Toddler Advice Please

[Guest]

One of my colleagues is having problems with her 2 year old son waking up about 5am every morning, rattling the bars of his cot, shouting of her constantly and waking the entire household, including her other son who is 4 years old . She is going in every morning to settle him back down again but as he has another hours sleep, all his family are then awake!! Has anyone got any good ideas what she could do?

[narnia]

Take him out of the cot for starters!! I know he's likely to get up, but would that be any worse than the bar-rattling??And maybe if he thinks he's a"big boy" in a bed now, it might encourage him to stay in it??There's also a clock you can buy which shows when it's time to get up, but can't remember what it's called, (he may be a little young for it anyway??)

[Inge]

taught my son to use a tape recorder at the age of 2 with story tapes to listen to, nothing noisy but we got some lovely Thomas ones which he quickly got used to listening to at 4am!

He learnt to put them on and then went back to sleep listening to them..

he still uses story CDs even now at night when he cannot sleep.. more grown up ones but he often finds one minute and he is sound asleep again never actually hearing any of it.

 

He was in a bed by 18 months.. got worried by his climbing over the sides from 1 yr old.

Bit of an escape artist with hyperactive tendencies!

 

Inge

[Susan]

Definitely agree, get rid of the cot. Both my boys slept better once in beds as they didnt, presumably, hit the bars every time they turned over. I put them both in beds at about 2yrs old.

[Guest]

Thanks, must admit my own children were out of cots at about 2yrs-a long time ago so you forget the best policies don't you? I'll pass on the suggestions tomorrow

[surfer]

We bought a black out blind (for light summer mornings, put books and toys at the end of the cot and then when our daughter went into a bed we left a drink in a sippy cup in there too!. We drew a picture of a clock with the time that we wanted her to stay in bed 'til on it and blu tacked it under her clock and taught her that when the two were the same she could come and wake us up! (I think that was when she was nearer 3 though) (we cheated and made her clock a later time than ours!)

We had to just keep saying "it's not time to get up yet, go and look at a book". Eventually her sleep patterns became closer to ours and if she woke up before us she happily stayed in her room and played or looked at books. (most of the time!)

[hali]

we used tapes and black outs worked wonders