Anyone finally gently kick kids out of bed?

[mommyoftwo]

My ds is five. He starts out in his own bed and then comes in around midnight. We try to move him back but he wakes up and shuffles back into our room.

This may sound mean but we are ready to kick him out. He is pretty big, squirmy and clingy and my dh and I are having trouble getting a good night sleep.

My dd just kind of naturally gave up coming into our room unless she has a nightmare or there is a thunderstorm. He is showing no signs of giving it up.

Any ideas how we should start this process? I certainly do not want to use punishment but I am not completely opposed to some kind of positive reinforcement.

[annethcz]

Yup, we've had to do this with most of our kids. Once they get bigger, we just don't sleep well together. Generally, we start by talking with the kids about the situation, saying that we notice that none of us sleep well when the child is in the bed. We ask the child to stay in his/her own bed. Then, in the middle of the night (assuming that we wake up), if the child comes into our bed, we just take them back to their own bed. TBH, my kids do cry and get upset, but I comfort them in their bed, tuck them in.

We don't give the kids any sort of incentive to sleep in their own bed, but I will admit that we are sometimes less kind than we should be when we're woken up in the middle of the night.

[Mallory]

I think you just have to keep putting him back in his room.

Another idea would be a sleeping bag on the floor next to your bed.

You might also ask if there is something that would make it easier to stay in his own room- a night light, or CD playing, or something.

[mata]

we're on it with our eight year old. she has no interest in sleeping anywhere but with me-no mattress on the floor, no sleeping bag will do. It's hard because I do believe she is genuinely frightened to sleep by herself. We have a lot of creaks and groans in our roof, and her room has a pigeon's nest outside it. We're slowly trying to entice her-I know she won't want to sleep with me forever!

[forrestguy]

My five y/o was doing the same thing and i was walking him back to his room, laying with him and then going back to my room. Problem is, you don't get any better sleep this way, and it didn't seem to deter him from coming in. Then, finally, one night I was so tired with a new baby that I told him he had to go back to his room and I couldn't come. He cried, but he never did it again.

[DaughterOfKali]

I started telling ds that he's welcome to come into my room when it starts getting light out. (or if he's scared)

[LauraLoo]

Originally Posted by mommyoftwo

My ds is five. He starts out in his own bed and then comes in around midnight.

Is this midnight time frame pretty consistent? If so, is there something that happens at this time (a neighbor coming home? or some other noise that he's hearing?) Try hanging out in his room around this time and see if you can hear anything that may be enough to wake him up.

If there isn't, and the midnight time is pretty consistent, then what I am reading is that he is able to fall asleep on his own but he can't stay asleep on his own, since his body seems to have a sleep/wake pattern that is out of synch. Is this right?

[Mallory]

Originally Posted by mata

we're on it with our eight year old. she has no interest in sleeping anywhere but with me-no mattress on the floor, no sleeping bag will do. It's hard because I do believe she is genuinely frightened to sleep by herself. We have a lot of creaks and groans in our roof, and her room has a pigeon's nest outside it. We're slowly trying to entice her-I know she won't want to sleep with me forever!

I think those noises can be helped with a white noise machine or letting them listen to a CD.

[monkeysmommy]

We kicked dd out of our bed when she was 3. She was flopping all over the place and kicking us black and blue. After that, if she woke up in the night, I would go and lie with her in her bed with the intention of staying there just until she was asleep and going back to my bed but often I either couldn't stay awake or after having been waked up 4 times I would just give up and stay there till morning. It wasn't appreciably better than the previous situation but at least I wasn't getting pinned between her and dh. Also her bed has no springs so the flopping doesn't shake the whole bed. Three years later, one night after she had woken me up about 4 times, I said, "DD, you've got to stop this. I'm so tired. You've got to figure out how to put yourself back to sleep." She said "Okay, mommy." and I went back to my own bed. After that, she has stopped waking me up, unless she has a bad dream or something. I guess she was just finally ready.