Hi everyone,

I am in a sticky situation and feel like I am loosing my mind. I am currently 29 weeks pregnant and have decieded to try and move our 20month old daughter into a single bed before the baby comes along and needs the cot. I have also moved her bedroom.

I have moved her cot into her new bedroom. She loves to play in her new room and on her bed, and if you ask 'where her bedroom is?' she runs to her new room and shows you all her toys and bed. However, when it comes to actually going to sleep, the 'fun' starts. When asked where her bed is, she points to and climbs up onto her single bed and has no interest in the cot anymore. But I can't leave the room once she is in bed. She cries hysterically, crawls out of bed and comes to find us (DH & me). I have to lie down with her until she falls asleep and creep out of her room and this can go on for hours. We have kept her routine from the cot- story, music/mobile and bed, but this does not seem to comfort her. If she has a day sleep, it is only 45-60mins (it used to be 2-2 1/2hrs), and ging to sleep at night takes about 1-1 1/2 hours.

I need any and all help, advice and ideas. I don't know what to do. Do I keep going and hope that in 10 weeks time Bella is comfortable in her bed. It scares me that with me laying down with her is creating another problem.

Thankyou.

Hiya we are having the same dramas with DS at the moment. Hes also 20 months. Went to his bed 2 weeks ago. First week EXCELLENT no hopping out. This last week has been bad.

He gets out of bed literally as soon as we walk out. If we sit with him to calm him down he thinks its a game and hypes himself up. A few times out of desperation we have had to sit there or lay there until he goes to sleep then creep out. However Im not keen to continue this as he is a wonderful self settler normally and I dont want to ruin this.

Today I was advised to put up a gate at his door so he cannot leave his room. You could try this, even if she gets out of bed she can stand at the gate and may take her a few days to get the idea and may even fall asleep on the floor but it depends on the kid, some this works well for.

With DS I tried it at naptime and bedtime today with dismal failure. He SCREAMED blue murder then stopped after a while then started etc. I expect him to do this tho and would actually persist doing this for a few days even though its hard to listen to. Hes only doing it out of tantrum that he now cant leave his room.

However we are going to try DH idea first then go back to the gate idea. DH idea is that the nights he gets out of bed continuously (every night) he gets put into his cot (set up in the other room) to show him it is still bedtime, that way he cant escape the bed at all, even if he doesn carry on. before transition to bed he was fantastic in his cot but I am expecting him to fight it now as he will not like the idea of being back behind the bars so to speak.

But hopefully this will teach him bedtime is bedtime. Then maybe the next night back to bed and same deal if it happens again til he learns bedtime is not to get up just because you can.

Personally Im not keen to do this as i dont want to confuse the cot/bed issue, but DH thinks it will work Im giving him the benefit of doubt, if not we will be forced to control cry him behind the gate.

good luck

sorry for long post