getting out of bed at night

[momofaprincess]

Please help! my three year old, has started crawling in my bed in the middle of night. I have to get up several times and put her back in bed. and some how she still manages to sneak back in! when i wake up in the morning, she is laying on the floor beside the bed! we have tried taking away toys, telling her "if you sleep all night in your big girl bed, you can get the toys back in the morning". but all that has happened, is that i now have a collection of toys in my closet! and a daughter that wont sleep through the night in her own room. Does any one have any suggestions on what I can do?

thanks,

from a sleepy mom!

[sstaples]

My daughter started doing the same thing around that age. I learned after a few months that taking away her toys wasn't going to work either. And I couln't get to the bottom of why she was all of the sudden doing it. Is she having bad dreams or anything? With me, what finally worked after about 8 months was redecorating her room with her. She picked the colors, the bedspread, everything. I told her that we were going to work hard for a room that was set up for a big girl but she had to act like a big girl to get that room. She got really excited picking out things in magazines that she wanted to do to her room and it worked. She slept in there the whole night the first night we were done and very rarely came in to my room after that. I even drew flowers on the wall that she got to paint. When we sold the house, we just painted over them. Good luck!

[kfiedler]

My daughter did the same thing as soon as we got her a toddler bed. What we did was use a gate so if she opened the door she still couldn't get out would give up and then go back to sleep, it was a few longer nights but thats what worked for us.

[momofaprincess]

i wouldn't be able to redecorate her room. for one we rent, and for another, we are on a very limited budget while my husband is going through school. but so far the baby gate idea seems to be at least keeping her in her room...

thanks for the ideas