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Will consequences eliminate this ANNOYING behavior/My son is 4 YO
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Anonymous
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DS has been waking in the middle of the night off and on for a year. But for the last few months, it seemed to be happening EVERY night. "Will you rub my back for a minute" "I cant get my covers on", "I'm thirsty" "I cant find puppy". He always goes RIGHT back to sleep, but I cant. And then we are up, and getting very tired of this.
So we made a deal with him if he didn't call for us for 5 nights in a row, each morning he would get a sticker, and after 5 stickers he could get a new toy. He did it no problem, but my fear was that after he got the toy he would regress. And sure enough that is exactly what happened. And since I knew better, the night after he got his toy, I told him that if he called for us, I was going to take away a small toy (it is a beloved part of a toy that he got for his recent birthday). He woke that night and called for us, we took away the toy, and after pitching a fit for a few minutes, he was fine. But then him and Dad are out of town visiting family, and it is happening all over again, where my son is calling for him every night. I want to have a plan for when they return home this weekend. Do I do another round of stickers to reinforce, and then take things away if he reverts back? Any advice is welcome Thanks you! |
Anonymous
I went through this. The reward side was only part of what I did, but since that is the approach you are using, I'll say that we went from a toy after one week to a bigger toy after two weeks, then to a month, then the issue sort of faded away. Good luck. |
Anonymous
| I think you have to do it long enough for it to become a habit for him. When I wanted my daughter to be able to fall asleep without us sitting in her room, I told her she'd get a big kid DVD for each week that she did it most nights. After three weeks it was a habit and I didn't need to reward it any more. |
Anonymous
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Stickers and toys did not work for us. My DH and I had to commit to NOT speaking and repeatedly putting DD back into bed, no matter how many times it took. My DH and I took turns to try and get some sleep and we started over a weekend so that we could try to nap during the day. It took a couple if nights but it worked. I would venture to say that stickers and toys are NOT as powerful as parental attention, but when the child realizes that they are not going to get it, they eventually give up. Not easy on the parents front, but nothing that works ever is!
Good luck! |
Anonymous
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OP here, since my son easily goes back to sleep with as little as a quick rub and kiss goodnight, I think I am leaning more toward a reward system like the other posters have mentioned. So it sounds like I need to do a few more rounds of rewards?
What is he regresses after a few weeks? DO people out there believe in taking toys away? |
Anonymous
| OP, I strongly urge to not use toys to get child to sleep through night. You are already upping the ante and that could continue until???? Trust me, stop the toys and do the hard work of helping himself go back to sleep... |
Anonymous
Well, I said in my post that I up'ed the ante until -- a month. By then the issue had faded away. OP, I also said to my DC, it's okay if you wake up in the night but you have to stay in bed and you have to be quiet. A couple of times I had to remind him in the night which toy he had in mind, and he quieted down. I still woke up those times but it helped with the rest of the process. We did have several false starts, where we had to start the week all over, but it did end up working for us. All in all, my DC got one cheap toy and one $20 toy, total. Also it made it into sort of a fun project for both of us. My DC had some issues around going to bed, too, and they may have been all knotted up together. I started putting him to bed later, so he was actually tired, and i checked on him every five minutes without him having to call out. I also mentioned to him during the day that I had checked on him while he was asleep. I think those reassurances helped him feel better about sleeping throuhg the night, but who knows!! Good luck. |
Anonymous
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When you say "take away" you mean throw away right? I don't belive in taking a toy away for waking up during the night ...because I think those two things are not conected.
But if you meant like: "if you wake up and call for us, you won't be able to do `x` tomorrow" (x being any favorite activity he has: play video game, watch a tv show, play outside, play with a favorite toy, etc...). Only time it is ok to throw toys away (personally), is when the child refuses to clean up - do it once and never will happen again. |
Anonymous
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i would offer a treat with you guys instead of a toy like
if you let are a big boy about sleeping fro the week then on Friday nights we will have a slumber party (pick a movie from the video store, popcorn, juice and bedding with pillows) |