How do I keep her in bed?

[jasminesmum]

The last 2 days my dd has been climbing out of her cot.:eek:
She is 16mths old and I think I will have to put her into her big bed.

Today I had to rock her to sleep cause she kept on climbing out every time I put her back.
Just wondering when I put her into a big bed what do I do about keeping her there?
Should I just shut the door and hope she finds the bed or will I have to lie with her for a while or rock her, which I really don't want to do.

Thanks
Michelle

[trina73]

I put my ds in a bed earlier this year and it can be a challange.
the first time he gets out of bed i tell him it is time for sleep, give him a cuddle then lights out.
2nd time and every time after that i do not talk to him i just simply take him back to bed each time. it does work eventually as they get tired of comming out of bed only to be returned to it.
good luck:)

[jasminesmum]

Do you do the same during the day and do you shut the door?

[Chickadee]

Short of holding her down, you can't really keep her in bed. Trina's suggestion is sort of what we do, except I screwed it up by not being consistent with it at the start. So at various times in the last 10 months I have also had to sit and pat her to sleep, lay down with her, sit on her floor next to her bed while she dozes off, sit in the hall, & put her back to bed literally dozens of times a night.

I have tried shutting the door but it just freaks her out. I can listen to her cry, but I can't listen to her panicked hysterics when the door is shut. But I have read some other mums who simply shut the door and their child is content to play quietly for a while before passing out in their own time.

[jkate]

Our DS1 went to a bed around the same age as your DD. And he was a jack in the box, but over several day and nights he eventually stay in his bed. When we first put him to bed, we gave him a kiss, then went out, we wouldnt shut the door, but close it so there was only a small gap. I would wait outside and sure enough he would come running out a couple of seconds later, I would calmly put him back in and say good night. A couple times of this he learnt to stay in the room, so then I would go in and put him back into bed. I would walk out, but check within a min, he would be out of bed, so I put him back in. If he was getting grizzly I would sit there next to his bed, patting him, slowly I would stop patting then move away then evetually leave the room. It did take a few nights, but he did learn to stay into bed, there have been times when we have gone in and found alseep on the floor, but that soon passed.

HTH, and you can make sense of it all. I found this method and adapted to suit us on the net somewhere, do a google search and see what you can find

[~Emmylou~]

We had this problem when we moved to a big bed, we didn't want to close the door on her so we put a toddler gate across the doorway. That way we can hear her and if she needs us she just stands at the gate and yells out....but she can't get out of her room.
She fell asleep on the floor by the gate a few times but she soon got over that and doesn't do it anymore.
Good luck it's usually a pain no matter what you do, just have to ride it out.

[jasminesmum]

Thanks for all the replies.
I'm going to get my dh to put the big bed up this weekend and see how we go.

She is so little still. Its sad really, my baby is going to be in her own big bed.:(
I'm not looking forward to it. The baby gate at her door sounds like a great idea though.

Thanks again,
Michelle

[trina73]

Do you do the same during the day and do you shut the door?
ds doesn't sleep during the day anymore, but i do close the door.

[motherhoodlmb]

I'm probably a bit late on this one, but can you put her in one of those sleeping bags or can she undo the zip? My son is 2 years and 3 months and still sleeps in one - day and night - otherwise I'll bet he'd be a climber. He just hasn't figured out yet how to undo the zip!