One of the frequently asked questions is how to get a toddler to sleep in their own bed. Experienced parents know that the real challenge isn’t persuading your toddler to sleep in their bed but what to do when they don’t want to stay in one.
How do you keep your toddler to sleep in their own bed? Fortunately for you, Dr. Ana Hernandez-Puga, a well-renowned pediatrician from Miami, is here to give you tips on how to get a toddler to sleep in their bed and how to keep them in there.
Find and Create a Bedtime Routine
During the transition period, it helps to establish a predictable bedtime routine, which can involve reading a story, talking about your child’s day, or something that will have your child looking forward to going to bed. Every transition period is hard for toddlers, but once they master a new skill, they will have a real sense of pride and accomplishment.
Don’t Expect an Easy Transition
Keep in mind that a child may need a bit more time to get used to their new schedule. Usually, it takes a month or a two for a kid to accept their new bed. Therefore as a parent, you need to remain serene since it will take a lot of discipline and repetition to get a toddler to sleep in their own bed.
Don’t panic if your kid keeps coming out of bed. Instead, put them down calmly, make sure they are back to sleep, and leave the room.
Consistency Should Be Your Main Focus
Learning how to put a child to sleep and teaching them a new skill takes practice. You will have to go through a complete routine and have them act out the steps to make sure they understand it.
Parents will most likely have to reward their children’s efforts to stick with the training and practice things to help them fall back to sleep. These things can be cuddling with their favorite stuffed toy or other enjoyable bedtime activities that would relax and prevent them from going into their parent’s room.
Start With Training Ahead of Time
Since they won’t be able to get out of bed and look for you, an easier way to train a toddler to sleep in their bed is when they are still in a crib. A crib stops the baby from leaving its sleeping area, which might be crucial while still young. Kids tend to make games out of everyday actions, so be careful that going into your bed doesn’t turn from a game into a bad habit.
Speak in a Positive Manner
You can inspire your child to make the switch by always being encouraging. Use the positive spin to your advantage. Try telling your child that they are old enough to sleep in their own bed, which only the big kids do.
This way, your youngster will feel grown-up and won’t oppose the new bed.
Reduce Your Presence During Bedtime
If your child can’t fall asleep without your company, gradually begin spending less time in the bedroom until they finally become accustomed to you being outside of the room. Instead of lying on their bed, try to sit on it. Then, after some time, switch to the chair. Gradually move the chair further away from the bed every night until your kid feels safe without you there.
Keeping a Toddler in Bed With Incentives
It would be best never to threaten or be angry at your child. Instead, try to incentivize them to go to bed. Set up their favorite activity as the last step of their nighttime routine, something like playing with their favorite toy, a form of rewarding stickers, or a token. Make bedtime an activity worth looking forward to, and your kid won’t fight you on it.
Remind Your Child of What You Expect
Parents need to ensure that their toddlers know what is expected from them. In other words, be consistent with your expectations. If you are non conflicted and stable with your requirements, it will be easier for your child to understand how to fulfill them.
Next-Day Is a Positive Day
Don’t forget to reward your child for listening and following the routine.
Try to find a way to celebrate them the following day. Standard practice would be to congratulate them by serving their favorite meal, snack, or watching their favorite cartoon. Even if they didn’t follow the routine perfectly and did call you out, you don’t need to remind them about it in the morning. Always remain positive.
Don’t Reward Them for Breaking the Routine
Instruct your kids to be quiet and respect your rules during bedtime. Usually, parents advise their children to stay in bed unless they need to go to the bathroom. Always allowing them to leave their bed and join you in the living room or your bedroom will drastically decrease your progress. Remember that you need to remain consistent with your routine and have clear expectations.
Maneuvers to Keep a Toddler in Own Bed
Here’s a list of all the maneuvers you can use to keep your toddler under control:
- Improve their confidence with patience-stretching, sticker charts, fairy tales, and other children’s activities.
- Have at least 30 minutes of quiet time before bedtime routine. Massage or a nice bath could help you to relax them.
- Do your routine as usual, including hugs, kisses to have them encouraged.
- Use storybooks, lullabies, bedtime talk to help your child fall asleep.
- Leave the door open.
- Leave on a night light.
- If your toddler gets up, walk them back to bed, tuck them in, and remind them about the routine. Leave the room.
- If your toddler gets up again, repeat the process and leave the room this time silently.
- Repeat this process till they fall asleep.
Why Won’t Toddlers Sleep in Their Bed?
Occasionally toddlers break the bedtime routine to seek attention, but sometimes it will be genuine, like going to the bathroom, having a nightmare, or seeing a bug in their room. Around nine months, toddlers could develop separation anxiety. In these situations, they will ask for extra attention, for instance, to keep the lights on, read them a different bedtime story, or ask for your more extended presence in their bedroom.
Significant changes or losses in their lives could cause sleep issues. These difficulties could result in your kid having stress or some form of anxiety.
How to Deal With an Upset Child?
It will often happen that your toddler won’t appreciate the way you ignore their bedtime calls or how you return them to the bedroom every time. Sometimes, to protest your actions, kids will throw a tantrum followed by many tears.
When your child gets extremely upset, try to comfort them the same way you do during the daytime. Once you calm your child and bring them back to bed, give your best to remind them about the bedtime routine, then say goodnight and leave the room.
If this keeps happening, or you’re worried about your toddler, it’s best to seek a Pediatric Care Miami specialist and make an appointment with the best pediatrician in Miami that has been working with children since 1997.
