seconds. Because I have never once given in.

* I have a chair next to his bed and I sit there until he falls back asleep.

* We have a star chart and for each night he doesn't get into bed he gets a star. Once he's at 40 stars, he gets an Elmo Alive. We talk about not getting up during the day. He knows if he needs to he can call for me and I will always come for him. But he's not to get up.

It takes a lot of hard work but it's been worth it. I have heard of putting a baby gate on the child's door or closing the door but that just wouldn't work for us. We want him to sleep, not to cry.