Reply to any tricks to getting an almost 4 year old to stay in bed beyond locking the door and ignoring?

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Reply to "any tricks to getting an almost 4 year old to stay in bed beyond locking the door and ignoring?"

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[quote=Anonymous]We went through the same with our 3.5 year old (including the constant bathroom requests, which I think is pretty common for kids this age because potty issues are so central to their lives at this point).

What we did is extend the time we spent in her room during bedtime. Instead of just doing a story and a song and then lights out and we leave, we started hanging out for longer. The first couple weeks, we'd actually stay until she fell asleep (took about an hour). But then we shortened it up. Now we are staying between 20 and 40 minutes (total, including the tuck in routine), and she's usually awake when we leave but she does not get out of the bed and the only request we ever get is to open the door a little wider (she is anxious about the dark right now).

We didn't really even focus on the getting up, because we didn't want to discourage stuff like letting us know if she needed to poop. I think the added parent time helped her relax and now she feels more comfortable. Most nights we just sit next to her while she lies down. We'll take a book in so we can read. Sometimes we'll find some music on Spotify that she's enjoying and we'll listen to it softly together.

Hopefully this is helpful. I only have one kid and am not an expert! But it seems to have worked for us and bedtime has become less combative and she seems more relaxed. She's also been staying in her room longer in the morning again, playing quietly and only coming out when she gets hungry. So I think this has helped her feel more secure and relaxed. For a while it was constant wake ups until 10pm and then she'd be in our room at 5am. It was exhausting.[/quote]

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