Bedtime woes

[MrsE]

Anyone have any BTDT advice on how to navigate that time where getting your 4.5 year old to stay in bed / go to sleep on “school” nights can easily last until 10pm or later? She is in bed with lights out by 8:15/8:30 but is not actually going to sleep until 10ish.

I feel like I’ve tried everything and I’m at a loss. Long gone are the days when I would kiss DD1 goodnight and she would roll over and go to sleep. She is no longer napping at home on the weekends, but is taking a short nap at school during the week.

Due to licensing, they are required to offer rest time. While her teacher is working to try and keep her up by offering books, she is falling asleep at nap time during school. Her teacher is also waking her early to “use the bathroom” as that is the extent of what she is allowed to do due to licensing. This whole dropping nap at home but not at school things is for the birds.

It’s been a few months of bedtime hell and I am beyond frustrated. I am trying to give so much grace and patience as she’s had a ton of change in the last 5 months (new school, new “big girl” room, and a new baby sister) but I definitely lost my cool tonight and yelled. We both cried. I immediately felt awful, apologized, and hugged her but I’m just so drained from this bedtime hell. I feel like I’ve tried everything and I just don’t know what else to do.

She misses the Kindergarten cutoff by 3 days and will have another year in JK, but we cannot have this bedtime disaster situation continue for another year. 🫠 Any tips are welcome.

[waverly]

What is she doing? Getting out of bed and running all amuck?

I’m a believer that you can’t make someone sleep. But you can make them stay in bed or in their room.

There are multiple approaches but I prefer something more like take a lot out of the room and lock the door (this is if they keep running out). We had this problem at age 3 and had a childproof knob or some gate the room.

Another approach is the super nanny approach where they just keep taking them back to bed. In the videos and in real life that approach was too exhausting for me. I didn’t even attempt it.

I was more in the camp of well if they are in their room (hopefully in bed) and being quiet then whatever. Maybe they are reading, maybe listening to an audiobook etc. DS has battles in his bedroom with his soldiers and those are loud, and we have to tell him to knock it off.

[dcn]

That daycare nap is awful. I’m sorry.

H and I took turns sitting in the room which is not ideal but kept the kid in bed.

We also did sleep stories or audiobooks.

Depending on your kid, you could try giving her one get out of bed ticket. Once she uses it she needs to stay in bed.

[MrsE]

She likes to change out of her pajamas and into different clothes (tonight it was her dance leotard) and she also keeps coming out of her room. I’ve tried the super nanny approach. It is exhausting (especially with an 8 week old too).

Last night she stayed in her room for the most part but played her ukulele, changed into a bathing suit, knee socks, and boots, and made a ton of noise.

Tonight she kept coming out of her room and I walked her back when I could but was also nursing a fussy baby.

If she would stay in her room and read quietly until she fell asleep I’d be fine with it, honestly. Maybe everything but books comes out?

[MrsE]

Oh yes, we’ve tried the “one pass” and even have a laminated VIP pass with her name on it 🤣

It worked for like a week…
And I can’t lift her right now to physically put her back in her room / bed (I tore abdominal muscles during pregnancy that are hopefully slowly still healing ugh).

I am one step away from seriously considering hiring an evening nanny or something a few nights a week. Ugh.

[wanderingback]

Don’t people get rid of the door knob or something so they can’t escape?
I guess that might be dangerous in case of a fire but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Do you have someone else in the home with you? Would she stay in her room and be quiet if there was someone laying in the room too?

[noodleoo]

Jun 6, 2023 21:54:03 GMT -5 MrsE said:

She likes to change out of her pajamas and into different clothes (tonight it was her dance leotard) and she also keeps coming out of her room. I’ve tried the super nanny approach. It is exhausting (especially with an 8 week old too).

Last night she stayed in her room for the most part but played her ukulele, changed into a bathing suit, knee socks, and boots, and made a ton of noise.

Tonight she kept coming out of her room and I walked her back when I could but was also nursing a fussy baby.

If she would stay in her room and read quietly until she fell asleep I’d be fine with it, honestly. Maybe everything but books comes out?

oh man, we totally went thru this with DD2 last year. It was awful and so frustrating!!! (Although also kind of adorable in hindsight when she’d finally pass out upside down hanging off her bed in a princess dress and all her jewelry… LOL). What I finally ended up doing was giving up on fighting it and focusing on trying to get her to stay in her room and be quiet until she was ready to go to sleep. So we gave her crayons and paper, legos, and a few other quiet toys and said she could play with them. She’d still come out sometimes and I’d just take her back and tell her she doesn’t have to go to bed, but she has to stay in her room and be quiet. If I tried to make her go to sleep it was a worse battle and as I said, she broke me and I gave up.

Things have gotten better and unfortunately I think it was giving up the nap at daycare that really helped. It sounds like you can’t do that, so maybe try tiring her out after school instead? Can you do a long bike ride or something after school?

I have so much sympathy for you. It was awful, at the end of the day all I wanted was her to go to bed so I could have some downtime. And I definitely yelled at times too. Fingers crossed it’s a phase that passes soon.

I think my DD2 is almost the same age! And she missed the cutoff too (by a few weeks) and I’m so bummed. She’s totally ready for K and I’m sick of our daycare. I cannot wait to be done!!!

[MrsE]

Jun 6, 2023 22:09:54 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Don’t people get rid of the door knob or something so they can’t escape?
I guess that might be dangerous in case of a fire but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Do you have someone else in the home with you? Would she stay in her room and be quiet if there was someone laying in the room too?

We had the door knob cover on her old room when she was younger and she figured out how to open it within the last year so they no longer work. I know it sounds silly but I felt 100% fine with that but don’t feel right about locking the door? 🤷‍♀️

Sometimes my husband is home, but he is on business travel 50% - 75% of the time. When he is home he is frequently on late evening calls due to working with clients and teams in various time zones.

That said, I don’t think we want to get in the habit of having someone stay with her in her room. I could use an enforcer though or someone like a super nanny who could stay outside her room redirect her back to bed. 🤣

[MrsE]

noodleoo thanks for the ideas and for the commiseration. I’ll probably avoid the crayons since my mothers day present was her writing my name on the wall (thankfully in pencil lol) but I like your thinking. I’ve snapped a few hilarious pix - I mean the bathing suit, knee high socks, and boots made her look like she was heading to an 80s coverband concert or something and she too has fallen asleep in many a princess dress.

I had been focused on getting her to stay in her bed, but maybe just getting her to stay in her room would work.

Off to hopefully get some sleep before the baby wakes. Thanks!

[heygrey]

I remember those days. It was awful, but It did eventually end.

For now, I would take everything interesting out of her room. Which might literally be everything. No clothes to change into, no toys to play with, no books to read. Bed, blanket, pillow, a single stuffy. I'm sure she'd still get up to shenanigans with just a few items, but it will be a whole lot less to clean up in the morning.

Have you tried audio books? My friend's son really struggled to fall asleep, but they would play books on their Google Nest. They were able to set it to only play from their phone and not from voice commands so he couldn't keep asking for things.

[sdlaura]

We used a door top lock at night at that stage for my kids. Then unlocked it once they were asleep. This thing:


a.co/d/8Q4K8Sl

[al dente]

Ugh I'm sorry! Bedtime shenanigans with a newborn are the worst. Im a SAHM, but the few times my kid falls asleep during quiet time bedtime is hell.

Short of cutting naps, things that work with varying degrees of success:
Yoto so she can listen to stories (this has prob been the most successful)
Tell her she doesn't need to go to sleep, but has to be quiet and stay in her room. She usually colors.
Written schedule of bedtime routine that she checks off. Talk before bedtime about how once the schedule is done she needs to stay in her room.
Prize chart for nights she stays in her room. Start with one day so there's immediate success, and then go up in days from there. This looses it's luster quickly though, she doesn't care about earning prizes for anything now lol.

[waverly]

Not sure if she’s big into screen time or when she gets it. Screen time was DS’s currency and as he got older we would have a discussion about the problem. Discuss the solution, and if he didn’t follow the rules he would lose screen time. I realize she’s a little young to tie in something that might be happening the next day but might be worth a try. Or maybe she loses something else more immediately unless she’s “quiet in her room”. Then we would go up a second time and say ok turn off lights crawl into bed at that time they are usually tired enough to do so because it’s later say that 9:30/10 timeframe.

[beerlover]

We dealt with this so much of last summer around age 5.5 because DS was in daycare and she'd still make them lay down/nap, and he'd usually fall asleep, so then he'd be up til 11pm. I just kind of let him play in his room; he has his toys, an Echo dot where he can listen to books or music, etc. But yeah I hated knowing he was still awake, but I couldn't force him to sleep. And he would come out and bug us too.

When he was younger, like 3-4, we did lock the door from the outside with a little barn door lock. That was more because he would come out a million times and we couldn't take it anymore, plus a safety thing so he didn't wander and fall down our steep stairs at night.

[thebreakfastclub]

I'd be giving kids melatonin, works like a charm for my kid!

[shauni27]

no joke, this exact scenario is when we introduced melatonin gummies (1/2 dose) on school nights. He would get one half gummy before he got ready for bed and it made all the difference in the world.

[tiki]

Jun 7, 2023 7:40:44 GMT -5 thebreakfastclub said:

I'd be giving kids melatonin, works like a charm for my kid!

This is what we do. I don't like being dependent on it, but my kid (now school-age) has had a natural bedtime after 10pm her entire life. It doesn't work for me or for her given the requirements of jobs and school, and everyone just gets progressively more sleep-deprived without it. We've cut it back to 0.25mg/night and it is still effective. 

[noodleoo]

Jun 7, 2023 7:54:41 GMT -5 tiki said:

Jun 7, 2023 7:40:44 GMT -5 thebreakfastclub said:

I'd be giving kids melatonin, works like a charm for my kid!

This is what we do. I don't like being dependent on it, but my kid (now school-age) has had a natural bedtime after 10pm her entire life. It doesn't work for me or for her given the requirements of jobs and school, and everyone just gets progressively more sleep-deprived without it. We've cut it back to 0.25mg/night and it is still effective. 

We tried melatonin and it worked for getting her to sleep, but then she'd wake up middle of the night crying.  It just traded one problem for another for us.  This kid has hated sleep since she was born. <sob>

I'll also note we have a pretty late bedtime for our kids (ages 8 and 4.5).  We go up at 8, in bed by 8:30 reading books and door closed at 9 PM.  We don't have to get up until 7:30 AM.  I know it sounds late, but trying to get them in bed earlier was a losing battle.  It sucks for us tho, we have so little downtime after bedtime.  

[cricketwife]

Ugh, the hell of the damn required daycare nap. You have all my sympathy.

What time does she get up in the morning. It may help *some* if you get her up earlier and start to create a sleep deficit earlier in the day so that it kind of cancels out the effect of the afternoon nap. (Yes, this is another stage of hell when you have a newborn and the last thing you want to do is wake a sleeping child). We were able to shift my son's wake ups enough that it helped a bit with the evening sleep. He was still up later than we wanted, but it was like 8:30, not 10:30.

Also, you said her nap was short at school, so if it is, then this doesn't apply, but our daycare agreed to wake him up after a 30 minute nap if he feel asleep at school. That also helped *a litte*.

I hope you find something that helps.

[joy]

Well… my kid is/was also like this. We give her a lot of freedom. “Bedtime” is when she needs to be in her room, but if she wants to play then we leave that up to her. She likes to jump so you can imagine the noise.. We only go back in if it’s really egregious. She will also change clothes, actually. She sleeps in random spots. Sometimes, she’s not asleep until 10pm.

I dunno - I can’t make her go to sleep. I can just ask that she stays in her room. As she’s aged, she has really grown into the “responsibility” of going to sleep with this freedom. Never has there been a night that she hasn’t turned off her light when she’s tired and crawled under the covers. The covers may be on the floor, in her closet or on her bed, but she puts herself to sleep when she’s ready. I kinda proud of her for this, actually.

[wanderingback]

Jun 7, 2023 8:22:20 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Jun 7, 2023 7:54:41 GMT -5 tiki said:

This is what we do. I don't like being dependent on it, but my kid (now school-age) has had a natural bedtime after 10pm her entire life. It doesn't work for me or for her given the requirements of jobs and school, and everyone just gets progressively more sleep-deprived without it. We've cut it back to 0.25mg/night and it is still effective. 

We tried melatonin and it worked for getting her to sleep, but then she'd wake up middle of the night crying.  It just traded one problem for another for us.  This kid has hated sleep since she was born. <sob>

I'll also note we have a pretty late bedtime for our kids (ages 8 and 4.5).  We go up at 8, in bed by 8:30 reading books and door closed at 9 PM.  We don't have to get up until 7:30 AM.  I know it sounds late, but trying to get them in bed earlier was a losing battle.  It sucks for us tho, we have so little downtime after bedtime.  

Hey you gotta do what works for your family!
I’m only in the beginning of parenting journey but our baby goes to bed around 9:15pm. It works for us, she gets about 12 hours overnight and she seems to be doing great.

[smock]

Oh man, that sounds so hard when you're solo parenting with an 8 week old! My kids are early risers rather than bedtime delayers, but what worked for us was bribes. If the kids stayed in their room until the okay to wake clock, they both got chocolate chips when they came out. Sorry, dentist, creating a good habit was more important. And it only took maybe a week before they did it without the bribe.

I wonder if something like that might help – if she stays in her room (even if she's not in her bed), she gets a treat first thing in the morning.

Another trick we used to keep the kids in their room during "quiet rest time" after they dropped naps was putting three M&Ms each in a tupperware outside their door. If they came out, I ate an M&M. At the end of quiet rest time, they got to eat whatever was left. It was a win-win, because if they came out at least I got chocolate.

[MrsE]

Thanks for the responses so far.

We set a few new ground rules and are reinforcing a few existing rules to try for a better night tonight. DH is home helping thank goodness, and I am kind of treating it like a trial run since we leave for vacation tomorrow anyway.

Here’s what we’re trying:
- She has to stay in her room, but not her bed.
- She needs to read or play quietly (removed the musical instruments).
- Anything she gets out needs to be picked up tomorrow morning before we go to school.
- There needs to be a clear path between her bed and the door.
- She gets one “pass” to come
Out (which she just used to get a baby doll)… - After the pass is gone we shut her door*, take the pass and that’s it. If she comes out after using her pass she does not earn a star** and there is no tv tomorrow.

🙏🤞🙏🤞
*I forgot to mention that back in January she seemed to develop a fear of the dark and does NOT want her door closed while she’s awake and she also wants the hallway light to remain in even though her bedroom light is off. This happened while I was away for a rare weekend and DH was solo parenting. We shut her door before we go to bed at night for fire safety purposes.

**she earns glow in the dark stars if she stays in her room after using her pass (to serve as a reward and also help with the not liking the dark thing). During the weekend DH puts the glow in the dark stars she earned that week on the ceiling (this is a new thing of like 2 weeks).

I’m probably forgetting something. We’ll see how it goes.

[keweenawlove]

We had issues like this when DD was 4. It was worse the longer the days were (daylight hours wise). She was also regularly napping 2 hours and daycare and their policy was to not cut naps short so we were stuck there.

We had our psychologist recommend was ask the ped about melatonin and it helped so much. We give it to her half an hour before bedtime and she's out fast and sleeps solid.

[macmars45]

That time was so bad for DS' sleep. It was stressful and hard. H and I never got down time together because DS was up until 10/10:30pm every night. I go to bed at 10pm myself and he was 4 in 2020 so no date nights for us. Finally at 6 we started him on melatonin. My only regret is waiting so long.

[livinitup]

I found that naps really helped settling down and sleeping at bedtime. Something about well rested bodies rest well. So, I wouldn’t encourage any of that keeping her awake at preschool. Some kids don’t nap and just play quietly in a nook or a table and that’s fine but I wouldn’t orchestrate it.

Do you use any sleep sound machines? Those sounds were a god send at this age for DD. Sometimes rain, sometimes traffic sounds. We didn’t do music but that could be helpful, too.

[penguingrrl]

Ugh, daycare naps are the worst. My kids had to give up naps early because they outright interfered with overnight sleep so badly that they were chronically exhausted with naps.

With my son (my only daycare kid) daycare eventually caught on that he was far better behaved on Monday because Sunday into Monday he got good overnight sleep, but when they let him nap the rest of the week he didn’t (his amount of sleep in a 24 hour cycle went from 12 hours overnight to about 8 total between nap and overnight). They had a group of preK kids that had a lot of over 5 year olds, so they had aged out of nap rules, so they started sending him with them during his class’s nap time and everyone was a whole lot happier. It let them drop their ratio to allow teacher breaks and kept him from sleeping or disturbing other kids who were trying to sleep and let him get good rest.

[mrshandy]

We definitely have these same issues with DS when he was 4 and had dropped his nap around 3ish. He was still required to nap or be very bored during downtown at preschool. Honestly the problem didn't get solved until he went to K...so you have my sympathy and commiseration especially since you still have another year to deal with this.

He's always been a night owl and still is. Now we're dealing with middle school wakeup. Parenting is just a new set of problems to solve! LOL

[niq]

We got some improvement with falling asleep with melatonin. The trick was to give a really small amount, like 0.25 (1/4 of a 1mg gummy) or 0.3 mg (I think you can find 0.3mg gummies), and give it about 30 minutes before bedtime.

She would still wake up MOTN until school started, but ending the nighttime battles helped with QoL a lot.

[osulori]

We had a LOT of similar issues with kid #1 around this age, bad enough that I told my husband there was no way in hell we were having another kid if things kept going the way they had been. Once #1 fell asleep he was good but getting him there was awful. We ended up going the melatonin route after getting the green light from his pedi at his 5 year well check and I really wished we'd thought to try it sooner-it was a game changer. He's been on the same dosage since, so 1 mg. We discuss it annually with the pedi and they've said it's safe to continue or we can try weaning...he'll fall asleep without it but we're continuing with it for now.

People think I'm joking when I say we have melatonin to thank for kid #2's presence in our lives, but I'm not